I asked a question to-day relative to a certain notice which was served on Mr. Patrick Scahill, Corveagh Lr., Aughagower, Westport, County Mayo. It is a very interesting notice and I shall read it to the House. It is headed "Land Purchase (Ireland) Acts." Then in very large print "Notice of Sale of Holding":—
"Lands at Corveagh Lr., Collection No. 15407; amount of instalments due, £4 2s. 10d.; costs 7/-; total £4 9s. 10d. Take notice that unless the above sum of £4 9s. 10d. due to the Irish Land Commission out of the above holding is paid within 10 days from the date hereof, I am directed to put the holding up forthwith for sale by public auction, and, in the event of the sale not realising the amount of arrears and costs then due the Commission, I will take up possession of the holding. Dated this 17th day of June, 1935."
Then in print comes the name of W. J. O'Reilly, Solicitor to the Irish Land Commission, 21, Upper Merrion Street, Dublin. I asked the Minister, on whose behalf the Parliamentary Secretary replied, to-day (1) if that notice purporting to come from the solicitor to the Land Commission did, in fact, come from him. I am very doubtful about it. As I shall demonstrate in a moment, powers are being claimed on behalf of the Land Commission which the law does not confer on the Land Commission. Knowing that, I asked if this document did, in fact, emanate from the solicitor to the Land Commission. In the very unsatisfactory reply which the Parliamentary Secretary gave, he dodged that issue. His reply was:—
"A printed notice containing the particulars mentioned in the Deputy's question was issued from the offices of the Land Commission in pursuance of the provisions of the Land Purchase Acts."
I asked him definitely if it came from the solicitor or if it was with the authority of the solicitor this extraordinary document was served on Mr. Scahill. He failed to give a definite reply to a definite and specific question. The only conclusion I can draw from the Parliamentary Secretary's evasion is that the solicitor to the Land Commission did not draw up that document and was not responsible for it. I should like to get a clear reply from the Parliamentary Secretary on that question. I do not believe he dodged that plain question unless there was some reason for doing so. To the question as to the power under which the solicitor purported to act, the Parliamentary Secretary replied:—
"I refer the Deputy to Section 18 of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1887, and Sections 32, 33 and 37 of the Land Act, 1927."
Not one of these sections empowers the Land Commission to issue a notice of this nature. Section 19 of the Land Act, 1887, confers upon the Land Commission the powers of sale contained in Sections 19, 21 and 22 of the Conveyancing Act, 1881. It gives these powers and no others. There is no power in the crucial section of the Conveyancing Act of 1881—Section 19— to put up for sale subject to any reserve. Here there is clearly a sale subject to a reserve. If the sale does not reach the amount of the arrears and costs, then due the Commission, "I will take up possession of the holding." How the solicitor is going to do that, if somebody has made a bid less than the arrears and costs, I do not know. That, however, is the threat contained in the notice. There is no power under the Conveyancing Act to sell subject to any reserve. The Land Commission can bid at the auction. If they do not bid, they have no power to put on any reserve. The holding must go to the highest bidder. For some extraordinary reason the Parliamentary Secretary refers me to two very irrelevant sections of the Land Act of 1927—Sections 32 and 33. Section 32, as the Parliamentary Secretary ought to know, gives only power to the Land Commission to sell by private contract. What has that to do with sale by public auction, as here? So far as Section 33 is relevant, it makes this notice completely and entirely bad because it says there shall be no notice of any kind by private treaty or public auction until the advertisement has been issued. Nothing of the kind has been done here and these two sections are not in the slightest way relevant. Section 34 gives no power to the solicitor to put up a holding for sale and, if the amount of arrears and costs is not realised, to enter into possession. Under Section 34, if the Land Commission put up a holding for sale and there is no bidding at the auction, they have power to go to the Judicial Commissioner and ask him to make an order giving them possession. The section is clear and specific. The Commissioner may make such an order. It is left entirely in his discretion and there is no power in the solicitor to the Land Commission, of his own volition, without a court order, to walk in and take possession.
The very section upon which the Parliamentary Secretary in his reply relies shows that here an attempt is being made to extort money—and I use the word extort deliberately—from an annuitant, by threats that the Land Commission will do things, according to the solicitor's letter, that there is no power in law to do. I thought that the great law-breaking Department in this State was the Department of Justice, but I now think the Land Commission has been law breaking, and encouraging law breaking, and is going to run the Department of Justice a very good second. Possibly with a little help they may exceed it. Here the Land Commission sends an unfortunate ignorant man, who cannot be expected to know any law, a terrifying notice, intimating that they will do things they have no power to do. I want to know, and I am sure the House and the country want to know, if documents similar to the one that was sent out in this case are to be regarded as so much waste paper, or is it the intention and the policy of the Land Commission to act as this document threatens? Is it the policy of the Land Commission when a man owes an instalment of £4 2s. 10d.—as a matter of fact I am told, if my information is correct, that the instalment should be £3 2s. 10d.—that a man and his family are to be put on the roadside, and a holding that may be worth a large sum of money taken away or seized? Is that the policy of this Administration? Let us know one way or the other. Let us have no dodging. Let us not have the indefinite reply that was given at question time to-day. Let the Parliamentary Secretary say if it is the policy of the Land Commission to evict everyone who owes a certain gale of the annuity. If that is the policy let the Parliamentary Secretary get up and say so. If that is not the policy let the Parliamentary Secretary explain why documents threatening to take that course are being sent out to these unfortunate people.
I wonder if the Parliamentary Secretary or the Minister recognises the consternation there must be in a country house when a notice of the kind is received. Remember the position of the family living in the little home, and that has nothing else but what can be made out of the holding. Some may have relatives in England to assist them to keep going. A great many of these people have nothing to depend upon but the home and the piece of land attached to it. If they fall into arrears in the payment of the annuity are they to be terrorised by being informed that they are going to be evicted? What can be the feelings of persons who receive notices to the effect that they are to be evicted? Are these notices so much waste paper or is this being done merely to terrorise people, to render them miserable and unhappy, and to destroy all peace and contentment in the unfortunate households into which such terrible documents go? Is it the real intention of the Department, of the Minister, and of the Parliamentary Secretary to evict, wherever there is a single gale of the annuity due?
One other matter arises on this answer. In his reply the Parliamentary Secretary stated: "In carrying out their statutory duties as regards the recovery of arrears of annuities the Land Commission consider the circumstances of each defaulter." Is that true? Do they? Does the Parliamentary Secretary mean what he says in the answer? If he does, there is a strange difference of opinion between the Parliamentary Secretary and the Minister for Lands. The Parliamentary Secretary will discover that, in a speech made by the Minister for Lands on the Land Commission Estimate in 1934, which appears in the Parliamentary Debates, Volume 53, column 1157, the Minister stated that the Land Commission did not make any inquiries as to the circumstances of persons before they took steps to collect the annuities. He gave as a reason—and it may be a correct reason—that it would be utterly impossible for the Land Commission to do so. He said that 52,508 notices had been sent out, and that it would be impossible to inquire into these 52,508 cases. The Parliamentary Secretary in his reply states: "The Land Commission consider the circumstances of each defaulter." I do not know how many there are in arrear this year. I am sure the number is in excess of last year. Let us take the figure of 52,508 for last year. The Parliamentary Secretary's reply stated: "In carrying out their statutory duties as regards the recovery of arrears of annuities the Land Commission consider the circumstances of each defaulter."
While the Parliamentary Secretary tells us that in 52,508 cases the Land Commission considered the circumstances of every defaulter, the answer bears its own contradiction in the next paragraph, which states that since the issue of the printed notice Mr. Scahill has made an offer to the Land Commission to pay the arrears at the rate of 15/- per quarter. Here is a man who gets a notice to pay £4 9s. 10d. within ten days or he will be ejected, and all he can do is to scrape together 15/- and to offer another 15/- per quarter. That shows the financial position of this unfortunate man upon whom this ejectment notice has been served. The Parliamentary Secretary's reply states: "This offer is at the moment under consideration." It is not acceptable. The man finds himself in the position of not knowing whether the offer will be accepted or whether himself and his family will be thrown on the roadside. The position is vague and indefinite. How does the Parliamentary Secretary reconcile the two contradictory statements, that the Land Commission thoroughly investigate each case before they send out notices, and investigated the financial position of Mr. Scahill, and yet do not know whether they will take the offer of 15/- per quarter or not? Why not? Why are they not willing now to accept or to reject the offer? The position is contradictory. I should like to speak at greater length on this matter but I will confine myself to the ordinary rules and give the Parliamentary Secretary the usual ten minutes' reply. I say to the Parliamentary Secretary that if this and similar documents represent the views of the Land Commission, and if it is not a lie but a truthful document, expressing the real opinion of the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary, then, for the peace and the well-being of this country, the sooner the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary change their tune the better.
