This may be described as an amending and interpreting Bill, in that it is designed mainly as a further interpretation of the intentions of the Land Acts, 1923 to 1933, rather than as a measure containing fresh land legislation or embodying new policy. In enacting measures covering such a wide scope as the group of Land Acts since 1923, it was inevitable that there should be omissions of detail and failures of expression which only came to light in the practical working of the code by the Land Commission and its interpretation by the courts. This Bill proposes to remedy a number of minor flaws in the prior Land Acts which have produced various administrative difficulties, delays and hindrances in the work of land purchase and land division.
In moving the Second Reading of this Bill, I wish to express my deep personal regret at the untimely death of the ex-Minister for Lands and Agriculture, the late Deputy Patrick Hogan. I was looking forward to his criticism of this Bill for, whether one agreed with him or not, Deputy Hogan's arguments were well worth listening to. His keen and abiding interest in the land laws was well known to all of us in this House. It was only on yesterday that I received from him some suggestions for this Bill. I am looking into these suggestions to see whether they are covered by the Bill or whether they can be dealt with on the Committee Stage. The late Deputy Hogan was one of the pioneers of land legislation. His name will always be honoured for his work in connection with the Land Act of 1923 and for his efforts for the completion of land purchase and the provision of land for congests.
It is important that the main provisions of the Bill should be enacted as soon as possible in order that the Land Commission may be able to get ahead with their programme for the acquisition and division of untenanted land in the autumn. Their work since the end of last year has been seriously handicapped by the effect of certain judicial decisions on points arising out of the interpretation of sections of the Land Act, 1933, and it is one of the principal objects of the present Bill to remedy the defective sections and clarify the intentions of the Act.
The Bill covers a variety of miscellaneous matters so that any explicit generalisation of its 43 clauses is impracticable. Many of the proposed amendments in the law are purely technical and scarcely admit of brief elucidation, and on the other hand some of the clauses are self-explanatory.
The opening clauses of the Bill are the usual formal references to title, rule-making and payment of expenses. I may say here that it is not anticipated that the working of this Bill is going to involve any abnormal expense or, indeed, any appreciable fresh expense, but the usual provision must be inserted in the Bill.
Clause 4 contains provisions in regard to the redemption of Land Bonds issued under the authority contained in the Land Bond Act, 1933, or the Land Bond Act, 1934. Sub-section (4) of Section 4 of the Land Bond Act, 1933, and sub-section (2) of Section 7 of the Land Bond Act, 1934, provide that the Minister for Finance shall by regulations make arrangements for the redemption by means of periodical drawings of land bonds issued under the authority of those Acts.
It is not possible to include in the periodical drawings any land bonds unless they are registered, numbered and of definite denominations. When land bonds are issued for the purchase of an estate they are inscribed in bulk in the books of the bank in the name of the Land Commission and to the separate credit of the estate concerned. It is only when the purchase money is being distributed that the bonds are divided into various denominations and are registered and numbered. While only registered bonds participate in the drawings, the sums set aside in the Land Bond Fund for the redemption of the bonds by means of periodical drawings include not only sums set aside in respect of registered bonds, but also sums set aside in respect of inscribed bonds. Holders of registered bonds feel that this arrangement unduly increases the risk of their bonds being drawn for redemption. The regulations relating to matters referred to in paragraph (a) of sub-section (1) of Section 4 of this Bill will enable the Minister for Finance to postpone the first drawings of the land bonds issued under the Land Bond Acts, 1933 and 1934, until such time as he feels that the holders of registered bonds will not be faced with a disproportionate risk of having their bonds drawn for redemption.
The regulations referred to in paragraph (b) of sub-section (1) will enable an improvement to be effected in the procedure for the drawing of land bonds of the smaller denominations. As matters stand each £1 bond and each £10 bond is represented by a separate disc, and has to be drawn separately. The grouping of the bonds in units of £100 will mean that only one disc instead of ten will have to be drawn in the case of the £10 bonds, and only one disc instead of £100 will have to be drawn in the case of the £1 bonds. When bonds of various denominations are subject to redemption by drawings it is usual to provide that bonds of the lower denominations should be grouped.
Sub-section (2) of the section empowers the Minister for Finance to invest sums set aside for the redemption of bonds pending the time that they are required for periodical drawings. If the first drawing of bonds is postponed for two years or longer, it is desirable that the sums set aside should be invested in securities bearing a fair rate of interest and not likely to suffer from capital depreciation, so as not to extend unduly the final redemption of land bonds. The State and the tenant purchaser between them pay into the Land Bond Fund each year sums equivalent to 4¾ per cent. on all sums advanced or paid by the issue of land bonds. The first charge on the sums paid into the Land Bond Fund is the payment of interest on the land bonds. As bonds are drawn for redemption and cancelled the amount required for the payment of interest is reduced, and the amount available for the redemption of the bonds will be increased. The interest earned on the investment of the sums set aside will be to some extent an offset against the reduction of the amount available for redemption owing to the postponement of the inception of the drawings. No alteration in the arrangements for the drawing of the British Guarantee 4½ per cent. land bonds can be made under this section.
Clause 5 contains a provision which should have been in the Act of 1933, and enables a funding annuity, i.e., an annuity set up to repay the arrears which were funded on holdings by the Act; of 1933, to be redeemed out of the resumption price of a holding. In the absence of this power funding annuities applicable to resumed lands have remained attached to the lands and have had to be apportioned amongst the various allotments into which the Land Commission divide a holding on resale. It is objectionable that new allottees should be burdened, even technically, with the repayment of the funded arrears of former owners and this clause will permit of the redemption of these funding annuities in the same manner as ordinary land annuities and other overhead charges are redeemed and cleared away under the existing law. There is nothing new in principle in the proposal which is in line with all previous practice.
The purpose of Clause 6 expressed in simple language is to apply to lands compulsorily acquired by the Land Commission the same provisions as regards redeeming existing purchase annuities as already apply under Section 56 of the Land Act, 1927, to lands voluntarily acquired. Claims against purchase moneys in respect of death duties and redemption of purchase annuities were ordinarily met by the immediate redemption at par of such bonds as were allocated for the purpose. As the cash available in the Sinking Fund was for some years insufficient to meet these claims, recourse had to be made temporarily to the Guarantee Fund. This being objectionable from the ratepayer's point of view, a change of procedure was made as regards death duties by Section 3 (1) of the Act of 1931. As the number of cases under the Act of 1933. in which redemption of purchase annuities has to be effected, is very large, and as the amount of Sinking Fund at present available would he insufficient to meet calls upon it, Clause 6 has been introduced to avoid again drawing on the Guarantee Fund. As long as bonds are at a premium the procedure proposed of reckoning the market value instead of the nominal value of the bonds will be more advantageous to the vendor than the present practice.
Clause 7 arises out of recent experience gained by the Land Commission in migrating a number of small holders from the West of Ireland to the County Meath, and gives the Land Commission statutory power to supply these migrants on their arrival with some provisions (the necessity for this for the first day or two will be apparent to everybody), and with fuel for domestic use, and it further gives definite statutory sanction to the Land Commission in respect of the special assistance which they have found it necessary to offer to these migrants in the cultivation and development of their new holdings. Whenever possible, migrants are transferred to their new homes at periods of the year when they can undertake their own tillage and put in their own crops and when they can cut and save their own supplies of turf. But it has happened already, and no doubt it will happen again, that migrants, of necessity, have had to be installed at a time of the year when tillage is not possible and when the turf cutting season is over. If they are to exist and carry on in their new holdings the Land Commission must prepare the way for them by tilling and cropping a certain proportion of the farms and by cutting and harvesting domestic turf supplies. It is not intended to do more than is essential at the particular season of the year to give the migrants a fair start. Some of this work will naturally be found to be necessary before the migrants take over possession of their new farms, but it is not proposed to continue assistance, however slight, for any period later than 18 months after the migrant is installed.
Clause 7 also includes covering sanction for the payment of the costs of bringing migrants to inspect holdings which are being offered to them. It will be understood that this is a necessary and unavoidable expenditure. It could not, for instance, be expected that the recent migrants from the Connemara district to County Meath would be willing to accept their new holdings unseen and, consequently, the Land Commission brought them or their representatives up to County Meath beforehand and showed them the lands and houses intended for them. The expense involved was very slight as special terms were obtained from the railway company, and it is not expected that heavy expenses will ever be incurred in bringing a proposed migrant to see the new holding intended for him.
In Clause 8 power is taken of transferring to a migrant's new holding any arrears of annuity for which he is liable in his old holding and freeing his old holding from these arrears so that the Land Commission may be enabled to divide the old holding amongst new allottees discharged from these liabilities. The lack of this provision has been a source of difficulty to the Land Commission in disposing of migrants' old holdings. Parties to whom it was proposed to allot portions of these old holdings naturally felt aggrieved at being required to assume responsibility for arrears of annuity, etc., accumulated by the preceding owner. As the law stands, these arrears remain on the land, but it is considered only right and proper that they should be rather attached to the migrant who incurred them and that they should follow him and become a charge upon his new holding. In other words, that he should carry his own debts instead of leaving them behind to be discharged by the parties to whom his old holding will be given.
In Clause 9 the Bill takes up and deals with another aspect of annuity arrears which has been a source of difficulty for years past. Up to the present there has been no power to waive or wipe out arrears of annuities. They remain a charge upon the lands, and the Land Commission have had, on this account, extreme difficulty in disposing of defaulters' holdings of which they had taken possession and upon which the burden of arrears was so great that no one could he found to take them over. And the same applies to untenanted land which they had taken back from allottees who had fallen into arrear. We are now taking power to sell these holdings or parcels discharged from all or part of the arrears, and, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, to write off as much of the arrears as we find it impossible to recover. We frequently have purchasers who are willing and ready to pay us a price which will go a certain distance towards clearing off arrears in cases where the holdings are really not worth the existing total debt, and we consider it better that we should be able to close with such offers and get neglected and derelict land back into cultivation and paying its way again than that we should remain in possession with arrears accumulating and no possibility of securing a return from the lands. The operation of the clause will represent a distinct gain to the State, although I am glad to say that the number of cases to which it is likely to apply is not going to be very great, in my opinion.
In Clause 10 we are removing a doubt which remains in the interpretation of the Act of 1931 as regards the applicability of Sections 13, 15, 18, 19 and 20 of that Act to cases of the over-issue or under-issue of bonds in payment of compounded arrears of rent. There should be no difference in the treatment of bonds issued in respect of compounded arrears of rent and bonds issued in respect of standard purchase annuities, and it was not intended that there should be any difference. The clause merely gives statutory effect to the intentions of the legislature and to the practice of the Land Commission since the Act of 1931 was passed.
Clause 11 is drafted to meet an administrative difficulty which has been experienced since 1931. Under Sections 13, 15 and 19 of the Land Act, 1931, bonds over-issued in any particular estate are required to be redeemed. It is proposed that instead of redeeming land bonds over-issued in one estate they should, where practicable, be utilised for the benefit of estates in which there has been an under-issue of land bonds. The proposal is a simple and businesslike one. An adjustment account will be instituted in the books of the Land Commission and the finance of the Land Acts will be facilitated by the suggested arrangement.
The amendment in sub-section (3) of Clause 11 of the wording of clause (c) of Section 20 and clause (b) of Section 21 (4) of the Land Act, 1931, is rendered necessary by Sections 12 and 19 of the Land Act, 1933, whereby the annuity payable by the tenant was reduced by 50 per cent. or 55 per cent., the balance being payable by the State. In cases where it is known that excess bonds have been issued the vendor should, in equity, recoup the full amount which he has received.
Under Section 51 of the Land Act, 1931 (which is repealed by Clause 12), and the rules made under that Act tenant-purchasers were enabled to pay-by instalments the additional sum-referred to in Section 28 (3) of the Land Act, 1923. Some 80,000 holdings were vested in the Land Commission in the year 1931. The instalments of additional sum in these cases have long since been liquidated. The additional sum is only one-sixth of one year's annuity and as it is halved under the Land Act of 1933 it is considered that the instalment revision is not now necessary for such tenants as may, in future, be admitted to the benefit of land purchase. Besides, these small practical payments involve a disproportionate amount of clerical and accounting work in the Land Commission.
We now come to an important clause—Clause 13—called for by a ruling of the Supreme Court interpreting one of the provisions of the Land Act, 1933. One of the main purposes of this Bill which I am now introducing is to clarify certain provisions of previous Acts, the terms of which have recently either been interpreted by the courts in a manner different from the intentions of the Oireachtas or have otherwise been found not to be sufficiently clear and self-explanatory. The matter dealt with by Clause 13 is one in which the courts have ruled that the wording of the Act of 1933 is not sufficiently clear as to the intentions of the legislature. About those intentions there is no doubt but we must make sure that they are clearly and adequately expressed in our legislation and that is what we propose to do by Section 13. It was thought that Section 38 of the Land Act, 1933, had given the Land Commission power to reduce the standard purchase annuities of holdings subject to judicial rents and now in the course of purchase under the Act of 1923. A decision of the Supreme Court, however, shows that the Act, as worded, provides for revision only in cases of non-judicial rents. We are putting the matter right, we hope, by this clause 13 which is retrospective, and which specifically enacts that the Land Commission have power to revise annuities on holdings subject to judicial rents. For the information of Deputies, I might, perhaps, state that Section 38 of the 1933 Act enables the Land Commission, where they are not satisfied that a holding included in a list of vested holdings was, on the 9th August, 1923, security for the standard purchase annuity, to reduce the standard purchase annuity to what they regard as a proper figure and it was, definitely, the intention of the Legislature that this power should be given to the Land Commission in respect of holdings subject to judicial rents just as fully as in the case of non-judicial rents.
Now, the necessity for taking power to revise annuities arising out of holdings where judicial rents were fixed in the past may be questioned in the course of debate here. Many people assume that rents which were the subject of judicial orders and which were entitled to periodic reductions once, twice or three times under former Acts, must be fair and satisfactory. That that is not so in every case many Deputies are aware. There are estates and there are individual holdings in which, for one reason or another, judicial rents were arrived at which were always wrong and excessive and which cannot bear examination. There are not a great number of such rents, but, still, there do exist too many cases where the resulting annuities would be definitely unsafe and insecure from the point of view of the Land Commission whose duty is twofold as they have to see that the tenant purchaser is not saddled with a burden of repayment which he is likely to be unable to bear and, secondly, that the vendor is not paid a purchase money far in excess of the value of the land. Let me mention a few examples, actual instances with which the Land Commission desire to deal under the powers taken in Section 38:—
|
Standard Purchase Annuity based on Judicial Rent |
Standard Purchase Annuity based on Land Commission Fair Rent |
|||||
|
£ |
s. |
d. |
£ |
s. |
d. |
|
|
(1) |
7 |
3 |
0 |
4 |
4 |
0 |
|
(2) |
7 |
4 |
11 |
4 |
4 |
0 |
|
(3) |
110 |
9 |
4 |
83 |
17 |
2 |
|
(4) |
73 |
10 |
0 |
65 |
2 |
0 |
|
(5) |
86 |
1 |
8 |
70 |
0 |
0 |
|
(6) |
28 |
0 |
0 |
11 |
4 |
0 |
|
(7) |
205 |
11 |
5 |
154 |
0 |
1 |
|
(8) |
51 |
16 |
0 |
27 |
2 |
6 |
|
(9) |
10 |
8 |
0 |
7 |
7 |
0 |
|
(10) |
23 |
15 |
10 |
17 |
10 |
0 |
|
(11) |
16 |
17 |
10 |
9 |
2 |
0 |
|
(12) |
6 |
10 |
0 |
3 |
1 |
9 |
|
(13) |
30 |
18 |
10 |
15 |
18 |
6 |
|
(14) |
16 |
5 |
10 |
8 |
9 |
0 |
|
(15) |
12 |
18 |
4 |
7 |
16 |
0 |
That list shows what we are attempting to do under this section and what we attempted to do under the 1933 Act. I think all Deputies will agree that if an annuity, based on the judicial lent, is twice what in the opinion of the Land Commission the land can bear, that we should take steps now to reduce the annuity accordingly.
Under Section 2 of the Land Act, 1929, it was provided that agreements between landlord and tenant as to purchase annuities on holdings subject to non-judicial rents entered into before the passing of that Act could be received and acted upon by the Land Commission. Causes 14 of this Bill enables such agreements between landlord and tenant to be received and acted upon if entered in to since the date of the passing of the Act of 1929. These agreements, of course, are subject to the overriding power of revision given to the Land Commission by Section 38 of the 1933 Act, to which I have just referred.
Deputies are aware that under the existing provisions of the Land Code tenant-purchasers are frequently required to pay portion of the purchase money of their holdings in cash. This usually happens, I may say, when the standard price of the holding exceeds £3,000. The Land Commission will make advances repayable on the usual terms up to a purchase money of £3,000 in ordinary cases or of £5,000 in cases of stud farms covered by Section 9 of the Land Act of 1927 (half of this is borne by the State, the tenant being liable only for 50 per cent. of the annuity on the purchase money). But they may require the excess beyond £3,000 or £5,000 to be paid in cash. Similarly, in the allotment of untenanted land and the resale of holdings on Congested Districts Board estates, sales for cash or part cash are regular features of Land Commission work. Clause 15 of the Bill provides that where the whole or part of the purchase money is payable in cash the cash payment shall be utilised to redeem an equivalent (£ for £) amount of the original advance to the vendor and thus relieve the State of the burden imposed on it by the Land Act, 1933, Section 22, whereby the State became liable for half of such payments. It is considered proper that £1 paid in cash in cases where £3,000 or £5,000 has been advanced or in cash sales of untenanted land should redeem £1 of the original advance and not £2 as would result from the application of Section 22 of the 1933 Act to these cash payments.
I should like to call attention to sub-section (2) (b) of Clause 15. The Land Commission, in allotting untenanted land, frequently distribute for cash small plots of turbary required by parties who have no holdings with which an annuity could be consolidated. In such cases as these the price apportioned on the plot is the same price as that applicable to plots given to smallholders, who will pay for them by means of annuities, whose annuities are halved in accordance with the terms of the 1933 Act. In such cases it is considered that the cash payments being made by parties who are equally if not more necessitous than the smallholders should be half the apportioned price, so that the payment to be exacted from these people will be on exactly the same basis as that exacted from smallholders. Sub-section (2) (1)) gives the Land Commission this power and sub-section (3) gives them a similar power in regard to sales for cash of holdings on Congested Districts Board estates. It would be wrong to charge full cash prices in cases like these while dividing annuity payments in two for purchasers on the same estates who are in a position to accept advances.
Clause 16 is a corollary of Clause 15 and provides that whenever the Land Commission decide to make an advance of more than £3,000 to a purchaser (or of more than £5,000 in the case of holdings coming under the stud farm provisions of Section 9 (2) of the Land Act, 1927) so much of the advance as exceeds the normal limit of £3,000 or £5,000, as the case may be, shall not be revised under the Land Act, 1933. That is to say, a tenant-purchaser, the standard price of whose holding is, say, £4,000, and to whom the Land Commission agree to make an advance of the full purchase money, will be expected to pay half annuity on £3,000 and full annuity on the remaining £1,000. We feel that a purchaser who obtains the benefit of an advance exceeding £3,000 (or £5,000) has no cause to complain if, having obtained that amount at half rates, he is called upon to pay the full annuity rate upon what might be referred to as the excess advance. The clause also contains provisions by which holdings of husband and wife are bulked for the purpose of calculating the advance for which they are liable.
A recent decision of the High Court, interpreting the existing law regarding the levying of fees and expenses by county registrars and sheriffs enforcing warrants of the Land Commission for the collection of arrears, makes it necessary that the statutes should contain clear and explicit powers for the collection of such fees and expenses. The High Court declared that the addition of sheriffs' fees and expenses would invalidate a warrant issued under Section 28 of the Land Act, 1933. The position is now rectified by Clause 17, which is retrospective and which enables fees and expenses incurred by a county registrar or under-sheriff in the execution of warrants of the Land Commission issued under Section 28 of the Land Act, 1933, to be charged by him against the defaulter.
Clause 18 is also concerned with the machinery of collection. It is intended to remedy a defect in Section 31 of the Land Act, 1927. It has been held by the courts that in cases where the debtor is not in law the owner of the lands the section does not enable a levy to be made on the property of third parties found on the lands which are charged with the annuity for default of payment of which the Land Commission has obtained judgment or issued their warrant. Clause 18 of this Bill will enable orders at the suit of the Land Commission to be executed on all stock found on the lands which are liable to payment of the sums in respect of which the order is granted or the warrant issued. It is required to meet the not uncommon case where an annuity payer occupying a farm of land has not made out title in succession to the former owner. Section 28 of the Land Act, 1927, makes the occupier liable for the debt, but the effect of the section has been to an extent nullified by the restriction of the power of execution given by Section 31 to property found upon the occupier's own lands. If such an occupier lets the lands (which are not legally his own) it would not be in order for a sheriff to seize the stock belonging to a third party. Clause 18 rectifies that position and deprives a defaulting occupier and actual owner of that particular avenue of escape.
Clause 19 is also drafted with a view to clearing up a doubt affecting the collection powers of the Land Commission. It extends specifically the provisions of the Enforcement of Court Orders Act, 1926, in regard to the examination of debtors as to their means, to the case of debtors against whom a Land Commission warrant under Section 28 of the Land Act, 1933, has been issued. Although Section 28 states that a warrant shall have the same force and effect as an execution order within the meaning of the Enforcement of Court Orders Act, some doubt appears to exist as to how far these particular provisions of the Enforcement of Court Orders Act apply to such cases, and it is considered desirable to have a clear statutory statement on the point.
Clause 20 is purely administrative. It extends the power of the Land Commission so as to enable them to appoint limited administrators to deceased purchasers in cases where advances are proposed to be made for the improvement of holdings of which the registered owners are dead. In any such case the appropriate next-of-kin can in future be recognised by the Land Commission as limited administrator for this particular purpose and can sign for the advance.
Section 24 of the Land Act, 1923, provided amongst other matters that all untenanted land situated in congested districts counties, whether acquired by the Land Commission for the relief of congestion or not, should automatically vest in the Land Commission on the appointed day. And by Section 32 of the same Act an owner could require the Land Commission to resell to him such lands as were not wanted for the relief of congestion and to make an advance to him for that purpose up to the limit prescribed. There is there, it will be seen, statutory provision for the automatic purchase by the Land Commission and resale to the owners of such untenanted land in the congested districts counties as is not required by the Land Commission for the relief of congestion. The process entails the issue of land bonds and corresponding State commitments, and as the lands concerned would be in practically every instance residential holdings, often freehold, there is really no necessity for it. Under Clause 21 of the Bill such untenanted land will be just left in the owner's possession. He will no longer be in a position to call upon the Land Commission to purchase the lands from him for land bonds and to resell them to him on an annuity basis. He is already where it is the object of the Land Commission to place all tenant purchasers—full owner of his land.
Clause 22 repeals, in effect, the provisions of Section 42 of the Land Act, 1927, dealing with what are called "committee" cases. This section of the Act of 1927 was intended to benefit those "committees" of purchasers (or guarantors of purchase money) whose operations (with which most Deputies will be familiar) had taken place within a ten-year period prior to the Act of 1927. It is considered that all these cases have now been dealt with, and it is proposed, therefore, that no further applications, other than those received by the Land Commission before the 1st January, 1936, shall be investigated. It cannot be said that members of bona fide“committees” have not had ample time since 1927 to take advantage of the special provisions inserted in the Act of that year for their benefit.
I come now to Clause 23. Under Section 24 (2) (e) of the Land Act, 1923, the purchase provisions of the Land Acts were not applicable to lands possessing a substantial value or utility, whether potential or actual, as building ground. This restriction was modified by Section 46 of the Land Act, 1933, which removed it from tenanted land suitable for building if such building had not been already undertaken. Following the trend of land legislation applicable to tenanted land, we consider that the restriction still existing against the Land Commission acquiring land which is suitable for building should now be confined to land which has an actual as distinguished from a potential value as building ground, and Clause 23 is inserted to produce this result. Experience has shown that the phrase "potential value" is too vague and might result in excluding definitely from purchase by the Land Commission land which is really agricultural.
Some doubt has been raised as to whether the powers of resumption possessed by the Land Commission enable them to acquire retained holdings for the purpose of distribution amongst the parties specified in Section 31 of the Land Act, 1923. The Land Commission wish to have it made perfectly clear that they are empowered to resume a holding compulsorily and to utilise it for all their statutory purposes as indicated in Section 32 of the Land Act, 1933, and we are therefore inserting Clause 24 in this Bill extending definitely and specifically the compulsory powers given to the Land Commission in respect of resumption. There is no new principle involved, as it is obvious that the Land Commission must have power to utilise resumed lands as fully and as freely as the ordinary untenanted lands which they acquire compulsorily.
The clause also includes a fresh provision enabling the Land Commission to take possession of a holding before the resumption price is fixed in cases where urgent improvement works have to be carried out prior to distribution. Pending the issue of the land bonds applicable to the resumption price, the person entitled will be paid interest on the resumption price. These proposals are in line with the provisions of Sections 30 and 31 of the Land Act, 1933; Clause 25 has been prepared in order to simplify the procedure followed by the Land Commission when acquiring land compulsorily. In future the one procedure as regards certificates, publication of provisional lists, hearing of objections and so on will be followed whether the lands proposed to be acquired compulsorily are needed for the relief of congestion or for the purpose of resale to the parties indicated in Section 31 of the Land Act, 1923, under the powers given by Section 32 of the Land Act, 1933.
Under Clause 26 it is made clear that even when lands have been declared and acquired compulsorily fur the relief of congestion provision may be made in the distribution of those lands for employees who have lost their employment as a result of the purchase of the lands by the Land Commission. There is here only a formal legal expression of what has long been recognised in practice, because the Land Commission in dividing lands always considered the claims of ex-employees and provided for them even on lands which had been declared as required for the relief of congestion.
Under Section 29 (1) of the Land Act, 1933, the owner of land which is being compulsorily acquired for the relief of congestion is entitled in certain circumstances to claim an alternative holding if he is not already the owner of other land to the market value of £2,000. In Clause 27 lands owned by a husband and wife are to be bulked for the purpose of arriving at the market value of the lands remaining in the possession of a tenant or proprietor after the portion proposed to be compulsorily acquired by the Land Commission has been purchased. This provision is necessary in order to avoid an obvious opportunity for evasion of the intentions of the 1933 Act.
In a case (estate of Peter C. Alley) which came before the Appeal Tribunal in April last, it was held that in the absence from the section of a specific vesting provision, lands certified by the lay commissioners under Section 32 of the Land Act, 1933, as being required for the purpose of resale to the persons or bodies mentioned in Section 31 of the Land Act, 1923, could not vest in the Land Commission. This decision has held up action in a large number of cases in which the Land Commission were proceeding to acquire lands compulsorily for their statutory purposes and had issued or were about to issue certificates under Section 32. Clause 28 provides the legal provision which was found to be missing and secures that lands certified by the lay commissioners under Section 32 of the Act of 1933 shall vest in the Land Commission on the appointed day.
Under Section 30 of the Land Act, 1933, the Land Commission are given power to acquire untenanted lands before the price is agreed upon or fixed wherever such land is required for immediate distribution. Experience has shown that immediate possession is at times required by the Land Commission in order to enable them to get allead with improvement works which are necessary forerunners of distribution, and in Clause 29 of this Bill the power of early entry on lands given by Section 30 of the 1933 Act is extended to enable the Land Commission to get immediate possession where they find that there are improvement works which are necessary and which should be put in hands before actual distribution. A case in point would be a large estate which is capable of being broken up into a number of holdings on which residences and out-offices have to be built. The sooner the Land Commission can go into possession of these lands for the purpose of getting on with building works the better the progress they will be able to make with their land division operations. The landowner is placed in no worse position than he is at present, as all objections must be cleared before the Land Commission can go into possession and no question will remain to be settled except that of price.
Clause 30 is almost self-explanatory. Under Section 14 of the Land Act, 1931, claims of tenants to have their names included in a list of vested holdings must be listed for public hearing by the Commissioners. Clause 30 does away with the necessity and the trouble and expense of these public. hearings in cases in which the tenants' claims are admitted by the landlord and approved by the Land Commission and will save time and costs to all parties.
There has been some doubt, I understand, in the minds of lawyers as to the legal effect of the "listing" of holdings under Sections 23 and 24 of the 1931 Act upon the rights of the Land Commission in respect of the lands listed. Clause 31 declares that the listing of a holding docs not deprive the Land Commission of any rights which they possessed in relation to the holding immediately before the publication of the list. Many holdings published in these lists are held under grazing agreements or temporary convenience agreements. As a result of "listing" the tenants have been given the benefit of revised payments, but it has been suggested that they are entitled to much more and that parties holding from the Land Commission under these agreements are practically in the same position as annuity payers. The Land Commission could not accept such an interpretation of the law and this Clause 31 has been inserted to make the position clear and to preserve the rights of the State.
Clause 32 is mainly a matter of office procedure. It proposes to dispense with the necessity of publishing in lists under Section 24 of the Land Act, 1931, parcels of untenanted land held under undertakings to purchase where the entire purchase money is being advanced. It will save time and trouble by dispensing with a quite unnecessary piece of procedure.
Clause 33 by sub-section (1) deals with the reference to "the Minister for Lands and Agriculture" in Section 9 (1) of the Land Act, 1927, and provides that the Minister to be consulted, so far as stud farms are concerned, is the Minister for Agriculture. He is really the Minister who is in a position to say whether or not a stud farm is being conducted on any lands and whether or not the thoroughbred stock bred there is suitable to and required by the country.
Sub-section (2) of Clause 33 makes it clear that decisions as to whether lands are used as stud farms are to be made by the Lay Commissioners with an appeal available to the Appeal Tribunal on questions of law or of value.
The Land Commission are at present empowered to provide rights-of-way to and from land sold or agreed to be sold under the Land Purchase Acts. The provision of a right-of-way is frequently undertaken as an improvement upon an existing right-of-way which, consequently, becomes unnecessary, but the Acts so far contain no provision enabling this unnecessary right-of-way to be extinguished. Power is, accordingly, being taken under Clause 34 to extinguish in such cases existing rights-of-way, but only where new rights-of-way are being conferred in substitution for them.
Of late years the attention of the Land Commission has been drawn to quite a number of instances around the coast in which pasture lands and tillage have been lost or seriously encroached upon by blowing sand and in practically every case it has been proved that the damage has resulted from failure to preserve and spread bent grass which appears to be the natural protector of these areas. Even when their own property is in danger, farmers have been known to persist in cutting and removing the bent, which, if allowed to spread naturally, would have saved their lands from being destroyed by blowing sands. The Land Commission have in hands a number of schemes for the reclamation of lands covered by blowing sand and they have found that success has attended the fencing off of the damaged areas from trespass by cattle and the planting of bent under suitable conditions of protection. It is considered desirable, however, if the State is not to be called upon to incur heavy expenditure all round the coast in restoring property which it is in the power of the owners themselves to protect, that something should be done to prevent the cutting or removal of bent from areas where danger is anticipated. Powers are accordingly being taken in Clause 35 making it an offence to cut or remove bent or any similar grass in cases where land which has been or is about to be sold under the Land Purchase Acts is likely to be injured.
The next Clause, 36, is called for by the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of the estate of David Rafferty, in which case it was held that lands once vested in purchasers under the Land Act, 1923, could not subsequently be acquired by the Land Commission under their compulsory powers. The Clause, which is retrospective, enables such land to be acquired for distribution purposes just as lands purchased under the Acts prior to 1923 can be acquired. There is, of course, no reason why these lands should be given a status of indemnity not given to lands purchased under, say, the Acts of 1903 and 1909 and it was not intended that they should be specially excluded from compulsory acquisition for all time. An important provision in the Clause is that those lands are not to be interfered with in future by way of compulsory acquisition within a period of seven years after vesting.
Clause 37 enables the Land Commission to acquire sporting rights over lands vested under the Land Act, 1923, which were excluded from that vesting. Deputies will remember that a similar power was given by Section 34 of the Land Act, 1933, in the case of land vested under the Land Acts prior to 1923.
Under the Land Act of 1923 the time for ascertaining the character of lands either coming within or excluded from the operations of the Land Purchase Acts was the date of the passing of that Act, i.e., 9th August, 1923. Section 36 of the Act of 1933 modified this requirement as regards agricultural or pastoral, or partly agricultural and partly pastoral, lands and as regards residential holdings and glebe lands and provided that the character of such holdings for the purposes of admissibility to the benefits of land purchase was to be determined by reference to the date of the passing of the 1933 Act, i.e., 13th October, 1933, and to the commencement of every successive period of five years from that date. This modification of Section 36 of the 1933 Act and the provisions of sub-section (2) (b), (c) and (g) of Section 24 of the 1923 Act are now repealed, and it is provided by Clause 38 of the present Bill that the period for determining the character of lands shall be the period of five years preceding the institution of proceedings under the Land Acts; so that lands which, for example, were excluded as being demense lands in 1923 will not now be excluded if they are now and have been for a period of five years undemesned. And similarly as regards residential holdings, home farms, parks, gardens, pleasure grounds, glebe lands and so on.
The Land Commission have frequently of late years been compelled to exclude from the benefits of land purchase holdings of which only part could be held to be entitled to admission under the Land Purchase code, the remainder being properly and clearly excluded for one reason or another; as up to now the Land Commission have not had power to divide such a holding and to apportion the rent on the two parts. Under Clause 39 the Land Commission are now taking these necessary powers of division and apportionment, and in future they will be able to admit to purchase under the Land Purchase Acts that part of a holding which should not be excluded, while the rest of the holding which should be excluded will be allowed to remain in its existing condition, the holding being divided and the rent payable apportioned by the Land Commission. The clause contains suitable provision for appeal to the Appeal Tribunal and later to the Supreme Court on questions of law.
Before admitting to purchase under the Land Acts lands included in fee farm grants and long leases, the Land Commission must be satisfied, inter alia, that “such parcel is not required for the relief of congestion.” This is provided by Section 44 (1) (e) of the Land Act, 1931. In keeping with the powers conferred upon the Land Commission by Section 32 of the Land Act, 1933, it is now necessary to add to this provision, and this is being done in Clause 40 by words setting out that the lands are not required by the Land Commission for distribution amongst the persons or bodies mentioned in Section 31 of the Land Act, 1923.
The next clause, 41, also deals with lands held under fee farm grants and long leases, and modifies the provisions of Section 44 of the Land Act, 1931, and Section 42 of the Land Act, 1933. The principal changes are the following: In future part of a parcel can be given the benefit of the purchase provisions of the Acts and the remainder excluded in cases where the requirements of the Land Acts are fulfilled in respect of part only of the parcel. This power is similar to that being taken under Clause 39, the difficulties experienced by the Land Commission in their dealings with lands held under fee farm grants, etc., being exactly similar to those applicable to dealings with tenanted land where part only of the land came within the four walls of land purchase and part was clearly outside the code. Up to the present the Land Commission have not had power to divide lands and apportion rents under such circumstances.
Then the benefits of Section 44 and Section 42, already referred to, are now by this clause being applied to lands held under fee farm grants and long leases which have already been purchased under the Land Purchase Acts; but it is considered that it would not be proper that lands so admitted to purchase for the second time should be given the benefit of the revision of annuities and the funding of arrears under the Land Act, 1933, and consequently those revising provisions are not to apply to those particular cases.
It is further provided that an application may be granted even when, after the application had been lodged, a grant or lease had been terminated on account of non-payment of rent. There are, it is understood, a number of cases in which parties who have applied to the Land Commission for admission to the benefits of land purchase and who are awaiting a decision upon their applications have been proceeded against by their immediate landlords and decrees obtained.
A further provision to which attention may be called is that in paragraph (g) of Section 41 which states that in fixing the standard purchase annuity of a parcel of land which is being admitted to purchase the Land Commission shall have regard to the value of the land at the date of the order granting the application. Hitherto, standard purchase annuities have been fixed by reference to the value of land at the 9th August, 1923. There are obvious difficulties, becoming greater every day, in fixing now and in the future standard purchase annuities by reference to values of 13 years ago.
Clause 42 enables drainage maintenance charges to be redeemed out of the purchase moneys or resumption prices of the lands liable thereto. This has been the practice of the Land Commission up to the present, and the clause is inserted to give specific statutory sanction to the practice following upon a recent decision that in cases of resumption such charges could not be redeemed. These charges arise under the Drainage Maintenance Acts, 1866 and 1924, and are charges under an award where money has been expended on putting drainage systems into repair; they are not to be confused with maintenance rates imposed annually for the upkeep of drainage systems; these latter are annual irredeemable charges.
The clause does not apply to any charges placed on tenanted lands after the date of vesting in the Land Commission.
The final Clause 43 relates to a question of procedure. In the Irish Land Act of 1903, by Section 16 (2), a statutory two months' notice was required in the case of agreed purchases of untenanted land. Prescribed advertisements have to be published prior to the making of the vesting order. The statutory hold-up of acquisition for two months in a case of voluntary agreement to sell and purchase land has frequently been the cause of difficulty and avoidable delay in distribution. It is unnecessary, and power is taken by Clause 43 to make the period of notice a matter to be prescribed by rule rather than by statute.
It is considered in the Land Commission that in ordinary cases a month's notice and in some cases even less should be ample.
Now, the main reason why this new Land Bill has become necessary and urgent is that when certain of the provisions of the Act of 1933 came to be interpreted in the courts it was found that powers which the Act was intended to give and which the Land Commission thought were in the Statute and upon which they had been acting were not actually conveyed by the wording of the Act as we passed it here. That is no new happening in the subsequent interpretation of legislation by the courts, and often no great damage or difference results. Here, however, as it happens, the want of certain of these powers which the 1933 Land Act was intended to convey has had the result of putting a stop for the time being to urgent and necessary public work with which the Land Commission is entrusted, and so we come to the Dáil with an amending Bill to place the intentions of the Legislature beyond question. To illustrate what has occurred I may refer again to the decision of the Appeal Tribunal in the case of Section 32 of the 1933 Act. Under that section the lay commissioners were given authority to exercise all or any of the powers possessed by them in relation to acquiring lands for the relief of congestion in any case in which they certified that land was required for resale to the persons or bodies mentioned in Section 31 of the Act of 1923 (that is, to uneconomic holders, migrants, evicted tenants, ex-employees, trustees and so on). That section, which seemed to be satisfactory and wide enough as it stood, was introduced to enable the Land Commission to obtain land readily for all their statutory purposes as well as for the relief of congestion, and since the Act was passed most of the Commission's acquisition proceedings have been conducted under it. The court, however, has held that the section should have included a specific provision vesting the certified lands in the Land Commission and in the absence of this provision lands so certified could never vest in the Land Commission who are, therefore, unable to make any use whatever of this particular section. A great deal of land has been certified and the proceedings have advanced a certain distance. When this Bill, which contains in Clause 28 the needed vesting powers, has been passed the Land Commission will be able to complete their work of acquiring these lands and will be able to distribute them in the coming autumn or spring—work which would otherwise have to be postponed indefinitely.
Then there is the matter of the power of the Land Commission under Section 38 of the 1933 Act to reduce standard purchase annuities in certain cases where they are not satisfied that the holdings are security for the advances. That section was intended and drafted to cover cases of judicial as well as non-judicial rents, and when the point was questioned the Appeal Tribunal confirmed the view of the lay commissioners that annuities on holdings formerly held under judicial rents came within the ambit of the section. The Supreme Court, however, arrived at a different conclusion, and so we have come here with Clause 13 of the present Bill to place the matter beyond doubt. There are, as I have shown in what I said just now when dealing in detail with Clause 13, cases of purchase annuities arising out of judicial rents which call for revision just as urgently as do annuities created in respect of non-judicial rents—all judicial rents without exception were not fair and equitable charges—and we could not agree to let these holdings be vested with what the Land Commission consider to be impossible annuities attached to them.
I want it to be clearly understood that in regard to these and the other legal decisions with which the Bill is concerned, we are not challenging the decisions of the courts or their interpretations of the statutes. The courts have a duty to be jealous and strict in preserving the rights and even the privileges of all citizens against interference by anyone, whether a State Department or a private individual, without clear legal warrant, and we here in the Legislature have a duty to see that we express our intentions in our statutes in terms which leave no room for reasonable doubt, and particularly so when, as in our land code, we take powers which affect privileges which have not hitherto been challenged. I say all this because I do not want it to be advanced, as one Deputy advanced the criticism the other day, that we are challenging the decisions of the courts. We are not. What we are doing is amplifying and making clear, we hope beyond reasonable doubt, certain sections which close examination by judicial authority has shown not to contain powers which they were intended to contain and which it was thought they did contain. We can pass statutes here; we do our best to see that they express the intentions of the Legislature, and we have draftsmen second to none—on that point I think the Opposition will agree with me. But we are not the authorities to interpret our own statutes. It is only when, at a later stage, our legislation comes under examination in the courts that we are given a judicial interpretation of what we have done and that we can see whether we have, in fact, done what we proposed to do. So far as this Bill is concerned at all with court decisions, it does no more than set out with what we hope is ample and final clearness proposals which it was thought the previous Acts contained. The courts are entitled to expect that of the Legislature when doubts are raised; so far from challenging judicial decisions, this Bill is one to assist our courts in interpreting the mind of the Legislature in regard to land purchase.
