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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 4 Jul 1929

Vol. 31 No. 2

Land Bill, 1929—Second Stage.

I move:—"That the Bill be now read a Second Time." This Bill is a very short one and should not give rise to very much discussion. Section 1 provides for the appointment of limited administrators for the purpose of enabling the Land Commission to dispose of a large number of holdings they have on hands, particularly in congested counties. Section 2 gives the Land Commission power to fix the standard purchase annuity for non-judicial holdings automatically. The remaining sections of the Bill provide for the acquisition of the fishing rights by the Land Commission in connection with land vested under the Act of 1923, with the object, among others, of enabling the Land Commission, in accordance with Section 1 of the Act of 1903, to sell fishing rights in particular cases to tenant purchasers.

Section 1 is intended to obviate the difficulty and delay which are often caused in the vesting of new or re-arranged holdings on the C.D.B. and Land Commission estates, owing to the fact that the original tenant or registered owner of a holding has died and there is no legal representative to him with whom the Land Commission can enter into the necessary agreements. The Land Commission consider that power should be given to them in such cases to appoint a limited administrator to the deceased tenant or owner for the purpose of consolidating or exchanging holdings. There are before the Land Commission at present a considerable number of cases of migration for the purpose of relieving congestion in which proceedings were commenced by the late C.D.B. and which cannot be completed under the existing machinery owing to defective title of the occupier of the lands proposed to be taken. The general case is that of an occupier who paid the annuity in respect of a registered holding to which he has not a legal title, he not having obtained a grant of administration to the estate or proved the will, if any, of his predecessor in occupation and registered his title at the Land Registry. The practice of the C.D.B. was to take possession of the intended migrant's original holding, making temporary lettings of it to the intended allottees and to put him in occupation of the new holding under a grazing or other temporary agreement. The result in the cases referred to being that these temporary arrangements have continued for a great many years and the Land Commission are as far as ever away from the stage at which they could effect a re-sale of the migrant's original holding and the sale to him of the new holding. Experience has shown that it is almost impossible to get these migrants to incur the legal and other costs involved in order to obtain the grant of administration or otherwise procure registration.

Perhaps if I quote a typical case it would help to show the difficulties that the Land Commission have to meet in dealing with such cases. A tenant, A, entered into an agreement with the C.D.B. upon a certain date in the year 1917 to exchange his holding for a new parcel. The Board at once put four allottees into occupation of the holding under lettings for temporary convenience, and the tenant A was given a new holding under a grazing agreement. On investigation of the title to A's holding it was discovered that his mother, since deceased, was the registered owner. From 1917 up to the present day. the C.D.B at first, and the Land Commission subsequently, have been endeavouring to get the tenant A to clear his title and to get himself registered as the owner of his old holding, so that he might execute a conveyance of it to the Land Commission, but he has ignored all our requests and, until his title is made good, the exchange cannot be effected of the old holding and the new parcels vested in the intended purchasers or migrants.

The Land Commission have power under Section 46 of the Land Act of 1923 to migrate tenants even though their titles to the holdings from which they are migrated are not registered in the Registry of Deeds, or are not legally correct. In such cases we have power to transfer the burdens appertaining to the old holding to the new holding.

Sections 3, 4, 5 and 6 deal with fishing rights. Section 45 of the 1923 Act provides that fishing rights which are appurtenant to lands vesting in the Land Commission under the Act shall also vest in the Land Commission. It will be observed from a reading of this section that these fishing rights vest by right of the statute, and no action of the Land Commission is required to effect the vesting. At first sight this would appear to be a very easy and effectual method of dealing with such rights, but in practice it has been demonstrated that it is very difficult to say in any particular case what rights really have so vested in the Land Commission. Section 45 does not define "appurtenant," and the position is that when lands have vested the fishing rights, if appurtenant, have vested, and if not "appurtenant" have not vested. There is no provision in the Act of 1923 or the Act of 1927 by which the Land Commission could declare that fishing rights have vested, and if such a declaration were made it would not, as the law stands at present, have the effect of vesting the rights, though the rights, if appurtenant, have vested by statute, according to the interpretation of Section 45 of the Act of 1923. Section 41 of the Act of 1927 makes provision for the sale by the Land Commission to tenant purchasers of fishing rights in any rivers or waters adjoining or intersecting the holdings purchased by them at such price, payable by means of purchase annuities as the Land Commission may consider reasonable, such annuities to be consolidated with the land purchase annuities of the holdings. This section does not use the word "appurtenant," but implies that the appurtenant rights within the meaning of Section 45 of the Act of 1923 comprise fishing rights in adjoining and intersecting rivers and waters. The meaning of the word "appurtenant" was the subject of a legal decision in the courts recently, the effect of which was that a right appurtenant to a holding must mean in law some right in connection with the enjoyment of the holding, and could not be extended to include the right to property which was separated therefrom and not enjoyed by the tenant or necessary for the enjoyment of his holding. This decision, in fact, means that the word "appurtenant" should not have been used in Section 45 of the Act of 1923, or, if used, it should have been defined so as to include the rights referred to in Section 41 of the Act of 1927. As the law stands, only those fishing rights which were appurtenant and which were previously enjoyed by the tenant can be considered to vest in the Land Commission as appurtenance to tenanted land.

There is one very important point connected with fishing rights which the experience of the Land Commission proves to require legislation. Fishing rights sometimes extend beyond the confines of the lands which have vested in the Land Commission; such rights, under no construction of the word, could be held to be appurtenant, and so could not vest automatically in the Commission, and the Commission are not empowered to acquire such rights voluntarily. In cases such as these, it might destroy the value of these rights altogether if part of them vest in the Land Commission automatically, and the rest of them do not vest and cannot be acquired by agreement. It is proposed, therefore, in Section 5 of the Bill to give the Land Commission power to purchase by agreement extraneous or non-appurtenant fishing rights in order to avoid destroying them by the vesting only of part of them.

Sections 3, 4, and 5 are really designed for the purpose of defining the word "appurtenant" in such manner as to make it clear what rights will and what rights will not vest in the Land Commission, and in so defining them the expressions used in the Land Act, 1927, are incorporated, and the word "appurtenant" is given a wider meaning so as to include all fishing rights owned by the vendor of the lands. The Land Commission is to declare in each case what rights as so defined have vested, so that the tenant need not be in any doubt hereafter, when these rights are being disposed of, as to what rights are actually vested in him, and power is also sought by the Land Commission to determine whether or not any particular rights should or should not be declared. Powers are also sought in Section 5 to acquire by agreement extraneous fishing rights, where such acquisition is necessary to the enjoyment or user of appurtenant rights. The two remaining sections are purely formal.

The Parliamentary Secretary glossed over Section 2. Will he kindly explain it?

Section 2 gives the Land Commission power to fix automatically the Standard Purchase Annuities in respect of non-judicial holdings. One of the causes of the delay in vesting of holdings subject to non-judicial rent has been that under the Land Act of 1923 the Commissioners, in default of agreement between the owners and the tenants, fixes the standard purchase annuity. For this purpose a report of an inspector must be obtained and notice subsequently published fixing the standard purchase annuity. This notice is served on the parties—both on the owner and on the tenant, and it carries with it the right of appeal to the judicial commissioner. The proceedings in such cases must necessarily await the result of such appeal. It has been found, as a result of our experience during the last two or three years, that the average reduction where the standard purchase annuity has been agreed upon, between the owner and the tenant is 33.4 per cent., and where fixed by the Land Commission is 37.9 per cent., or an average of 35.1 for both classes when taken together. Thus the average has varied between 34 and 35 per cent. in the last twelve months. Thirty-five per cent. may be taken as a very fair average and likely to hold good in respect of all the other cases that remain to be fixed. This average corresponds to that provided in the 1923 Act in the case of judicial rents fixed prior to the 16th August, 1911, which was 35 per cent.

Under the provisions of the Northern Ireland Land Act, 1925, non-judicial rents are treated as second term judicial rents unless objection is lodged by the owner or the tenant, in which case the standard purchase annuity is fixed by the Land Purchase Commission. I have ascertained as a result of enquiries made, that the percentage of objections in Northern Ireland in these cases is less than ten. It is proposed by this section to treat non-judicial rents on the same basis as judicial rents fixed prior to the 16th August, 1911, thereby saving the time and the labour involved in the inspection and fixation of standard purchase annuities. This saving will be very considerable and it will apply to the majority of the 24,000 non-judicial tenants in respect of which standard annuities have yet to be fixed. Standard purchase annuities have been fixed in respect of 12,000 out of the 35,000 non-judicial tenants. In 9,000 cases standard annuities were agreed upon between the owners and the tenants, and in 3,000 cases they were fixed by the Land Commission. If we continue to follow the procedure of the last few years in the majority of the remaining cases the standard purchase annuities will be fixed by the Land Commission because it has been noticeable in recent months that the cases in which the annuity is fixed by agreement between the owners and the tenants are getting smaller and smaller, and possibly in a few months these cases of fixation would cease altogether. I do not think there is any other point in connection with the Bill that I need enter on at this stage. I have endeavoured to explain it as lucidly and as clearly as I could.

Will the Parliamentary Secretary state if the passing of that section means that the inspectors will not now visit non-judicial holdings for the fixing of rents?

Yes, unless there is some very special reason.

There are cases of individual hardship in connection with some non-judicial holdings. I have one case in mind. The rent is generally recognised as a rack rent and the landlord accepted a greatly reduced sum from the tenant always. However, when he sent in his return to the Commission in connection with the Land Purchase Act he returned the old gross rent with the result that if an arrangement is not come to the tenant will have to pay an amount far in excess of the amount formerly accepted by the landlord. At the present stage that rent is demanded from him and has to be paid to the Land Commission so that in this case it would be very necessary that a settlement should be made as quickly as possible, because the man has a distinct grievance. He has been paying this for some years and will have to continue until a real settlement is arrived at. That is only one case, but I have reason to believe that there are other cases.

Under Section 2 of this Bill either the owner or tenant has a right to object, in which case he submits his objection to the Land Commission and, subsequently, to the Judicial Commissioner, so that if either owner or tenant is dissatisfied with the annuity that is fixed automatically by the section, he has a right to lodge an objection.

I beg to move:

To delete all the words after the word "That" and substitute the words "the Dáil declines to proceed further with the consideration of the Bill until the Government have submitted proposals for the amendment of the Land Act, 1923, to provide further for the more expeditious vesting of land."

My object in putting down that amendment is to call attention to one particular aspect of the work of the Land Commission and that is in connection with the vesting of land. There are very many aspects of the work of the Land Commission which on an occasion like this might be dealt with. I propose, however, to confine myself to one specific question. There is all the more reason for that on account of the fact that we had been discussing this question of the vesting of land some time ago and it is well known that the Party opposite as well as the Party on this side of the House were very much interested in this question and were anxious that steps should be taken to complete the vesting of land as early as possible. We expected now, when the Government were introducing a Bill, that definite steps would be laid down for the completion of that work.

The Bill, however, I think, is extremely disappointing. It deals with the matter in the usual tinkering fashion. It does not propose to face the problem in the way that it ought to be faced, and if difficulties have to be removed all parties in the House should apply themselves to their removal and to finding out solutions for them. But I think that since the Government have taken the trouble of introducing a Bill with reference to this question of vesting —because I presume, though it does not specifically state in the Bill that it has to do with vesting, the second section of it contemplates vesting— it is a step forward in that direction, they might have taken further steps towards the vesting of the non-judicial tenants. The position of both classes of tenant is most unsatisfactory. Of the non-judicial tenant, of whom there are some 35,768, only 2,385 have been vested up to the 31st March of this year, leaving 33,383 tenants still to be vested. In that way it would take, I calculate, 84 years more to complete the vesting of non-judicial tenants. Although the difficulties in the matter of judicial tenants are not so great all that is necessary—as is now presumed in this Bill—for the non-judicial tenant—all that was formerly necessary, in the case of the judicial tenants, was to take 65 per cent. or 70 per cent. of the judicial rent. Nevertheless, we find in the last figures that we have for year ending the 31st March, 1928, that about 50,000 judicial tenants have not been vested, and I calculate that it would take about 70 years more to complete the vesting of the judicial tenants.

How does the Deputy arrive at the figure of 70 years?

By dividing the number vested yearly since the passing of the Act of 1923 into the total. At that rate I think that about 1,000 is vested every year. I think that is the rate at which the Land Commission is going. Undoubtedly there has been an improvement, for which we will give the Parliamentary Secretary credit, and where there is an admission that there can be an improvement, and where we find the Land Commission vesting, during the past nine or ten months, more holdings than they vested in the preceding five or six years, we are tempted to ask why these steps were not taken before? When we see this evidence of good intention on the part of the Parliamentary Secretary and his Department we are apt to say: "Well, since we have the intention, let us get to the root of the thing, and let us make a complete job of it in this generation." I hope that when replying the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to convince us that this work will be completed not only in the life of the present generation, but in a few years—in the lifetime of the present Government.

Another way we look at it is this. If the Parliamentary Secretary is not satisfied with these figures let him take the progress of the work during the past five years and base his estimates upon that. He will find that the remainder of the work will not be completed for the next 70 or 80 years. Then if he is not satisfied with that he will turn to the report on the work of his own Department as to the work that had been done up to the 31st March, 1928. The Parliamentary Secretary will find that for the year ending 31st March, 1928, the total amount of annuities collectible during that year in the case of tenants who are vested under the 1923 Act comes to only £50,000, representing annuities collectible from 1,363 tenants. That is the number of tenants from whom annuities were being actually collected in 1928. The amount collected was £50,000. That is leaving out the arrears. The number not vested was 94,568. Those tenants who had not been vested at that period, and of whom, of course, the vast majority have not yet been vested, were paying £950,000 annually interest in lieu of rent.

I claimed here before, and I claim here now again, that that means that these people were not properly treated by reason of the failure of the Land Commission to implement what I claimed was the intention of the 1923 Land Act, to do away with the interest in lieu of rent period, and to give the tenant all the benefits in respect of reductions, and in respect of his payments going in liquidation of his purchase price. By failing to give the tenants these advantages the Land Commission have been depriving the tenantry of a sum of £80,000 or £90,000 a year. In any event, the amount payable by way of interest in lieu of rent for the year 1928 was £950,000. No portion of that money was going to clear off the liabilities of the tenant purchasers in the matter of the purchase price of their holdings.

When I introduced a Bill here some time ago the Minister for Agriculture said that these difficulties were inherent in the processes of the Land Commission, and that the House could not solve the question. It was an impossible one. The Minister went on to tell us that the 1923 Land Act did not contemplate, as far as I could make out, two processes but one single process. That is to say, it didn't contemplate a preliminary step for vesting the rights of the holding in the Land Commission and afterwards vesting them in the tenant himself. He said that the two things took place together, and that they are, in fact, one operation. What I have been striving for here is to try to get to the position where, if necessary, instead of a single process you would have two operations, first vesting, as the Land Act of 1923, I think, contemplated, or, as it in fact says very definitely, first vesting in the Land Commission and then giving the tenant the full reduction on the spot, and secondly, giving him the benefit of having all his payments made after the vesting in the Land Commission go to pay off the purchase price.

That is the existing position.

The Minister for Agriculture will not deny that he said that the two things were the same—vesting in the Land Commission and vesting in the tenant. Section 28 of the Land Act of 1923, sub-section (1), says: "The tenant of every holding of tenanted land vested in the Land Commission by virtue of this Act, and to which this section applies, shall be deemed from the Appointed Day to have entered into a subsequent purchase agreement from the purchase of the holding to the Land Commission at the standard price." There it speaks of vesting, and it also speaks in Section 24 of vesting the holding in the Land Commission.

Though the Minister may now claim that he did not intend in the Act of 1923 to abolish the interest in lieu of rent period, I say that he has specifically stated that fact—that the interest in lieu of rent period was to be done away with, and that was what he meant and what his intentions were at the time, but they have apparently been nullified by the Land Commission itself. His intentions were that all the land would be vested in the Land Commission straight away, the reductions to the full extent would be given, and that afterwards the complete legal vesting would take place. The Minister says that if we attempt to do what I strove to do in the Bill that I introduced here, that it would mean that you would have to give a new interpretation to the term "Appointed Day." I think that no matter what step you take it will have to be in the nature of amending the Land Act of 1923, to secure your objective. When the Minister, in Section 2 of the present Bill, admits that a certain step can be taken, and when he provides for taking the standard purchase annuity of the non-judicial tenant at 65 per cent., or at a figure equivalent to that of judicial tenants whose rents were fixed before August, 1911, when they have put that down in their Bill, I think the House ought to insist on their taking a number of other steps, the first step being that contained in Section 2, which is undoubtedly a step in advance in so much as it conveys: "We will take all the non-judicial tenants, whose circumstances vary widely and who would be entitled, if they went to court, to different percentages of reduction in their different cases; we will take them in a body in order to try to get through with the work, and we will fix a definite percentage for the whole lot of them."

The fault I find with the section is that it does not state that the work should be completed in a certain time. When the Land Commission says: "We will fix the purchase annuity at a certain price," the House ought to say: "Yes, and not alone will you fix it at a certain price, but we will see that the tenant is going to get the benefit of the reduction as soon as possible." There is no use in passing this or any similar section into law if we have not some guarantee from the Minister that it is going to come into operation within a certain time. There is no guarantee whatever, and the Land Commission, even if this Bill is passed, can still go on in the slow and piecemeal fashion that we have had experience of in the last five or six years. I want to see in Section 2, when amended, a provision that the work will be done within a certain time. I ask Deputies on the other side of the House to see that that is done. They are just as much interested in the question as we are. Now that the Bill is before the House it ought to be the object of every Deputy to improve it.

The annuity is going to be fixed under sub-section (2). It was very noticeable when I claimed before that it could be fixed by taking an approximate percentage that the Minister refused to discuss that aspect of the question. He said there were legal difficulties and legal objections to giving the tenants the advantages we sought to get for them. A sum of £950,000 is being paid every year and none of it is going to pay off the purchase price of the holdings. What is to stop the Ministry from saying in the present Bill that from to-morrow all money paid as interest in lieu of rent will go to redeem the purchase price? If they contend that the standard purchase annuity cannot be fixed immediately, even though they are taking a step in that direction, why do they not at least take the preliminary step of seeing that all the money the Irish tenant farmers are paying will go from to-morrow, or from some date in the near future, to pay off the purchase price? I cannot see where there could be an objection to that. If there is an objection it is on the financial side; it is on the plea that the Land Commission and the Treasury would be losing £90,000. But that £90,000 would be left in the pockets of the farmers instead of going to the Land Commission.

We can appreciate, therefore, why the Minister for Finance would not like that to be carried into law. We certainly cannot appreciate why Deputies on the other side, claiming to represent the Farmers' Party and rural constituencies, can agree with the Minister for Agriculture when he says that there are legal objections. If there are any objections at all, they are financial. They are objections to the loss by the Treasury and the Land Commission. The fact that the Land Commission are now prepared to fix the standard purchase annuity in the most difficult types of cases that they have had to deal with, and on a basis which they have calculated, is significant. The cases that have passed through their hands amount to five per cent. of the total number and it is on that basis that they propose to fix these reductions. Why can they not take a further step and say "Let us start immediately giving the tenants further benefit, not alone giving them the reductions at once, but arranging that the amounts they are paying will go to pay off the purchase price?"

The Minister raised a matter here which I was not in a position to reply to at the time, not being a lawyer and not being an expert in land law. It was undoubtedly a point which took me somewhat unexpectedly. He brought in the question of the Local Registration of Titles Act. He said that Act would be completely upset, and that the operation of the registration of titles would be thrown into confusion if we attempted to fix a date for the vesting of lands, or if we attempted to do what I say we should now do under this Bill, or else throw it out, and that is, see that this work of vesting is completed by a certain date. I have since discovered that this Local Registration of Titles Act was passed in 1891. It was passed in order to render the records of titles to land more easily accessible. The fact that all transactions which come under the Land Purchase Acts have to be registered under a particular section of that Act merely means, in my opinion, that the British authorities at the time tried to implement their intentions by saying that all future transactions will have to be registered in this way. When my Bill was under discussion the Minister for Agriculture said that the registration of titles which has to take place under Section 23 of that Act was coincident with and, if not synonymous with, was very closely related to the vesting of the land.

I have discovered, and I shall be very delighted if the Minister can contradict me on the matter, that the registration of land does not take place until after the vesting. The 1891 Act which the Minister stated would be rendered nugatory if we carried out the vesting of land immediately, contemplates that when a sale is carried out by the Land Commission, the Land Commission has to send a certain document specified under the Act in order to have the title registered. But the land is first vested, the registration of title comes along afterwards. If the Minister is right in his contention, I hope he will be able to prove it. My information is that he is wrong, and that the two things are not coincident. If the Minister is right in his contention that the registration of title must accompany the vesting of the land and be part of the operation to some extent, I say, "Can you not postpone the registration of title until such period as you can open your folio and transfer your fee-simple rights to the tenant?" Can you not postpone that part of the legal effects of the Bill and give the tenants a material reduction now?

Mr. Hogan

Postpone until when?

Until the Land Commission have completed the work in their office. Postpone it until the ordinary processes, which the Minister says cannot be expedited or improved on, are completed. If that means giving a new interpretation to the term "appointed day," or if it means amending the Land Act of 1923, I cannot see why that should not be done. The Minister is greatly taken up with the question of title. He has seen that when it suited us, or rather suited him, in other directions we have had to pass retrospective legislation, and we had to say that things are not what they were. This is an extremely difficult matter. I say that the tenant is more interested in getting the financial concessions that were intended in the Act of 1923 than in the fee-simple of his land. Once he gets possession of his land he knows that the rest will proceed as a matter of course. Even when the land is vested under the present unwieldy and complicated system it is only vested, I believe, subject to equities, that famous phrase which we have heard before. It is not an absolutely unimpeachable title at the end of it all. I raise these matters to show that there are difficulties, but that they are capable of solution. When I introduced the Land Bill, which the Minister said was full of legal jargon, but which had only a single line, I tried to get agreement on the principle that if necessary the term "appointed day" should get a new meaning, and should get the meaning that the financial benefits accruing to the tenant should be given to him at once, and also that legislation should be passed enabling the Land Commission to say, "We will give the tenant reductions, but as to the folio and the transference of fee-simple, we can postpone them further." I cannot see why the Minister cannot go back and carry out what I thought was his original intention in the 1923 Act, and have two processes —first, the process of vesting in the Land Commission and giving the tenant the benefit when that stage is completed, and then proceed with the vesting in the tenant himself. The Minister no doubt will have answers to all these points, but will he go to the Land Commission officials and say that he wants this thing done, that he wants a way made out, and wants the draughtsman to complete what we are all anxious should be completed—namely, the vesting of lands?

I believe that even the officials of the Land Commission who have to do with the business of vesting will admit that the thing can be done and that you can give reductions at once, whatever the financial objections may be. They are certainly there, but there cannot and ought not be legal objections. You can complete your legal work afterwards. The Parliamentary Secretary has told us, in reply to a question which I put to him yesterday, that the average reduction of non-judicial rents when the tenants were vested was 35 per cent. It was something over 33 per cent. when agreement was reached between the tenant and the landlord, and where there was no agreement and when the case went to the Judicial Commissioner it was somewhat higher and went to about 38 per cent. If we are going to take as a basis all the transactions before the Judicial Commissioner or all the vesting the Land Commission has already made, 35 per cent. would be reasonable; but there is another side to the question. The total number that have been vested up to the present is very small—only five per cent. Is that a fair basis to take for the remaining 95 per cent.? Is it fair to say that because in five per cent. of the cases already dealt with there has been a reduction of 35 per cent., the remaining 95 per cent should be treated in the same way? I think that even the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary will agree that some of them were rackrented in the way in which Deputy Goulding mentioned. They have been deprived of the benefits of the Act and have been paying these rackrents, and is it now the policy of the Executive to give them only 35 per cent. reduction, despite the fact that they were paying rackrents while other tenants, who had the good fortune to be vested, have got their reductions and have been paying off the purchase price?

I think it is quite unjust, even if the proceedings under the Judicial Commissioner and the Land Commission show an average reduction up to the present of only 35 per cent., to put these tenants on the same basis as judicial tenants. I would like to hear arguments in support of it. These tenants have not been able to get fair rents fixed for generations. Some of them, the Minister will no doubt say, could have got fair rents fixed, but they did not get fair rents because they were well enough off before. But the majority of them have been suffering from the burden of heavy rents and have not had the advantages of the Land Purchase Acts like those whose annuities have been fixed. I therefore say that the reduction should be very much greater. If there are reasons against that I would like to hear them.

Therefore, as this Bill does not contemplate vesting of the lands in the near future, and as there is nothing to show that land will be vested more quickly as the result of its passing, I move this amendment.

With regard to fishery rights I have only to say that it is a pity that the Land Commission could not take up that question and deal with it in a more national and whole-hearted fashion than it has been dealt with so far. The Parliamentary Secretary tells us that the Bill provides that where the owner and the landlord agree the rights may be purchased. Supposing the owner does not agree, and that it is necessary, or that the Land Commission deem it right, to purchase certain rights, such as exist in my constituency, on several fisheries that are not preserved by the landlord, they will not have power to buy them under this Bill, because they will not have the consent of the owners.

In connection with Section 4, the correction of the term "appurtenant" and the remedying of the defect in the original Act where the Land Commission decided to vest certain fishing rights which they considered are appurtenant or belonging to the holding, the landlord or owner can still appeal where the Land Commission decide that the fishery is an essential part of the amenities of the holding. I cannot see why there should be a right of appeal even if in sub-section (2) of Section 4 the Land Commission in the Bill determine in advance what the decision of the Commissioner shall be, that he shall have no option except to say that certain fishery rights which belonged to certain holdings are to be vested in them. What principle is the Judicial Commissioner going to approach this question on? I think that the section is defective when it leaves no discretion to the Judicial Commissioner, that is, it leaves him no discretion where a clear principle is not laid down on which to approach the matter. There is no principle laid down here, and in fact the Commissioner will, in my opinion, still have the right to say that the fishing rights are not appurtenant and should not be vested.

I am prompted to advise the Land Commission to be very careful in the drafting of this Bill because of the fact that a tenant farmer in my district was a victim of the looseness with which the last Act was drafted. It seems that the landlord went to law with some of his tenants, especially some tenant in Kerry. I believe that tenant did not appear, but the tenant from my parish did appear.

Deputy Daly heard Deputy Derrig's speech?

Deputy Derrig dealt with this matter in an absolutely relevant fashion. What we are considering here is the land law and an amendment of that law. The Deputy was arguing that the amendment suggested here is not going far enough to achieve his particular purpose. Here we are dealing with the law as it stands and a delay that is apparently due to a defect in the law, and not due to the administration of the Land Commission. I feel that if we get into examples from particular areas we will simply get into a discussion of particular cases dealt with by the Land Commission. I would prefer to keep to a discussion of the state of the law and suggested amendments of the law. I do not think we should use the debate to ventilate particular cases, because experience in the House has shown the Deputy as it has shown me that, unfortunately, we would never get to the end of them.

I simply say that the Land Commission should be more careful than it has been and that it should not leave any loop-hole in the present Bill. I do not believe that there is any provision in the Bill for dealing with the 1903 tenants. They should be included. It may be contended that the 1903 tenants signed an agreement. They did, but a great many of the tenants as we are all aware, at that time signed under duress. For that reason, I think it is the bounden duty of our Government to see that they are relieved of the oppression, as it was nothing else at the time. I think some clause should be inserted in the Bill that would deal with the 1903 tenants as well as the 1923 tenants. Care should be taken to see that the Bill is left watertight and that it will not be as loose as the last one.

The Parliamentary Secretary, in introducing this Bill, described it as short and simple. His explanation was good and his description of the Bill was quite correct. It is too short, and it is, in ways, too simple. That is one of the faults that I have to find with it. Section 1, of course, is to remedy defects, not in draughtsmanship found in previous legislation, but in the interpretation given to certain terms in actions in the Courts. It will be at least the second improvement in the 1923 Act, in which several flaws were discovered. We have been twitted by the Minister for Agriculture for faulty draughtsmanship in connection with another Bill, but we get frequent examples of it from Government Benches and from Ministers who, of course, have expert staffs at their disposal whose services we cannot avail of. When we suggested that it was possible, or not beyond the ability of the Government or the Minister for Agriculture, if they so desired, to separate vesting from registration, he poohed-poohed the idea. Now we find that one of the suggestions made in our Bill has been partly adopted in this Bill. I submit that is in connection with the non-judicial tenancies set out here. The Minister is inclined to make a fetish of registration. I do not see why, even if it does mean a further amendment of the 1923 Act, we could not delay registration until after vesting, so as to give tenants the two great advantages of the reduction which generally follow vesting and the commencement of paying off the purchase price of their land.

We have instances of neighbours who are jealous of one another over the different positions in which they are placed on the same estate or on neighbouring estates—some of them vested and some of them not vested, some of them getting reductions and some of them not. We do not know how long they will have to go on paying interest in lieu of rent at the rate of £90,000 a year. We have in this House the example of a man who is paying interest in lieu of rent for seventeen years, and he does not know how long more he will be so paying. In a recent debate, figures were put up by me showing that the delay of the Land Commission in vesting has in the last few years mulcted tenants to the extent of half a million pounds. The Parliamentary Secretary said that he did not quite believe these figures, that the figures were complicated and required investigation. I presume he did not look into them since, as his hands were pretty full.

Of course, we will hear from the Minister for Agriculture—at least, we hope so, because it is a pleasure to listen to him. In connection with the Agricultural Credit Bill I put a certain case to him in reference to mortgagees which he controverted. Subsequently he adopted the case I made because it suited his purpose. He can make the worst appear the best cause whenever it suits him. Some time ago he painted a doleful picture of the troubles that would arise in separating vesting from registration and the employment that would be given to lawyers. I think if the Deputies in this House excluded the lawyers and if all parties got a committee together to go into the question of the Land Commission, they could do very useful work. They could afterwards get the legal gentlemen to put their ideas into proper form so that they would be water-tight. There is undoubtedly dissatisfaction with the working of the Land Commission on all sides of the House. It would be much better to face the whole problem at once than to be bringing in piecemeal legislation such as this, and see what could be done.

Arguments might be brought forward to show how long it will take to complete land purchase and the vesting of estates at the present rate of progress. I might, if I so desired, prove that it would take 150 years at the present rate of progress. I do not want, however, to go into figures here, because I do not think it would serve any useful purpose. We all agree that it is going on too slowly, and we all agree that the cherished hopes of the Minister for Agriculture in 1923 are not being fulfilled. He is a sadder and a wiser man. We still have hopes that the 1923 Act can be amended to achieve the purposes which the Minister had in view and can do it very rapidly also. We think that a committee of Deputies of the House should be appointed to consider the whole question of the Land Commission.

The whole question of the land law.

Yes. A very important point arises here, and that is the question of fisheries. Inland fisheries, particularly, should be considered from the national point of view. The whole law relating to them as far as I can grasp it—it is very difficult to get accurate information—is in a chaotic condition. You have Charters and Royal Grants going back 700 years in cases. I wonder how are those to be dealt with. These inland fisheries are and should be a great national asset and should be dealt with, I think, as a national problem. In tidal and non-tidal waters, at present, some tenants have fishing rights vested only half-way across the river, and the riparian owner on the opposite bank has no rights whatever. Those problems are not faced in this Bill. It would require a much wider Bill and much more careful consideration. I submit it would be better to withdraw this Bill and consider the matter much more fully. They talk here of buying out with those 4½ per cent. Land Bonds. So far so good. Rules have to be made, and there is a danger in that. I believe that is dealt with in Section 6 in this Bill. I think the Ministry should go very carefully and cautiously into this matter. It would be possible if a wrong person were introduced into a key position to vitiate all legislation and nullify the intentions of this House. I am not quite satisfied with the suggestion put forward in Section 6. Might it not be possible for the Ministry of Fisheries to nominate somebody for the position as set out in Section 6? In view of the whole position—the concessions made here considered impossible a few months ago, the necessity of dealing with the fisheries problem and of the land legislation much more fully than is done in this Bill and perhaps the advisability of setting up a Commission of members of this House of all sides—I have pleasure in seconding this amendment of Deputy Derrig.

I am sure that Section 4 leaves the fishery question very much where it is. The section reads:—

"Whenever, after the passing of this Act, any land to which a fishery or fishing right is appurtenant within the meaning of Section 45 of the Land Act."

Unfortunately when this question of fishing rights occurred the landlords always claimed that the fishery rights are not appurtenant to the land, and they have insisted that the fishing rights be retained by themselves. That is a very serious bone of contention in many parts of the country. Apart from that proposal, there is the question of the fishery rights in tidal waters. These rights are claimed by the old landlords to go back practically to Magna Charta. Reading an account of the life of Sir Walter Raleigh, it was stated boldly there that Sir Walter Raleigh got possession of certain fishing rights along the River Black-water. It was stated that these were the property of the public. They were taken over, and that still holds. These fishery rights should be the property of the Irish public, and not the property of any individual, and an Act which is going to remedy that is required.

Going back to the question of non-tidal fishery rights, the fishery rights along the rivers adjacent to the holdings are a very serious cause of trouble. The Act as it stands will not remedy that trouble. I think we should defer this matter until we are prepared to tackle this question seriously, and define once and for all who owns these rights. It is a matter of argument whether the rights are to be vested in the individual farmers or the State, but it should be clearly understood, whether they are to be vested in the farmers or the State, that they should not be left in possession of the men who claim them now.

I intend to deal with Clause 2, one of the main clauses of this Bill. This is a very broad question applying to the class of tenants coming in under the same head. What were understood as non-judicial tenants were tenants who did not go in of their own accord, or whom the landlord did not bring in, and who did not have rents fixed. Then there was a type of tenant debarred by previous Acts from going in. There was also a type of tenant who came in under the 1923 Act, because of the clause permitting short-term leases here. That was a different class of tenant altogether. In most cases that type of tenant came in at a very heavy rent, running up to £2, and in some cases more per acre. In dealing with non-judicial tenants, the one term cannot be made to apply to the three different types. We have always accepted in every Act that the judicial basis should be the basis on which all Acts should work. Reductions were made for a particular type of judicial rentals, such a percentage from the first, such a percentage from the second, and so on. Every judge and judicial commissioner should bear in mind what would be the judicial value of tenancies under previous Acts. The security of the State was always the guiding principle. Where you have an increased rental or what would be a judicial rental, the security of the State in that case is very much affected.

This Bill is just aiming to remove a few of the difficulties that exist with regard to the speeding up, and why it should be postponed until something further is done I am at a loss to understand. There are several difficulties. This is one of them, and it proposes to remove it. There may be other difficulties. I am sure there are, and it is only a method of getting out of those. Why should we stand over this particular amendment? The process always was that where there was a non-judicial tenancy the Land Commission was bound to send down an examiner in every case to see that the Land Commission had security. Even though the tenant was going into court the Land Commission had to send down an inspector to see that security was sufficient. It is proposed to dispense with that. The inspector will only come down where the tenant or landlord refuses to agree to a price and on the application of one or the other. That will lessen the question of inspection considerably, I should say about 60 or 65 per cent., because a majority of the estates coming in under the 1923 Act were large estates and not isolated estates let on leases. In many of these estates there was a considerable number of non-judicial tenancies that had to be examined. This is a proposal to dispense with that. I cannot understand the objection of Deputy Derrig, and I cannot understand the object which he has in suggesting to fix a date on which certain things will be done. If you fix dates there are obstacles on the road which must be removed and the thing cannot take effect until those obstacles are removed. There are obstacles of title, survey and registration. You can make a proposal that any or all of these be dispensed with.

Might I be permitted to ask Deputy Gorey a question? What has the question of title to do with giving the tenant a reduction immediately?

The vesting can only take place when all the formalities have been complied with. You can decide now to dispense with those formalities. If Deputy Derrig introduces a Bill dispensing with these or with some of them, we will know where we are, and we will argue it, as to whether it is right to dispense with these formalities or not, or whether we are giving the tenant security in whatever holding he gets. Here we have a scheme that takes no cognisance of the obstacles on the road. I do not want to make personal comments. I am a tenant myself, and I am personally interested, but while you have all these things to be done you have either to comply with them or pass legislation dispensing with them.

A Deputy

Surely you ought to have a suggestion as to how to do it.

Is it the privilege of the Opposition to have no brains? Of course, it can be done if you increase your surveying and your engineering staffs four or five times over. I am not quite sure whether it is not advisable to do that, no matter what the cost is. The staff dealing with registration might also be increased or dispensed with. I am not a legal man; I have a little common sense, but I certainly have not a legal mind. I do not know that it would not be a good thing if we could do without the legal profession altogether. Any time I have come against them I found them absolute leeches.

You have an illegal mind.

I think the right cure for them would be to tie them around a bomb and just put a fuse to it, and then try to get a new class in the legal profession.

Deputy Wolfe is getting nervous.

I do not think he has anything to do with it. I heard some remarks passed here with regard to rackrents. I do not know how that could be advocated, because in the 1923 Act there is a provision that the rent payable on the gale day previous to the passing of the Act—the net rent—would appear on the lease or legal document as the registered rent.

Is Deputy Gorey sure of that?

I am, absolutely.

I would like to have the opinion of the Parliamentary Secretary on it.

Whatever rent was being paid by agreement between the landlord and tenant would have to be accepted by the landlord. I think it should be within a period of three years. I am quite clear that was to be the basis of the rental from which all deductions were to be made, both payment in lieu of rent and annuities.

You were beaten in the three years' proposal.

I think I proposed one year. I cannot remember a discussion of six years ago, but I think, roughly, I am right. I remember distinctly the Minister for Agriculture agreeing to the term; as a matter of fact, I think the phraseology was his own, that the net rent actually paid on the gale day previous to the passing of the Act was to be the basis on which the Act was to operate. While we have these present regulations, and while all these formalities have to be complied with, I do not see any reason in the objection to the Bill becauses it proposes to remove one or two of the difficulties. If there are other difficulties it is our business to dispose of them altogether. Deputy Derrig said that they had shown that these difficulties were capable of solution. I would not have commented at all on his speech were it not to ask what he means by the phrase, "they have shown that these difficulties are capable of solution." He has not attempted to show how they can be solved, except by a pious expression of opinion, to fix a particular day, without taking any cognisance of the obstacles or doing anything to remove them or to simplify them. I want to emphasise that judicial commissioners, or any officials brought into existence in this or any other Bill, must bear in mind the opinion of this Dáil and the mentality of the people who passed these Acts when they say that all land purchase must be based on judicial value Some decisions have been given based on war-time value, a fictitious value that will have no relation to the future no more than it has any relation to the period before the war. I know that the Land Commission have been forced by misguided clamour to pay fictitious prices, war prices for land in many cases against their will. That is one of the things that must be guarded against. Anything that tends to get away from judicial value I certainly will not welcome or give any sanction to, if I can help it.

Is judicial value always sound and economic?

It has always been generally accepted. From the first Land Act down, every Land Act has been based on judicial value. Reductions have been based on first, second and third-term judicial rents. It has always been accepted; there has never been any question about it.

Is the reduction proposed a good, sound judicial value?

It would be for one class of judicial tenants.

For all judicial tenants?

No; but there is a section which allows either the tenant or the landlord to appeal to the Judicial Commissioner to fix the amount, and in that way it is. I am not talking so much about what an Act does, as what might get into the mind of judicial valuers who might be called upon to make a decision. I want them to realise that every Land Act passed has been based upon judicial value. I think it is ridiculous to oppose the Bill for what it does not do, when what it does is useful and will go a long way to remove the undoubted difficulties that exist. Why it should be opposed because it does that, I cannot understand. There may be other difficulties, but let them be put up in some other form and let suggestions be made for dealing with them. Not one sensible suggestion has been made to get over the difficulties. No solution has been offered, and it is ridiculous to claim that solutions have been offered.

You were not listening.

I was listening all the time.

Deputy Gorey's question was quite a reasonable one in a way. I think that he will appreciate the effect of the amendment when it is put to him like this: the effect of the amendment is that the Opposition are not satisfied with the Bill because it is not sufficiently adequate. Deputy Derrig has adumbrated what we think ought to be done.

What ought to be done?

It is a complicated question.

Why do you make the claim, then, that he has adumbrated what ought to be done?

He has stated what ought to be done. I do not want to go any further in discussing what ought to be done at this stage, when people are at loggerheads about it and are going to get annoyed with one another. The advantage of the amendment is that it affords both sides of the House an opportunity to agree to certain amendments being brought in on the Committee Stage without committing themselves to them. If the Government will allow certain amendments to be discussed in Committee on their merits, they will not be committed to those amendments, but those amendments will enable us to put forward the case in detail, clause by clause. The main purpose of the amendment is to show that we are dissatisfied with the Bill because it does not go far enough; but if an understanding could be arrived at that we would agree to discuss new clauses in Committee, a very satisfactory step forward would be made, and I hope that that course will be seriously considered by the Government. There will be a great many cases where the fixing of the sixty-five per cent. will not be satisfactory from the point of view of the tenant. There are tenants who never got a chance of having a judicial rent fixed.

They would not avail of it.

It reminds me of the story of the dispensary doctor who had a curious way of dealing with patients. A poor man was asked how did he like going to Dr. So-and-so, and he said that the doctor took them in clusters—he took all his patients together and treated them as if they were one. This section is dealing with the tenants in clusters. The Government are basing their average of what is fair to non-judicial tenants on an estimate, as Deputy Derrig pointed out, of only five per cent. of the whole lot. If that is not correct I shall be glad to hear another view.

12,000 out of 35,000.

Of course, the difficulty is that these tenants are put in the position that they are going to have an immediate reduction if they accept the sixty-five per cent., whereas if they refuse it, they may get better terms. It looks very like the old trick by which the land movement was broken in the time of Parnell, when by giving an immediate advantage to the tenant the solidarity of the tenant movement was broken. I do not wish to place the thing in so hostile a light as that, but, at the same time, there will be the same tendency on the part of the tenants to be drawn into accepting a reduction and not going before the Judicial Commissioner and getting better terms. The advantage is for the landlords here, because the terms will be advantageous to the landlords. If there was a reduction under Section 2 to sixty per cent. instead of sixty-five, it might be nearer to what would be fair to the average number of non-judicial tenants.

As to the other sections dealing with the fishery rights, I want to associate myself with what Deputy Goulding has said. There are some very valuable fishery rights in Ireland which really should belong to the Irish people, to the Fishery Department or in some shape or form should be to the advantage of the Irish people, because at present they are simply to the advantage of strangers. In some cases we have London firms owning very valuable salmon fishery rights and simply shipping the salmon out of the country and drawing the full profits. In the case of the Devonshire estate one man owns very valuable rights which extend from the harbour of Youghal up to Lismore. I think it would be much fairer to take these rights over and compensate the owner, so far as compensation is either desirable or equitable, but, at any rate, to see that these rights are placed to the benefit of the Irish people. Of course, it goes very much beyond the limits of this Bill, but the Bill suggests the idea and a good idea is always worth mentioning.

Then there is the disadvantage in the way in which Sections 3 and 4 are framed. Section 3 deals with the rights which would be vested or might be vested before the passing of this Act, and Section 4 deals with those which might be vested after the passing of the Act. They give unlimited discretion to the Commissioners. The use of the words "equitable" and "not advisable" is very vague. You could hardly find more vague words than these. I would suggest that some sort of definition of what the word "advisable" means there, should have to be introduced into the Bill.

That is a Committee point.

Yes, but there is a very big principle involved. It is our experience of the Judicial Commissioner that he has not been very favourable to the tenants' point of view. The prices of land have been fixed too high.

The Deputy must not criticise the Judicial Commissioner upon this Bill.

I shall not say any more about it, but what I want to get at is, you may have a Judicial Commissioner, where the terms are so vague, who may be more favourable to one side than the other, and past experience, covering not merely from five or six years, but from a great many more years, shows that the tendency in these matters is to favour the landlord rather than the tenant. I am not speaking of any individual, but I think that this is fair criticism of the administration in the past. In conclusion, I would urge upon the Government to take that point of view of our amendment, and to say whether they would be agreeable to discuss amendments which may be introduced from this side of the House on the Committee Stage.

The introduction of this amendment must, I greatly fear, cause a very painful impression amongst those who are so vitally interested and affected by it. It must be to them, as, indeed, it must be to all of us, very regrettable to find a political party claiming to act with some sense of responsibility proclaiming in one breath that they are in favour of the speeding up of land purchase and in favour of redressing the undoubted grievances to which the non-judicial tenants are almost of necessity subjected, and in the next breath to find them opposing a provision which they admittedly and confessedly state is a step in the right direction, or, to use Deputy Derrig's words, a step in advance. In advance of what? In advance of the conditions under which the non-judicial tenants are labouring to-day. "Take it away," says Deputy Derrig, "we do not want it. This step, if you make it law, will advance the condition of the non-judicial tenant. We do not want to do that," says the Deputy. And, mark you, that attitude and policy are in keeping with the attitude and policy which Deputy Derrig and Deputy Fahy, and those associated with them have proclaimed not now for the first time. They have proclaimed it openly and above board not many weeks ago, when they introduced into this House a Bill which they still complain was not passed, a Bill which, it was clear to anybody possessed of the meanest intelligence, could only have one result, and that was to throw land purchase into chaos and to delay, embarrass and inconvenience the non-judicial tenant. To-day the Party opposite are back upon that. They still proclaim that they are unable to understand why that legislation which was the most foolish and childish ever introduced into a responsible assembly, was not passed. It was a Bill that I might venture to say was conceived in ignorance, born in dishonesty, and died at the hands of the Minister for Agriculture from exposure. And the Party opposite complain that should be so.

We heard Deputy Derrig, when that Bill was before us, make suggestions which no human being could carry into effect. The Minister for Agriculture made it perfectly clear to everybody why these steps should not be taken, and that you could not vest land until you first had ascertained the preliminaries. But to-day we find put before us by Deputy Derrig as representing the land policy of the Party on whose behalf he speaks, a proposal to vest land without first ascertaining the owner or the persons from whom you are going to take it and put it into the hands of somebody else. That is the first step, and Deputy Derrig tells us there would be no difficulty whatever about it if you could get rid of the unfortunate lawyer.

Deputy Wolfe is quite wrong in his statement that I said you should vest. I said you should give the tenants a reduction at once, and that you could vest later on. That is the only full and legal meaning of the term "vest."

And it was Deputy Gorey who wanted to get rid of the lawyers, although Deputy Wolfe is sitting beside him.

Mr. Wolfe

We all heard from Deputy Derrig the suggestion that vesting and registration should be separated. They are separate transactions. Even now he does not see that. He agrees, and has conceded that a reduction cannot be given until the land is vested. You cannot vest one person's land in another until you first ascertain by investigation of title the name of the person to whom the land at present belongs, and from whom you intend to take it and put it into the possession of another person. That is the first step. And by no human process that I know of, or that can be conceived by anybody having any knowledge of law or morality, can you take from one person his land without giving him some notice of it or seeing that you have got before the court the person to whom the land belongs. I do not know, and it would be for Deputy Derrig to tell me, how you can proceed to vest land without ascertaining the purchase price. You can, says Deputy Derrig, give the tenant the reduction to which he is entitled. In the name of heaven, does not the Deputy realise now that the annuity depends upon the purchase money and that the purchase money must first be ascertained, and that until you do what Section 2 of the Bill contemplates and which he is trying to thwart, you cannot ascertain the annuities and purchase moneys, and you cannot vest the land. Even at this time I ask the Opposition will they oppose Section 2, and are they serious in the vendetta they are pursuing against the non-judicial tenants? Beyond any doubt or question Section 2 has gone very far to advance the position of the non-judicial tenant.

Deputy Derrig admits that. So must anybody admit it. That being so, why is the Bill being opposed? Why is it being opposed by people who suggest that they are in favour of the non-judicial tenants? Could anything more ridiculous be conceived than the suggestion submitted to a responsible House: "We agree that this Act helps the non-judicial tenants; we agree that it is a step in advance, that it is a step in favour of the non-judicial tenants, but we want to throw it out? We are opposing it, and we have brought forward amendments, and we ask you to put one more barrier in the way of the non-judicial tenant by passing an amendment declining to proceed further with the consideration of the Bill until certain steps have been taken?" Ought there not be some limit to common sense, or is it to be conceived that there is not to be any common sense in the consideration of a Bill of this sort? Is it to be conceived that you are going to get into the Division Lobby against the non-judicial tenants? Are the Deputies who sit on the opposite benches going to go into the Lobby against the non-judicial tenant? Let them go there, but let them go there openly and say: "We are going there, but we are going there because we are going against the non-judicial tenants."

I thought as a result of what has already occurred on the previous Bill that the Opposition would have shown that they had learned what, I think, Deputy Fahy has learned, the simple problem which Deputy Derrig has not yet learned, and that is how to calculate the progress of land purchase. It is very easy, Deputy Derrig says, to do it. I tried already on the discussion on the Estimates to show the House how easy it is not to do it. But here is the explanation the Deputy gives: If a thousand cases are going through the Land Commission, and if at the end of five years 100 of them have been advanced to completion, then, says Deputy Derrig, no matter how far the remaining 900 have gone towards completion it will take 45 years to complete them. That is a calculation which, apparently, the Opposition Party give as their considered view. That is the sort of method by which they measure the progress of land purchase. Of course, the whole thing is false. It is all nonsense. Of course, it is only eye-wash. I do not suggest that any single member opposite could be so absolutely bereft of intelligence as to suggest that Deputy Derrig is serious in putting forward such a case. I suggest that Deputy Derrig is not serious when he proposes that as a basis of calculation to be adopted, on the face of which it will take 84 years to complete the vesting of non-judicial holdings and 70 years to complete the vesting of judicial holding.

Wait and we will see who is right.

Mr. Wolfe

Of course the Deputy does not believe that, but why put eye-wash like that in the eyes of the public? Why bring such a proposal forward? There is no sense or meaning in it. I tell the Deputy that it is unsafe to assume that the farmers of this country are fools. They have sense enough to know that calculations of that sort are as absurd as the campaign for the abolition of the land annuities, and are only conceived and manufactured for political propaganda and only used for the sole purpose, if possible, of gulling the farmers into believing what everybody knows is not true. I appeal to everybody in this House who has an interest in land purchase to pass this Bill now before us.

I do not often throw bouquets at Government Departments, but I do say that I would be proud to take my hat off to the draftsman who drew Section 2 of that Bill, because in my respectful opinion and submission to this House he has clearly and concisely dealt with a serious difficulty; in that short section he has drawn a provision which can only have the effect of immensely greasing the wheels of land purchase in Ireland in favour of the non-judicial tenant. Deputy Little really makes the only argument which might, perhaps, appeal to him and which might appeal to me as well. It might not appeal to other members of the House, and I am not so sure that it does appeal to me either.

Really the only thing that can be said against the section was said by Deputy Little. Deputy Little said, in effect, "It will interfere with the advance of litigation." Let every man mind his own job. Deputy Little and I will mind ours. Deputy Little said: "If you pass this Bill I am afraid the tenants will not make objections, they will be inclined to accept without litigation and the landlords will be inclined to do the same. They both will be anxious to get to the end of land purchase." I agree with Deputy Little that this section has a very serious objection, if a serious objection it is at all. That serious objection is that beyond any doubt or question it will succeed largely in doing away with a vista of litigation that otherwise will take ten, twenty or thirty years to settle or get rid of between unreasonable landlords, on the one hand, and unreasonable tenants on the other side. All that litigation is to be got rid of, as Deputy Little pointed out.

On a point of personal explanation I want to say that I do not think that Deputy Wolfe should take down my words in evidence against me, alter them and use them against me.

Mr. Wolfe

What I was tring to do was to compliment Deputy Little on having succeeded in discovering the only argument that could be put forward against this Bill.

Deputy Wolfe made one very fair admission. He said that he was going to mind his job and I think he has proved this evening that he has at least intelligence enough left to try to mind his job. I take it that Deputy Wolfe is Deputy Gorey's legal adviser in connection with the speeches he makes. The speech that Deputy Gorey made struck me with amazement, particularly when I remember the speech he made in this House on the 7th March last when he was dealing with the Vote on Account. The reference is Vol. 28, No. 3, col. 1095. Deputy Gorey was speaking on this very question of the vesting of the holdings, and he showed all the difficulties that stood in the way. He said: "The question of charges as against an estate should cease now, and whatever charges there are against an estate should be against the stock or whatever is going to be held by the landlord until such time as these mortgages are cleared. There ought to be no difficulty in this matter, but lawyers seem to be too strong for the best intentions. The whole thing could be done in six months. The Government had better make up their minds that people will not stick it any longer. Machinery ought to be found, and must be found, to end the matter." That is what Deputy Gorey said last March and, lo and behold! in July he says there are a lot more obstacles in the way besides what have been dealt with here and we must proceed patiently.

As for Deputy Wolfe's argument that tenants cannot get the reduction until the land is vested within the full meaning of the Act, we maintain they could get the reduction without vesting within the full meaning of the Act and without registration of title and all the other legal difficulties which Deputy Wolfe's fraternity have thrown in the way.

On a point of order, I did not say that. I am sure the Deputy was unable to follow what I did say.

Nobody could.

I stated that you could not ascertain the land annuity until you first ascertained the purchase money on which it was based. I know it is very difficult for the Deputy to follow that.

I stand corrected by Deputy Wolfe. He says that you could not do it without ascertaining what the land purchase price would be.

Section 2 presumes to fix the land purchase price. It sets out that "the standard purchase annuity shall (save as is hereinafter otherwise provided) be an annuity of an amount equivalent to sixty-five per cent. of the rents payable in respect of the holding." We had an admission from the Parliamentary Secretary that agreements between the landlords and tenants were nearly finished with. He said that in a month or so the cases in which landlords and tenants agreed would be finished. That shows that though we have only about five per cent. of those dealt with, still we have reached the end of our resources under the recent Land Acts which have been produced from time to time in this House. The tenants have no way except to get the inspectors down, to go into the matter in that fashion and get the thing fixed by the Land Commission officials. I wonder how the figure of sixty-five per cent. was arrived at. This measure, like every other measure introduced here, puts on the tenant all the legal difficulties and charges. In practically every case the tenant will have to make his appeal to the court.

The Parliamentary Secretary and every other individual who knows anything about land is aware that sixty-five per cent. for a non-judicial holding is unfair and unjust. It is not by any means sufficient for non-judicial holders who have been up to the present rackrented and unfairly treated. Of course the landlord element in the Land Commission offices is too strong. The landlord element is there, and there, too, are the comrades whom Deputy Wolfe will favour when there is a job to be done.

The Deputy must keep to the general principles of the Bill.

I am keeping to them.

The Deputy is not, and he must be relevant. He must stick to the general principles of the Bill.

I am speaking to Section 2. The Parliamentary Secretary knows very well that sixty-five per cent. is not sufficient. He knows that the result of the section will be that unfortunate tenants in every case will be forced to take the initiative; they will be forced to appeal to Land Commission judges, and of course we all know in such cases it is a matter of going to law with the devil in the court of hell.

Deputy Corry will have to be clear on this point, that on this and, for that matter, on any other Bill, he cannot attack any judge. I want the Deputy to be clear on that point. When he is told to do so by the Chair, he must keep to the general principle of the Bill which we are now discussing.

Very well, sir; if I am not allowed to pass any comment on the machinery set up by this Dáil for the purpose of showing that the tenants never get any freedom, I will not go any further with it.

The Deputy is not being deprived of speaking on this measure. He will not be allowed by the Chair to criticise judges or the positions of judges on this or any other Bill.

Deputy Derrig's amendment asks the Dáil to decline to proceed with the consideration of the Bill until the Government has submitted proposals for the amendment of the 1923 Act to provide for the more expeditious vesting of land. There is no definite date indicated on which the land would be vested, whether it be in five, ten, or eighty-five years. Of course, we recollect the famous statement made by the Parliamentary Secretary on one occasion to the effect that permanent officials cannot be interfered with. Section 3 deals with fishing rights. Those sections leave the whole matter practically where it was. There is no hope for the unfortunate tenants. As Deputy Goulding pointed out a while ago, there are tenants on one side of the river who have fishing rights, but the tenants on the other side have no such rights because the landlord is still in possession. I am more than anxious that we should put an end definitely to this matter of the landlord owning all the fishing rights. It has gone too far, and the tenants have suffered too much under this particular heading. I hope to introduce a few amendments to these sections on the Committee Stage, if this Bill gets so far. I hope it will not go that far, particularly because there are no proposals in it to hasten the vesting of holdings. I hope if this Bill is to go through at all that the sections will be carefully considered and amended in such a way as to render them water-tight, and so make the position of the tenant more secure. I do not want to have a continuance of what now exists in my constituency—unfortunate tenants suffering from year to year, as the landlords refuse to allow them to purchase because they will not hand over the fishing rights to the landlord. The Parliamentary Secretary is well aware of these cases; they have come up here before him and he has gone into them. Acting on the knowledge which he got from these cases, I think he should definitely put an end to this injustice that is going on.

I do not think that I have very much further to say as regards this Bill. In my opinion, the knowledge that the Parliamentary Secretary and those others acting for the Land Commission have gained through being faced with the failures which exist in the 1923 and 1927 Acts, should induce them to produce a Bill that will enable them to finish the job. They should by now have sufficient knowledge to do that and finish this question, so that the unfortunate tenants will not be losing at the rate of £90,000 a year by reason of the non-vesting of their holdings. They ought to be able to finish it in such a way that from the date of the passing of that Bill, or this Bill amended so as to bring in all these questions, those tenants' payments will in future be payments of the purchase money and not payments of interest in lieu of rent.

I think that that could be done. There should be no difficulty about it. The unfortunate tenants would not then have to pay £90,000 a year more than they should for their rents.

Before the Parliamentary Secretary replies I just desire to say a few words. As has been explained before—even though Deputy Wolfe may try to confuse the minds of some innocent Deputies—Section 2 fixes the standard annuity for non-judicial tenants at sixty-five per cent., but no one has suggested that the non-judicial tenants are going to get the full advantage of this section until they are first vested. If they are not vested for five, ten, fifteen or twenty years they will be in the same position as if this Bill were not passed. In the interests of non-judicial tenants I think that we are justified in bringing in an amendment on Second Reading to have vesting done as speedily as possible. If we had an opportunity of bringing in such an amendment on the Committee Stage we would have done so, but amendments such as this can only be introduced on the Second Stage. Therefore, we have brought it in in this particular place. Deputy Wolfe talked about a Bill which was introduced here some time ago and which he said was born in dishonesty. The honest and independent member for West Cork went on to talk about our leaving the non-judicial tenants in the wilderness for the sake of the judicial tenants. If Deputy Wolfe, who held this party up as dishonest in regard to that Bill, had been honest enough to read the Bill or to remember what was in it, he would have known that it was provided in that Bill that non-judicial tenants must be vested within three years. Nobody in this House, not even Deputy Wolfe who has the hardihood to assert almost anything, would assert that the Land Commission at the present rate of progress will have all the non-judicial tenants vested within three years.

Hear, hear!

You agree with that all right. Deputy Wolfe puts up difficulties and says that the first thing we must do is to know to whom you are to give the rent.

Whom are you to take it from?

From the landlord obviously. To whom do the Land Commission give over the payments in lieu of rent when they come from the tenant? Do they make any inquiries as to who is the rightful landlord or do they merely hand them over? Surely if they do not inquire the Land Commission are not fit to handle public money. Surely they know who the landlord is before they give it to him and, if he is the rightful landlord, he has the right to get the money. How are you going to calculate the standard annuity? You have only to read up one particular schedule to the Land Act of 1923 to see how the standard annuity is to be fixed. Even a Deputy without the mathematical knowledge of Deputy Wolfe would understand how it is fixed. There is no difficulty in getting over the question raised by Deputy Wolfe against giving reductions to the tenant of ten or fifteen per cent. as the case may be. He is entitled to that on vesting. The principal point made by Deputy Derrig was that it appeared to be contemplated in the 1923 Act that the land would first be vested in the Land Commission, who would then vest it in the tenants, but that during the administration of the Act that came to be regarded as one operation; in other words, that the vesting in the Land Commission and the vesting in the tenant synchronised. I would like when the Parliamentary Secretary is replying that he would give us his opinion, because he should have some knowledge of the land law. I do not think that Deputy Wolfe has

Not a bit.

The Deputy spent most of his life in other branches of the law, and he shows by his speeches that he knows very little about land law. I would like if the Parliamentary Secretary would point out what particular difficulty there is in having the land first vested in the Land Commission, then giving the reduction which is due to the tenant, and then allowing the legal formalities consequent on vesting to go through. If there is any difficulty I am sure that the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to point it out. The tenants under the 1923 Act got a 25 per cent. reduction, and now, before they are vested, they have to pay what is called interest in lieu of rent. I am fairly certain that that interest in lieu of rent is collected by the Land Commission as agents and handed over to the landlord. Why is it called interest in lieu of rent and not called rent, as it is collected in the ordinary way? The landlord is saved the expense of having an agent to collect it. Why is it not called rent, except to throw camouflage over the whole thing, and to give the impression to people that vesting has been advanced a further stage? I know that there is a reduction of 25 per cent., so far as the tenant is concerned, but is there any other change? I want the Parliamentary Secretary to point out any legal or financial difficulty in carrying out our proposal. We all realise the financial difficulty, that the Government would be embarrassed in having to find the £90,000 required to meet all the reductions if given immediately. Would he point out the difficulty of having the land vested in the Land Commission, and then, when all the stages are gone through, having it vested in the tenant?

I would like to know whether it is intended that this clause should apply to patches of land that become derelict and that have already been vested in the Land Commission. Will the Land Commission undertake under this clause to deal with such land? Deputy Wolfe said that he gathered from speeches made by Deputies on our benches that we were not in favour of assisting the non-judicial tenant. I am sure that Deputy Wolfe was not sincere when he made that statement. He knows perfectly well that our attitude is in favour of assisting the non-judicial tenant and tenants in general. Our reason for criticising the Bill is that we are not at all too sure that full justice is being done to the non-judicial tenant. The maximum reduction allowed to them under this Bill is 35 per cent., whereas we find that in the 1903 Act the maximum reduction was 40 per cent. It is very difficult to understand why 26 years later a very much increased price should be made compulsory in this Bill.

Under what Act?

Under the 1903 Act.

Mr. Wolfe

No; read the Act.

I read the Act. The maximum allowed is 40 per cent.

Mr. Wolfe

It is not, or anything like it.

In the case of first judicial and non-judicial tenants the price ranges from 20 to 40 per cent. or from 30 to 40 per cent. I am not quite sure.

Mr. Wolfe

You are talking about something else.

These were the zones. It would be well to have this matter cleared up.

Let the Deputy make his own speech.

It is well to make it clear.

It is Deputy Maguire who is making the speech, not Deputy Gorey.

I wanted to make the point clear.

The maximum reduction allowed under this Bill is 35 per cent., while under the 1903 Act there was a reduction of 40 per cent.

There was no reduction at all; there was a voluntary agreement between the parties. It could have been 80 per cent.

Where agreements were reached the price was arranged. It might be between 20 and 30 per cent. or between 30 or 40 per cent. As regards Deputy Wolfe's statement in reference to vesting land without knowing the owner, I am very anxious for a further explanation of that statement. What does Deputy Wolfe mean when he says that it is childish to advocate the vesting of land before the Land Commission knows the owner? Let us assume that there is a difficulty about finding the owner. Where does the Land Commission enter into it? If there is a difficulty in discovering the owner, we are not in favour of the Land Commission being utilised for such a purpose. We have no interest in searching the world over for an owner before the vesting of a holding. We are not satisfied that it is our business to follow him up. I remember when the Minister for Agriculture was speaking on this matter some time ago, he said that there was great difficulty in some instances in locating the owner or a number of owners in any part of the world so as to get their signatures before the land could be vested. I say that where difficulties are raised, because the owners are not available within a reasonable time in order to complete the transaction legally, the onus should be put on them, and they should be made amenable and bear the consequences.

I do not think that Deputy Wolfe's speech was intended to be a reasonable argument or one that would bear reasonable investigation. We are not opposing the Bill, or any clause of the Bill, which has any useful purpose in it, but we are very slow to accept a Bill of this sort because of our experience of previous Bills. If there is nothing more to be determined by legislation of this sort than to fix the price and to determine that the transfer of the land shall take place on a certain date, that the position of the landlord shall cease, and the position of tenant as owner shall begin, if we were merely to look at the matter in that light, it would be quite a reasonable thing to proceed on these lines, but in dealing with this matter of land purchase there are many and varied aspects to be considered. The main feature is not so much the completion of land purchase and the elimination of the landlord as purchasing the property at a fair price, so that the annuity placed on it will be something that the tenant can pay. In addition to that, there is the very important work of improving those estates and providing them with the necessary conveniences as regards rights of way, bog accommodation and housing accommodation. My experience in the West of Ireland is that the congests have been entirely neglected under all the Land Acts passed by the Dáil up to the present.

While I see some good points in this Bill, I am disappointed with it in as much as no particular provision is made to deal with that particular class in the country which has been very much in the forefront of all the battles in which the land question was made a dominant issue. I suggest that the Government are seriously to blame because of the manner in which they are dealing with congests. They are sufficiently long in office now, and people consider that some practical suggestion should come from them as to their policy on that very important phase of the land question. In the congested areas we had a number of estates acquired under the 1923 Act. I say unhesitatingly that the services the tenants received on estates acquired under the 1923 Act have not been equal to those received on estates taken over under the earlier Acts of 1903 and 1909, particularly on the estates where the C.D. Board were the officiating department. I think that these estates taken over in the congested areas should not be acquired on the general standard of prices fixed for transferring estates in the whole of the Free State. These are specific cases, and they require specific attention. There is no use in assuming that a Bill passed here in this House setting up a standard price which was considered equitable for the whole of the country, will meet the requirements of the situation in the congested areas. In the past the British Government recognised that it was a special problem, and to deal with it they established a special department to take charge of the specific requirements in these areas. The only service the present Government rendered to these areas was to abolish that particular department. As a result, the congests have since been left without any attention whatever, and they are made to subject themselves to the general conditions of legislation which may be fairly applicable to the more well-to-do and better counties. Heretofore, when an estate was taken over, the Congested Districts Board, if that Department dealt with the transfer of the estate, made provision to deal with the evicted tenants, to provide houses where houses were required, either dwelling or out-offices, and made provision for sufficient turbary with a right of way to the turbary.

I think the Deputy is wandering away from this Bill.

Perhaps I am, but I want to point out that the provisions of this Bill are not as general as we would wish them, and the reason we are objecting is that it does not contain all which we consider fairly reasonable, not because we oppose the Bill for anything that is good in it. I suggest, if the Bill is to be made a workable Bill and put to the useful service of the community in general, it will have to be on a much wider basis and that the clause which would be essential would be that particular clause which will give special attention to the provision of those essentials as well as the fixing of prices. I see no provision for bog roads and such things. We have experience of previous Bills where provisions of this kind are provided. No such provision is made and the farmers who hurriedly entered into transactions of this kind in the belief that good would follow, have been disappointed.

Are not all these provisions contained in previous Bills? This is only an amending Bill. It is to give them time.

There is one very important matter I would like to bring under your notice, and it is that the price paid for land—I do not know whether this can be considered part of the Bill—has been in excess of the value of the land.

The Deputy cannot criticise the administration of the Land Commission on this Bill.

In view of the latitude given to Deputy Gorey to discuss the high prices of land, Deputy Maguire should get the same.

I think it will be admitted that Deputy Maguire is getting at least as much latitude as Deputy Gorey.

Deputy Gorey wants to have it both ways.

I do not.

There are clearly a good many matters to be considered if this Bill is to be made workable in a way to meet the full requirements of the community. As it stands, it must be very short of all the requirements the farmers anticipated by way of what is due to them.

With regard to fishing rights, I would like to know if it is the intention of the Land Commission to apply for compulsory powers where they consider it necessary to apply for these rights, and in considering arrangements such as are proposed here, I think it would be advisable to extend it to include mineral rights. We are very often in the anomalous position of the tenant having certain rights. Where such a thing as a mine or a quarry exists on his land, he has certain rights known as surface rights. When we have to deal with them we have to deal with a person who claims rights to minerals, and that is in many cases the landlord. I think where a transfer of estates is made the whole of these matters should be more carefully considered. We should not be doing things piecemeal, but should examine all the things required for the final and full settlement of this whole land question. Merely introducing a Bill as it is here that deals with a little item here and there and leaves out a number of big questions that are involved is in no manner of means tackling the question in a real, national or beneficial manner. I suggest that the Bill might, with advantage, be withdrawn for the present, and that a representative committee should be set up to deal with it on the lines I have endeavoured to give expression to. It should be an attempt to deal with this whole question in an exhaustive way, and to embrace all the requirements that we consider should be embraced in a Bill that would make an honest attempt to settle, in a final way, the question of the ownership of land and the appurtenances.

It is quite obvious that the criticism of this Bill is not seriously meant, because the criticism has been directed not so much against this Bill as against the Land Acts of 1923 and 1927. Deputy Derrig has complained that the reduction of 35 per cent. provided for in Section 2 of this Bill is not adequate to meet the case of non-judicial tenants. He went on to state that the estimate is based on a calculation representing only 5 per cent. of non-judicial cases. There are 35,000 non-judicial cases. We have already fixed standard purchase annuities in respect of 12,000. The figure of 35 per cent. was arrived at as a result of the experience we gained in fixing the standard annuities in respect of these 12,000 cases, or in approximately 40 per cent. of the non-judicial cases. Many of the most difficult cases have been dealt with, cases undoubtedly in which numbers of tenants would be paying high rents. I imagine that in the 24,000 cases that have still to be dealt with the average probably would be something less than the average in respect of the 12,000 we have fixed. I am quite satisfied, as a result of that experience, that the figure 35 per cent. represents a reasonable reduction to these non-judicial tenants.

Deputy Derrig complained of the delay in vesting tenanted land, particularly under the Act of 1923. I have explained over and over again that in considering the number of holdings vested under the Act of 1923 in the six years in which it has been in operation it must be remembered that vesting was held up from the very beginning because of the question of compounded arrears of rent. It was not until the Land Commission got over this difficulty by a section in the Land Act of 1927 which enabled them to add compounded arrears of rent to the purchase money, that we were able to make any sort of substantial progress in the vesting of tenanted land under the Act of 1923. Consequently Deputies should calculate the progress which has been made in the vesting of land under the Act of 1923 from the date on which the Land Act of 1927 came into operation, namely, about the 21st or 22nd of September, 1927. During the years between the coming into operation of the Land Act of 1923 and the coming into operation of the Land Act of 1927 only 640 holdings were vested in tenants who came under the Land Act of 1923. Since we have been able to add the compounded arrears of rent to the purchase money, in other words, a little over a year, the Land Commission have vested something like 8,000 holdings. So that since the coming into operation of that section in the Land Act of 1927 very substantial progress has been made in the vesting of tenanted land. As I have explained, the rate of progress is being accelerated month by month. We have not yet reached the maximum rate. Probably we will not be able to reach the maximum rate of progress for some months to come.

As I am on the subject of vesting, I will just give a few figures for the purpose of showing how the number of holdings which have been vested up to the 31st March this year, under all the Land Acts since 1923. Forty-five thousand holdings have been vested since the 31st March, 1923, by the Land Commission. Of these, approximately 8,000 were holdings acquired under the Act of 1923. The balance were holdings acquired under the Acts of 1909 and 1903. If you compare that rate of progress with the rate of progress in the ten years prior to 1923, you will find that the rate has been very much greater since the Land Commission was transferred to the Free State Government than it was during the earlier period.

I wish to say with regard to the vesting of land that every step has been taken to speed up the vesting of tenanted land. The procedure has been simplified in many ways. Already, as we go on accumulating experience, the procedure is being still further simplified so that we may be able to vest land at a still faster rate. That process is going on month by month, and this section in this new Bill of 1929 when it comes into operation, as I hope it will very shortly, will have the effect of speeding up particularly the vesting of non-judicial holdings very considerably. It will, as I explained in my opening statement, have the effect of eliminating completely the inspection of these holdings and incidentally it will represent a saving of something like £120,000 to the State. That, in itself, is a very substantial saving, quite apart from the fact that we will be enabled as a result of the operation of this section to deal with this particular class of holding much more rapidly than otherwise.

Deputy Derrig, apparently, still hugs the illusion that it is possible to name an appointed day on which all holdings, either judicial or non-judicial, can be vested. I would remind Deputy Derrig that as a result of the experience gained by the Northern Ireland Land Commission under the operations of the Land Act of 1925, in which there was a general appointed day mentioned for the vesting of all tenanted land the Northern Land Commission introduced the amending Act of 1929 in which they have taken power to fix a separate appointed day for each estate. In other words, they adopted the same procedure as was adopted in our Land Act of 1923 and which is being followed by the Land Commission here. I think that the idea of a general appointed day is absolutely unworkable in practice. I think after the discussion of that ill-fated Land Bill of the Deputies he is quite satisfied that it would be impossible to fix a general appointed day for the vesting of all judicial and non-judicial holdings. There must be a separate day appointed for each estate because the conditions applying to each estate vary enormously. There are very few difficulties in connection with some estates and, consequently, they can be vested much more rapidly than others. In the case of other estates serious difficulties arise in connection with turbary, mountain grazing, drainage maintenance rates, and many other problems. All these have to be dealt with by the Land Commission prior to the vesting of the estate. A general appointed day is quite impossible in practice, and as I have reminded the Deputy, under the Land Act of 1925 in Northern Ireland a general appointed day was named and in practice it was found to be unworkable.

Has the Parliamentary Secretary considered the point of whether the land could be vested in the Land Commission first and afterwards in the tenant?

According to Section 17 of the Land Act of 1927 there is one vesting. The land is vested in the Land Commission and the tenant on the one day. If the Deputy will take the trouble of reading it he will find the whole procedure outlined there.

Do you see any difficulty from the administration point of view?

Yes, there is a great deal of difficulty if you are going to have two appointed days. It means that much more work must be done in connection with the investigation of certain particulars before the vesting date can be named. It means, to a certain extent, duplication of work. It was as a result of the experience we gained in the working of the 1923 Act that we took steps in Section 17 of the Land Act of 1927 to name one appointed day for the vesting simultaneously in the Land Commission and in the tenant.

In connection with the fishing rights, this Bill does not propose to deal with fishing rights on any big scale. It is merely intended to clarify the meaning of Section 45 of the Land Act of 1923, particularly in view of a recent judicial decision. The first three clauses really explain the meaning of the word "appurtenant." In addition to that, the Land Commission take power to declare what rights vest in a tenant and what rights do not. If he wants to dispose of his rights the tenant will know, when he is in possession of this declaration, what fishing rights exactly are actually vested in him and what are not. We do not propose to do anything more than that in this Bill. It does not contain anything revolutionary, and it does not deal with fishing rights under the Act of 1903. The sections in this Bill merely deal with fishing rights on estates coming under the Act of 1923. As I say, the object of these sections primarily is to explain and clarify the meaning of the word "appurtenant," as it is used in Section 45 of the Land Act, 1923, which explanation is necessary in view of a recent judicial decision.

I would like that the Parliamentary Secretary would try to help us in this matter. I have been following, as carefully as I could, his explanation, and if there is some illusion on our side it certainly has not been dispelled. We are anxious to give the tenant the benefit of two things—first of all, the benefit of the reduction in the amount he pays yearly, whether in rent or annuity, and, secondly, as from a certain date to make these payments go towards the redemption of the moneys that will be ultimately advanced for the purpose.

So are we.

We cannot see——

Neither can we.

——where the difficulty lies.

What is the use of wasting time? Nobody asked the Parliamentary Secretary about it.

We have heard the explanations, and they are not satisfactory. One question which I want the Parliamentary Secretary to answer is why, if it is possible to fix in the way contemplated in Section 2, the standard purchase annuity at a certain amount, it is not possible also to arrange that the annuity should go towards the redemption of the advances made, and why is it not possible to deem the tenant, at a certain date, to have entered into a contract to purchase? Is it not possible to do that? Is it impossible for a draftsman to draw a clause which will make that possible? If the Parliamentary Secretary can show us that that is not possible we will be satisfied, otherwise we will continue in the position in which we have been.

The redemption of the purchase money does not commence until the fee-simple is vested in the tenant—until the Final List is published.

Why should it not?

You cannot do that until you are satisfied that certain difficulties in connection with boundaries, grazing rights, sub-letting —there may be sub-tenants on the estate—drainage maintenance rates, turbary, and many other matters of that kind, are disposed of. Until that is done it is impossible to vest the fee-simple of the land in the tenants.

Surely that is a matter of minor adjustment. We are assuming already by passing over these rents to the landlord that he is entitled to get them.

The tenant is entitled to these things—to the turbary, for instance.

Make the adjustments later.

He is entitled to certain grazing.

Give him the title with reservations—you cannot do that.

Yes, you can.

Mountain grazing is held frequently by a number of people who have been grazing it in common. It is difficult sometimes to define what particular portion one man is entitled to and what portion another man is entitled to. Until you know what rights you are going to vest in a tenant, what turbary you are going to vest—particularly where the area of turbary is small and adjoining an estate—you must, before the vesting order is published, decide on what particular area of turbary you are going to vest in the tenant. These are a few of the many difficulties which have to be disposed of. You have to survey the estate and maps have to be prepared. It is useless to say, as some Deputies said on the last Land Bill, that the fair-rent orders contain absolutely accurate particulars of the estate. As a matter of fact, the fair rent orders do not contain any particulars worth speaking of, or that are really of any value to us in dealing with an estate. Fair rent orders merely contain the area, the rent, the valuation, etc. They do not contain any maps, except in cases where the fair rents were fixed by the subcommission, and they only represent a small percentage of the cases. In the overwhelming majority of the cases a survey has to be made, maps prepared, and certain easements and rights and other matters appertaining to the property shown on the maps. That is the first stage of the survey. Then the provisional list has to be prepared, and time must be allowed for objection. Incidentally I might mention that the period provided in the 1923 Act for this was two months. That has now been reduced to one month to expedite the vesting of land. Innumerable other difficulties of that kind arise. Then the owner has the right to object if he considers the particulars wrong, and the tenant has the right to object. These are statutory rights, and until these difficulties and many others are disposed of it is quite impossible to vest the fee-simple in the tenant. Deputies should also remember that the vesting order must be accurate in so far as we can make it accurate. It is difficult to alter a vesting order after it is made. It cannot be altered without the sanction of the Judicial Commissioner. You must get the parties to agree to any alteration, and that alteration must be subsequently ratified by the Judicial Commissioner. If the vesting order is not accurate and if it is not a correct record of particulars of the estate or the holding vested in the tenant you are likely to give rise to a series of difficulties and to possible litigation, and you are likely to put the tenant to a great deal of expense subsequently.

I am sorry to trespass again on the time of the House but I think this will be helpful. Deputies on both sides are anxious for a solution of this question. Everything that the Parliamentary Secretary has said appears to me to be quite pertinent to the final vesting. We see the difficulty, and we acknowledge that there must be delay in the case of final vesting, but the Land Commission does not wait, for instance, to take money from the present occupier and to assume that he is the tenant, nor does it take all that time before it hands the money over to the landlord to see that he is entitled to it. It seems to us that all these difficulties are pertinent certainly to the final vesting, but are not difficulties that are insuperable or that interfere with fixing the time from which the standard annuity has to be paid, with the possibility, I admit, of certain adjustments later; and the other, also subject to the possibility of adjustment—what I might call the sinking fund, to deal with the ultimate paying off of the sum advanced.

The landlord's title does not cause any delay, because generally the charges attaching to the estate are transferred to the purchase money.

Is it not only a matter of the destination of the money?

Surely these are Committee points.

There might be no Committee.

I should like to ask whether the Parliamentary Secretary would be prepared to accept amendments from this side of the House— I do not know whether there will be any—which may not be within the title of the Bill?

No, that is a matter for the Ceann Comhairle.

I am asking you a question. Are you prepared to accept them? If you are, I am sure the Ceann Comhairle would not object.

Even if we were prepared to accept them they would be out of order, as they must be within the Title.

I take it if an amendment is put down and agreed to be discussed by both sides of the House it would be easy to see that the title was put right.

Not at all.

The Deputy is quite wrong in that.

It would only mean an amending of the Title of the Bill. Would the President be prepared to agree to that?

We would not be prepared to agree to it.

Question put: "That the words proposed to be left out stand part."
The House divided: Tá, 79; Níl, 50.

Aird, William P.Alton, Ernest Henry.Anthony, Richard.Beckett, James Walter.Bennett, George Cecil.Blythe, Ernest.Bourke, Séamus A.Brennan, Michael.Broderick, Henry.Brodrick, Seán.Byrne, John Joseph.Carey, Edmund.Cassidy, Archie J.Cole, John James.Collins-O'Driscoll, Mrs. Margt.Conlon, Martin.Connolly, Michael P.Cosgrave, William T.Daly, John.Davin, William.Davis, Michael.De Loughrey, Peter.Doherty, Eugene.Dolan, James N.Doyle, Edward.Doyle, Peadar Seán.Duggan, Edmund John.Dwyer, James.Egan, Barry M.Esmonde, Osmond Thos. Grattan.Everett, James.Fitzgerald, Desmond.Gorey, Denis J.Haslett, Alexander.Hassett, John J.Heffernan, Michael R.Hennessy, Michael Joseph.Hennessy, Thomas.Hennigan, John.Henry, Mark.

Hogan, Patrick (Clare).Hogan, Patrick (Galway).Holohan, Richard.Jordan, Michael.Kelly, Patrick Michael.Keogh, Myles.Law, Hugh Alexander.Lynch, Finian.Mathews, Arthur Patrick.McDonogh, Martin.MacEóin, Seán.McFadden, Michael Og.McGilligan, Patrick.Mongan, Joseph W.Mulcahy, Richard.Murphy, James E.Murphy, Timothy Joseph.Nally, Martin Michael.O'Connell, Richard.O'Connell, Thomas J.O'Donovan, Timothy Joseph.O'Hanlon, John F.O'Higgins, Thomas.O'Leary, Daniel.O'Mahony, Dermot Gun.O'Reilly, John J.O'Sullivan, Gearóid.O'Sullivan, John Marcus.Reynolds, Patrick.Rice, Vincent.Roddy, Martin.Shaw, Patrick W.Sheehy, Timothy (West Cork).Thrift, William Edward.Tierney, Michael.Vaughan, Daniel.White, John.Wolfe, George.Wolfe, Jasper Travers.

Níl

Aiken, Frank.Allen, Denis.Blaney, Neal.Boland, Gerald.Boland, Patrick.Bourke, Daniel.Brady, Seán.Briscoe, Robert.Buckley, Daniel.Carty, Frank.Clery, Michael.Colbert, James.Cooney, Eamon.Corkery, Dan.Corry, Martin John.Crowley, Fred. Hugh.Crowley, Tadhg.Derrig, Thomas.De Valera, Eamon.Fahy, Frank.Flinn, Hugo.Fogarty, Andrew. Sexton, Martin.Sheehy, Timothy (Tipp.).Smith, Patrick.

French, Seán.Gorry, Patrick J.Goulding, John.Houlihan, Patrick.Jordan, Stephen.Kennedy, Michael Joseph.Kent, William R.Kerlin, Frank.Killilea, Mark.Kilroy, Michael.Lemass, Seán F.Little, Patrick John.Maguire, Ben.McEllistrim, Thomas.MacEntee, Seán.Moore, Séamus.Mullins, Thomas.O'Kelly, Seán T.O'Reilly, Matthew.O'Reilly, Thomas.Powell, Thomas P.Ryan, James. Tubridy, John.Walsh, Richard.Ward, Francis C.

Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Duggan and P.S. Doyle; Níl: Deputies G. Boland and Allen.
Question declared carried.
Question: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time"—put and agreed to.

took the Chair.

I wish to give notice that it is my intention to ask leave to take all the stages of this Bill on Wednesday next.

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