Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 27 Apr 1937

Vol. 66 No. 12

Committee on Finance. - Vote 54—Lands.

Minister for Lands (Mr. Boland)

—I move:—

Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh thar £1,040,546 chun slánuithe na suime is gá chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1938, chun Tuarastail agus Costaisí Oifig an Aire Tailte agus Oifig Choimisiún Talmhan na hEireann (44 agus 45 Vict., c. 49, a. 46, agus c. 71, a. 4; 48 agus 49 Vict., c. 73, a. 17, 18 agus 20; 53 agus 54 Vict., c. 49, a. 2; 54 agus 55 Vict., c. 48; 3 Edw. 7, c. 37; 7 Edw. 7, c. 38 agus c. 56; 9 Edw. 7, c. 42; Uimh. 27 agus Uimh. 42 de 1923; Uimh. 25 de 1925; Uimh. 11 de 1926; Uimh. 19 de 1927; Uimh. 31 de 1929; Uimh. 11 de 1931; Uimh. 33 agus Uimh. 38 de 1933, Uimh. 11 de 1934; agus Uimh. 41 de 1936).

That a sum not exceeding £1,040,546 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1938, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Offices of the Minister for Lands and of the Irish Land Commission (44 and 45 Vict., c. 49, s. 46, and c. 71, s. 4; 48 and 49 Vict., c. 73, s.s. 17, 18 and 20; 53 and 54 Vict., c. 49, s. 2; 54 and 55 Vict., c. 48; 3 Edw. 7, c. 37; 7 Edw. 7, c. 38, and c. 56; 9 Edw. 7, c. 42; Nos. 27 and 42 of 1923; 25 of 1925; 11 of 1926; 19 of 1927; 31 of 1929; 11 of 1931; 33 and 38 of 1933; 11 of 1934 and 41 of 1936).

The amount of the Vote for the current year shows a net increase of £132,325 on the previous year's total (as adjusted to include the Supplementary Estimate of February last). The principal increases under individual headings which need be mentioned come under sub-heads A, B, I, Q, R and W.

Salaries, wages and allowances under sub-head A are increased by £32,475, owing to an increase in staff (mainly in the inspectorate and acquisition and resales division) and to the normal additions by way of increments of basic salary and bonus. Additional staff is necessary to enable the Land Commissioners to handle the extra work arising out of their activities in land division without undue delay; and also to permit of the enlargement and resumption of important work on the resale of tenanted land estates and of Congested District Board estates in the West many of which have been in hands for years.

Travelling expenses under sub-head B are increased by £2,000 consequent on the increase in the inspectorate staff and anticipated intensive work in inspecting lands for division and other purposes.

There is an increase of £61,200 for land improvement under sub-head I. Last year a sum of £606,992 was actually expended on estate improvements, and it is anticipated that this year's programme of work will be heavier. Improvement expenditure is mainly concerned with such items as house-building, fences, drains and accommodation roads, on newly-divided land, and it will be understood that much of the money expended in any year is in respect of lands which were allotted in the preceding year or even earlier.

It is generally agreed that the outlay on land improvement is useful and economic as it permanently increases the productive capacity of the land and provides welcome employment in agricultural areas, where such work as drainage, fencing and roadmaking can be done largely by unskilled local labour.

It should be mentioned that, included under sub-head I this year, is provision for the payment under Section 35 of the Land Act, 1936, of compensation in respect of extinguishment of rights of way, and also provision for assistance to migrants from the Gaeltacht (which appeared under a separate sub-head, X, in last year's Estimate). This sub-head further includes, as heretofore, sums required for payments under the Workmen's Compensation Act and for the purchase of tenancy interests in holdings on Congested Districts Board estates required to be taken up for division. These items amount to £8,750 and thus the actual amount available for improvement works will be £700,000.

The amount provided under sub-head Q to meet deficiencies in the Land Bond Fund arising from the revision of annuities under Part III of the Land Act, 1933, is increased by £21,000, in view of additional advances expected to be made in the current year and the consequent revision of the annuities by which such advances are repayable, involving a corresponding addition to the deficiency charge.

The amount required under sub-head R for the completion of purchase proceedings still pending under the Land Acts of 1903 and 1909 was put in last year's original Estimate at £7,000, but this was cut down to £2,000 on the taking of the Supplementary Estimate, owing to the advances made during the year under these old Acts having been less than anticipated. The amount for the current year is restored to the figure of £7,000, and this explains the apparent increase of £5,000 under this sub-head.

The apparent increase of £17,000 under sub-head W, for fees payable in connection with proceedings under Section 28 of the Land Act, 1933, is due to the previous Estimate having had reference only to that portion of the year 1936-37 subsequent to the passing of the Land Act, 1936 (on the 14th August last). Section 17 of that Act rectified the omission in Section 28 of the 1933 Act of the specific power to levy sheriff's lodgment fees in respect of warrants issued for the recovery of unpaid annuities, and a sub-head to cover such fees was accordingly introduced in the Supplementary Estimate for last year. It is difficult to estimate accurately what such fees may amount to in the current year, but the round figure of £40,000 is considered adequate. These lodgment fees when recovered from defaulting annuitants are credited as an Appropriation-in-Aid of the Vote. It is expected that about one-fourth of the estimated sum of £40,000 may be so recovered during the current year.

The sub-heads mentioned comprise those in which any considerable increase is shown on last year's Estimate. Most of the other sub-heads are more or less stereotyped, where the annual Estimates only vary within narrow limits, and a number of them represent nominal sums in respect of which actual expenditure is unlikely to arise, though token provision must be made to meet contingent liability.

It should be mentioned, however, that the increase of £500 shown under sub-head F for incidental expenses of the solicitor's branch is due to the inclusion this year of provision for the payment in certain circumstances of compensation to objectors to provisional lists, under Section 26 of the Land Act of 1936.

It will be noticed that sub-head S is now split into two parts. The first part continues the payments due to be made under Section 14, sub-section (4) of the Land Act, 1933, to owners in respect of arrears of interest in lieu of rent, as in last year's original Estimate. The second part is required to meet the deficiency arising from the operation of sub-section (3) of Section 15 of the Land Act, 1933, reducing by 50 per cent. the amount of payment in lieu of rent payable by tenants (who have not yet become annuitants). The Land Commission are (under sub-section (4) of Section 20 of the Land Act, 1923) bound to pay landlords the full amount of payment in lieu of rent, and consequently it is necessary to make provision in the Vote to bridge the gap. A sub-head for this purpose was introduced in the Supplementary Estimate taken in February last. The amount of that sub-head (£1,500) included recoupment of borrowings made from other moneys in the hands of the Department as a temporary arrangement to meet the deficiency. The Estimate for the present year represents only the amount necessary for current payments and the amount is therefore reduced to £500.

The Appropriations-in-Aid of the Vote are expected to realise this year £6,990 more than last year, mainly attributable to the increased amount of fees to be collected in connection with proceedings under Section 28 of the Land Act, 1933 (to which reference has been already made in commenting on sub-head W.

As regards the general proceedings of the Land Commission during the past year, the work in all sections has been well maintained. In regard to the division of untenanted land it has not been possible to repeat the remarkable record of the previous year, owing partly to the increasing difficulty of obtaining large tracts of untenanted land suitable for division and more particularly to the fact that the actual operation of the Land Act, 1936, has been confined to the latter portion of the year. The Act was not passed until the middle of August last and, after that, it took some time to make the necessary rules and regulations for putting its powers into practice. In the circumstances the Land Commission have done well in achieving the division of some 70,000 acres among some 5,800 allottees under the Land Acts 1923-36 and, in addition, over 4,000 acres among 420 allottees on Congested Districts Board Estates. The precise figures are not yet available, as it takes some time to get in and analyse all the division schemes. The mere figures of area divided, however, do not give a full picture of the work achieved. In the year 1935-36 the number of schemes for the distribution of 103,872 acres under the Land Acts, 1923-33 was 950, giving an average of 109 acres per scheme. In the year 1936-37 the number of schemes for the distribution of 70,000 acres was about 900, giving an average of 78 acres per scheme. There is often just as much time and trouble entailed in the acquisition and division of a small estate as of a big one, and this factor should be borne in mind in considering the work of the Land Commission.

As already mentioned, a sum of £606,992 was expended on estate improvements during the year 1936-37, which constitutes a record for the Land Commission.

On the tenanted land side, during the past year some 3,000 holdings were vested in tenant purchasers and the preparation of estates for revesting made good progress. Mere figures of completed vestings do not give a proper idea of the immense amount of correspondence and investigation work involved in the disposal of both the 1923 Act estates and the old Congested Districts Board estates.

As regards the collection of annuities, the position is gradually improving. Of the total amount collectible for all gales from November-December, 1933, to November-December, 1936, inclusive, amounting to £8,489,130, there had been collected at the 31st March last £7,454,000 approximately, leaving an arrear of £1,035,130, or slightly over 12 per cent. of the total collectible. As regards the current gale to November-December, 1936, about 65 per cent. of the amount collectible has been already collected (up to the 31st March last) which, allowing for all the circumstances, is satisfactory. It compares with a collection of about 61 per cent. of the amount collectible for the November-December, 1935, gale at the corresponding date last year.

One other matter of interest to which some reference may be made in conclusion is the recent migration from the Gaeltacht to the new Gaeltacht colony No. 2 at Gibstown, County Meath. The first stage of this has been successfully accomplished and suitable migrants have been selected and installed in the 50 holdings at present available. Nine additional holdings are being prepared on adjoining lands.

The allocation of the migrants has been made from various Gaeltacht counties—16 from Kerry, two from West Cork, six from South Mayo, 12 from North Mayo and 14 from Donegal. The migrants are of a good type and appear to be eager for success in their new holdings. This is a most important factor in a venture such as this, where the personal element counts for a good deal, especially in the initial stage when a certain amount of adaptation to a new environment is required. There is every hope that the colony will be quite successful, and it will form an important contribution towards the solution of the problem of relieving congestion.

In this connection I would like to take the opportunity to correct a statement made by way of reply to a question of Deputy O'Leary on the 21st instant, in reference to the average all-in cost to the Land Commission of holdings allotted to migrants from the Gaeltacht to colony No. 1 at Rathcarran The figure is £1,051 per holding included the cost of providing holdings for four local allottees who had been previously employed on the estate, as this cost had not then been segregated from the cost of providing the 27 holdings for the migrants. The proper average cost for each holding allotted to a migrant from the Gaeltacht is £980 instead of £1,051. Of this figure of £980 per holding, about £295 represents the extra cost of installing a migrant from the Gaeltacht as compared with the cost of allotment to a local landless man.

Mr. Dillon

I suppose it is unreasonable to expect from the Minister as comprehensive a statement on this Vote as would be forthcoming from someone else who would be longer in occupation of his office. We are all aware that the Department of Lands is a very difficult Department to administer, and to obtain a full knowledge of it requires something approximating to a lifetime of experience. But, allowing for all the difficulties that beset those who have to administer the affairs of that Department, I think it is right to direct attention to the fact that the Land Commission is in a state of chaos. You cannot get an answer to any inquiry which you address to them; you cannot get any information, and it is virtually impossible to get anything done. The matter is one of some delicacy, because I feel, as I think every Deputy in this House must feel, considerable reluctance in complaining about the day-to-day work of the Land Commission. My experience, and that of most of my colleagues, is that if you go to the Land Commission personally to ask for any help, whether it be the Minister or the permanent officials of the Department, you are received with every possible consideration; you get all the assistance that a Deputy would ask—and many Deputies want a great deal of assistance in trying to find their way about in the Land Commission— but in the heel of the hunt it is virtually impossible to get anything done, and you have the feeling that men are battling against an impossible task, and that it is simply beyond human capacity to handle the wide variety of problems brought before them. The Minister does not discharge his responsibility merely by sitting up and saying that cannot be helped. It is his job so to organise his own Department as to make it possible for those who work in it to get the work done.

I have not a sufficiently long experience of the Land Commission to know whether it has deteriorated or improved over the last five years. I do not believe it could have deteriorated, because it could not be much worse than it now is. I do urge on the Minister very strongly that steps should be taken to organise the Department on such lines that it would be possible for legitimate inquirers to get a definite answer one way or the other to a reasonable question. I remember the Minister's predecessor in office saying that the difficulty was that so many questions were asked of the Land Commission that it was physically impossible to answer them, and that was all there was about it. That is a grotesque confession of failure. After all, one of the very important duties of any Government Department is to inform legitimate inquirers. You cannot expect the Department to inform cranks and people who have no business at all bothering a Government Department. But where a responsible person asks a question, it ought to be possible to get a definite reply and definite information on the matter about which he addresses them.

I could multiply cases, but I will confine myself to one instance where I believe the personnel of the Land Commission were doing their best, but simply could not get anywhere. I have in mind a case where a man had considerable acreage of turbary, and that man, owing to business circumstances, was very anxious to sell the turbary and get the cash for it in order to meet certain business commitments. He consulted amongst his neighbours and found a number of willing purchasers in the locality who wanted the turbary and were prepared to pay for it. When everything was ready to convey the turbary to the willing purchasers, this man got a notice from the Land Commission to proceed no further as it was their intention compulsorily to acquire the turbary and allot it under the Land Acts, together with some neighbouring pieces of turbary. The man informed the would-be purchasers that he could not go on with the deal as the Land Commission had intervened, and he informed his creditors that in due course he would get money from the Land Commission for the turbary in order to meet his liabilities.

That went on for two years and this man's position was: "Either let me sell the turbary or else take it over; I do not mind which you do; all I want is the money for it." I went in to see the Land Commission about this and was met with every possible consideration and I felt the responsible persons fully understood the peculiar gravity of the situation. They assured me that everything would be done to expedite the acquisition. I should say, in justice to them, that one of their difficulties had been that the land was land to which the 1936 Act applied and, therefore, part of the delay was due to the judicial decision which settled that that type of land could not be compulsorily acquired under the 1933 Land Act. But then, after the 1936 Land Act came into force, I pressed them further and they said no time would be lost, but that the difficulty was that they wanted to incorporate in the scheme of distribution neighbouring pieces of turbary, and they could not get the neighbours to consent to acquisition as readily as my friend was prepared to consent.

That difficulty was eventually overcome, and they made up their minds that they would prepare a separate scheme in connection with my man's turbary. That is still coming, and that man is trying to keep his creditors at bay with the assurance that the Land Commission will pay him some time. But for the fact that he has a splendid reputation and people are quite prepared to take his word, he might have been made a bankrupt. If that man had been bankrupt and the bailiffs put into his house, I say that a very grave injustice would have been done, all through the incompetency of the Land Commission. The man had purchasers for his turbary if he would be let sell it. The Land Commission would not let him sell, and would not take it themselves. They will not let him sell the turbary to people who want turf, and they will not take it themselves, because they cannot get the necessary papers prepared. That reflects very greatly on the administration of the Department, and is typical of many cases where you have the feeling that every one is doing his best, but that the disorganisation is so great that it is impossible to get the job done.

The Minister referred briefly to the scheme for transferring migrants from the Gaeltacht to Meath. Time alone will prove how good a scheme it is. It was originally designed to achieve two purposes, so far as I am aware. One was to bid defiance to the shades of Oliver Cromwell, who said, "To hell or Connacht." We were going to bring them back from Connacht. The other purpose was to spread the Irish language. So far as the scheme to spread the Irish language is concerned, it is purely illusory. What is going to happen on these colonies is that, instead of the native Irish speakers bringing Irish to Meath, the native Irish speakers will lose their Irish in Meath, and you will simply take the language out of the mouths of the generation of young people who otherwise would have had it. So far as undoing the work of Oliver Cromwell is concerned, that is a pious purpose with which we all have a good deal of sympathy, but I would ask the Minister to remember this: His predecessor was a native of Belfast. He is a native of the City of Dublin. Now, the people of those two great cities have many virtues, but certain pitfalls beset them, and what seems as simple as one, two, three to them here in Dublin may not be at all so simple when you get down to the Gaeltacht. I remember Senator Connolly, as he then was, when he was Minister for Lands, going down to the Gaeltacht, and when he got down to the Rosses the poor man nearly died. He could not make out at all how anybody lived in the Gaeltacht, how anybody could survive in the Rosses, or why anybody should want to live in the Rosses any longer than he had to live there; and he said that his solution would be to build a ring fence around the Gaeltacht and drive all the people out of it. He said that he could see no other solution. Now, anybody who knows that part of the country, and who sees people coming back to it from New York, Chicago and Detroit, to live there and to build houses there, will realise how futile it is for any man, so out of sympathy with the whole problem, to attempt to handle it.

Mr. G. Boland

I think the Deputy should quote Senator Connolly on that.

Mr. Dillon

On his suggestion of building a ring fence?

Mr. Boland

Yes. I think the Deputy should give the actual quotation. He should not draw on his imagination too much.

An Ceann Comhairle

Apart from that, it is not customary, in debate, to quote from the speeches of former Ministers; more particularly if they are no longer members of the Oireachtas.

Mr. Dillon

Well, Sir, I pass from him. However, I do not think I said anything that was hypercritical. All I attributed to him was a constitutional difficulty in understanding a problem that was beyond him, and I was holding that example up to the present Minister, who is also a denizen of a city, lest he also might be misled by his urban outlook. Of course, it does not seem to be the grandest thing one ever did, to take a man from the granite hills of the Rosses and to plant him on the lush lands of Meath, but the point is that men who have grown old there do not like going up to Meath, and that, when they arrive there, they feel lost and lonely and miserable. I am afraid that, very frequently, no useful purpose is served by bringing them there at all. I think that they would be very much happier if their lives were made a little bit easier in the surroundings in which they have married and grown old. That is not to say that this scheme could not be or should not be revised in such a way as to make it very much better worth an experiment than it at present is. What I would like to see would be this—and I do not think the experiment is being given a fair chance until this has been tried—that instead of bringing up married men with families and planting them on the land in Meath, I should like to go around the Gaeltacht and take into consideration families where the problem, very often, is that you have two or three sons in the house, and where the eldest son will get the place and the second son and the third son will have to go to Scotland to find work but cannot afford to get married. Even if they manage to save a bit of money, or even if their father had some money with which to help them, still they could not get married, because they have no place to which to bring a wife or on which they could build a house. Now, these young men are accustomed to going to Scotland and to travelling the world. They have not settled down amongst neighbours and they have not become insular by their ordinary mode of life. Accordingly, I think that if you tried to operate a scheme to bring up to Meath young fellows of that kind, who contemplate getting married, or who have recently married, you would be getting somewhere. Of course, the Minister will probably say that his chief object is to relieve congestion in the places where these people live. Well, that is another story. If your purpose is to relieve congestion in the Rosses, and not to get these people into Meath, then it is a different problem. If, however, your primary purpose is to undo the work of Cromwell and bring the people back into the rich lands, then the thing is not to bring the old people up to the rich lands—because they will not transplant easily—but to bring the young people up to the rich lands before they become rooted in that other part of the world.

The next thing I want to touch on is this: the Minister and his predecessor in office have patted themselves on the back and congratulated themselves on the immense quantity of land that has been divided and allotted. Here, again, their metropolitan outlook is misleading them. They know little or nothing about the land law or about the history of the land problem in this country, and they never will; but one of the principal objects of the Land Purchase Acts was to provide that, when you put people back on the land, you put them back, not for the purpose of edifying their neighbours, but for the purpose of turning them into independent, self-supporting farmers, owning their land in fee simple and against the world; and at a very early stage it became manifest that one of the most important parts of that operation was proper improvement, and that unless you improve the land adequately before you put people back upon it, you might put a fellow, who was perfectly bona fide and who wanted to make a success of the thing, on to land which was in such a condition that, in order to make it arable, he had to spend his entire capital and, when he had the land fit for working, he had no capital left with which to carry on. I allege against the Land Commission now that they have sacrificed proper improvement to speed in sub-division, and I say that the improvement which is being done at present would not have passed muster with the inspectors of ten or 15 years ago. There is an immense amount of shoddy, ineffective and inadequate improvement work being done on land that has been allotted in the last five or six years, and that is a misfortune which it is going to be extremely difficult to remedy.

The speed with which the Land Commission has worked has much to recommend it, particularly from a political point of view; but another difficulty to which it has given rise is that the choice of tenants has not been well made. Now, I have said here on more than one occasion something of which the Fine Gael Party's more partisan supporters might disapprove, but which I believe, nevertheless, is true. I believe that the allocation of land, generally, is done without political bias. I believe that all sides get the land without reference to their political affiliations. There may be exceptional cases in which a "hot one" is put over on the inspector, but I am speaking of the general rule. That is a tribute which our political opponents never had the decency or the moral courage to pay their predecessors in office, but it was just as true then as it is now, and it is just as true now as it then was. There is this fault, however: that in the last five years the speed with which an attempt has been made to do the work has resulted in inadequate inquiry being made into the general character of the allottees, and the result is that you have an altogether undue number of men getting plots of land or holdings, and then sub-letting them. That is going on all over the country. I directed the Minister's attention to one specific case, and I have since heard of cases in Donegal and Roscommon— two neighbourhoods with which I am peculiarly familiar. I know that it is difficult to avoid that altogether. No vigilance will completely avoid it, but my allegation is that there is altogether an undue proportion of that kind of business going on and that it would not go on if proper tenants were chosen and proper inquiry made into the capacity of the men, to whom it was proposed to give land, to work it satisfactorily.

Now, reverting for a moment to the delay of getting anything done by the Land Commission, I want to direct the attention of the Minister to the difficulty there is in getting a few pounds to carry out urgent work on vested land. If the land is unvested, the Land Commission appears to have discretion in the spending of small sums, somewhat similar to that which used to be enjoyed by the old Congested Districts Board, and if the land is vested, the Land Commission must apparently apply to the Ministry of Finance for sanction for any sum of money, however small, which it may be necessary to expend. Recently I had a case in which the sea broke in and cut a road in three places over which the people had to bring seaweed if they were to cultivate any land there at all. This instance would appear to be a case against me because I felt the situation was so desperate that I was a little more obstreperous than usual and, as usual, I was indulgently received by the officials of the Department. In that case a push was made and the necessary sanction was got from the Department of Finance and the job was carried out. In other cases I found that the necessity to get that sanction from the Department of Finance proved an almost insuperable obstacle. The Land Commission, however meritorious and urgent they believed the work to be, had to go and satisfy the Department of Finance and that seemed to be virtually impossible. As a general rule all your work went for nothing and the whole business disappeared into a pigeon hole until about 18 months afterwards when perhaps you received a letter to the following effect: "A chara,—With reference to your representations about such and such a work, it has been determined that sanction cannot be obtained from the Department of Finance for the necessary expenditure. It is suggested therefore that you should approach the Board of Works." By that time, you would probably have forgotten all about the matter and you did not pay any more attention to it until a general election arrived when some old warrior would get up at a meeting and say "Why did you not get that work carried out?" Then you remember the very arduous days you had spent in the Land Commission and the anonymous letter that arrived afterwards. You connect up the story and you recollect that this is one of the tragedies of the dilatory methods of the Land Commission.

I put it to the Minister that that is a real shortcoming. The old Congested Districts Board got a certain sum of money and a wide discretion to spend it on urgent works. The Congested Districts Board, of course, had jurisdiction only in congested districts, but these congested districts approximated pretty closely to the Gaeltacht. The problems that confront the Land Commission in the Gaeltacht are entirely different from the work that they are expected to do outside the Gaeltacht. We ought to have some machinery whereby one Department of the Land Commission would exercise the functions of the old Congested Districts Board and enjoy some of the discretion that they used to have. I am aware that it was the late Mr. Hogan—Requiescat in Pace—who was responsible for amalgamating these two bodies, the Land Commission and the Congested Districts Board. I think it has proved a terrible mistake in practice, though it was impossible to foresee that until you had tried out the experiment. I am quite satisfied that something should be done either to redivide the Land Commission into its old component parts or else set up in the Land Commission a subsidiary body which would deal with Gaeltacht problems and which would have a discretion analogous, and funds similar, to those which were at the disposal of the Congested Districts Board.

There is another matter to which I want to direct the Minister's attention and that is the question of land reclamation. Land reclamation is liable to become a subject like forestry. The problems connected with it are discussed piously on every occasion that the Estimate comes up and then nothing is done in between Estimate and Estimate. I should like to break the problem up into small pieces and to direct the Minister's attention to those small pieces of the problem of which each Deputy has personal knowledge. In that way we may get something done about something. In Donegal there was one inspector of the Land Commission who did carry out some excellent experiments but they seem to have been completely abandoned. There we had a problem of a rough mountain-side. There was a vein of limestone running through the county which the Minister's geologists will point out to him if he makes inquiries. This inspector discovered that if they cut small drains on top of the limestone land, and then spread the stuff which they took out of the drains on top of the surface of each bog, set a crop on that and covered it over with whatever soil was available, in the process of growing that crop, they reclaimed the land to a very respectable depth and made it possible by the subsequent application of seaweed in succeeding seasons to reclaim valuable patches of land at virtually no cost at all. We have got to remember of course that in these parts of the Gaeltacht an acre of land is worth a king's ransom and this particular scheme was applicable only to such areas as those in which you would be grasping at every sod. That particular experiment, I am informed by people living in the Rosses, was very successful, and the land reclaimed under it has proved very satisfactory and very valuable to those on whose behalf it was done. It appears to me that it is an experiment that might profitably be further developed with a view to trying it elsewhere. I cannot remember the details of this particular scheme sufficiently to identify it for the Minister but I shall give him hereafter the name of the Land Commission inspector who was associated with the experiment and in that way he will probably be able to identify it.

Lastly, I come to the good old traditional practice of taking matters home to my own parish pump. I think it would be a mistake to allow this Vote to pass without making an appeal to the Minister on behalf of the people of Iniskeeragh island. The Minister said earlier to-day that he would look into the matter, therefore, I only want to add a short word in order to emphasise to him its real urgency. This is a small island off Burtonport. I do not believe that there are more than 12 or 15 families on it. How they ever got there I do not know. There is practically no arable land on the island at all. It is a very exposed place and up to now they have had to protect their houses by erecting a sea-wall. Last year in the heavy storms which preceded the Arran disaster, the sea swept over this island and actually flooded their kitchens. If you could see the island, you would realise that if the sea reaches their kitchens it is miraculous how it did not sweep away the houses altogether because the island is more or less a hog-backed island and the houses are on the highest reach of it. I should add that the area of the entire island is, I do not suppose, very much more than that of Lemster Lawn, Stephen's Green and the site of this House put together. It is one of the very small islands in a group lying off Burtonport. I believe representations have been made to the Land Commission, but I feel bound to say— I have no doubt that Deputy Hugh Doherty would confirm it if he were here—that I seriously apprehend, if those people are not got off the island this summer, there may be an even greater disaster than the Arranmore disaster. If a really violent storm arose, and it became abundantly clear to the people on the mainland that those people's houses were in jeopardy, the people on the island would not be able to get off the island nor would the people on the shore be able to get out to the island. You might have a situation arising in which the people on the mainland would be obliged to stand by and watch those people swept to perdition. It is an extremely tricky and very rocky coast. Most of the experienced boatmen there would be able to negotiate it in anything like reasonable weather, but you can get terrific weather there, and if you got such weather threatening to inundate the island it may be impossible to get the people off until the damage was done.

Land is scarce, admittedly, but if there is going to be any more migration then I say that those people have the first claim to whatever land is made available on the mainland. However, I think there is land on one of the arable islands which lie adjacent to the shore, and in regard to which there is no possibility of the same danger as I envisage on Iniskeeragh, and I believe the Land Commission might easily acquire that land and transfer those tenants to it. I am quite sure they would much sooner be transferred to an adjoining island, or to the mainland near Burtonport or Dungloe, because they are island people and accustomed to the sea, and it would be quite unthinkable to transfer them far inland. I mention the matter because I consider it one of supreme urgency, and I suggest to the Minister that no time should be lost in dealing with this problem. I feel bound to say to him that, if he approaches this difficulty in the same spirit as the Land Commission approached my friend's turbary, he may have the deaths of a number of people on his conscience to account for. I have nothing to add except the pious hope that the chaos which at present exists in the Land Commission will quickly subside.

Mr. Everett

Some time ago I had occasion to raise with the Minister the matter of the wages paid by the Land Commission to men employed on the Tighe estates. I was informed by the Minister that some interdepartmental committee, as an advisory body, had decided on the wages to be paid. I protested against men being taken from the labour exchange in the middle of the week and brought to work under the Land Commission, being ordered to go and provide themselves with a new spade and shovel, and paid 24/- if they worked the full week. There was no money from the Land Commission for the first fortnight, and they were only getting an average of three days per week. While they are paid only at the rate of 6d. per hour, there is 1/- stopped for every hour they lose owing to bad weather. The Minister pointed out that nothing could be done. He forgot that the Land Commission have been supplied with instructions from the Board of Works, a copy of which I have here in my possession, that on no condition are they to pay more wages than are paid by the farmers in the area. This document, Sir, is number Z 1, issued from the Office of Public Works. It is instructions to inspectors engaged on relief schemes. Rule No. 22 states:

"The rates of wages in the case of relief works shall where possible, be fixed at such a scale"

—much less than paid to agricultural workers by farmers in the area. That accounts, although the Minister may not be aware of it, for the policy of the Departments in connection with relief works.

Mr. Boland

On a point of order, this circular is not issued to Land Commission inspectors. It is a matter for the Board of Works, and I do not think Deputy Everett should be allowed to bring it in under this Vote.

An Ceann Comhairle

It should have been raised on the Relief Schemes Vote.

Mr. Everett

That makes it all the more serious.

An Ceann Comhairle

But not more relevant.

Mr. Everett

It is made all the more serious by the very fact that the Land Commission have adopted a worse policy than the Board of Works in connection with payment to men engaged on relief works. The Land Commission goes further than the Board of Works. They compel poor hungry men taken from the exchange to go and purchase a new spade or shovel before they are employed, under the threat that if they do not accept those conditions they will have their unemployment assistance stopped. That is a matter of which the Minister must take serious notice. He is responsible for the Department, and I say that when you have the large sum of £708,000 allocated for the improvement of estates, surely to God you are not going to improve those estates at the expense of the poor men who happen to be registered at the labour exchange. You have those men working nine hours a day. They are paid 4/- for their nine hours, and, if the Minister looks up the returns for the Tighe estate in Wicklow, he will find that for 14 days there were only six days' payment due to the men, and three days were stopped for the first week. The result was that the home assistance officer had to allow them home assistance for the two weeks during which they were nominally employed by the Land Commission, and out of their first three days, after working a fortnight, they had to pay the local shopkeeper 4/- for the new spade. Some men protested against it and were dismissed. Men who were sent from the labour exchange and refused to go and purchase new tools were dismissed by the local ganger, or the man who was carrying out the instructions of the Land Commission.

The Minister asks what would the Labour Party do if they got into power. The Minister and his Party and his officials will realise what will happen after the next general election. There will be people in power who will not agree to those conditions. They will never take hungry men who are on unemployment assistance and compel them to work for the improvement of estates. The men in the Gaeltacht are being paid 30/- a week and supplied with a farm and seeds. Here, those men do not even receive 24/- a week. They are only paid for the number of days they are in employment, and, Saturday being a short day, if the weather looks any way bad at all they are not allowed to start work. Those are conditions which I am certain the Minister would not be prepared to stand for. If he is, I am sorry that the atmosphere of the Land Commission has created such a change in the views which I knew the Minister to express some years ago. I say that the sooner there is a change in the Land Commission the better it will be for the country as a whole. Where men are unemployed, if you take advantage of that unemployment, and take advantage of an Order being issued to other inspectors on relief schemes that they are to pay much less than is paid by the farmers in the area, then you are setting a headline which will have its reactions upon yourself and upon your Party. During all the years that I have been a member of the Dáil I never heard before of such an Order being issued.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy has been informed that the Order in question does not relate to the Land Commission. Yet he has reverted to it now.

Mr. Everett

I accept your ruling, Sir. All that I want to say is that I am attacking the Land Commission, and the Land Commission is even worse than the Order.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy must confine himself to the alleged iniquities of the Land Commission.

Mr. Everett

Its iniquities are concerned with this relief work. The Land Commission was not only paying the men engaged on it the miserable wage I have stated, but was compelling them to get credit at the local shop on the strength of that wage, to buy a spade and shovel. The men were compelled to do that before ever they received a penny in wages. That has saved the Land Commission the cost of supplying tools to these men. Out of this miserable wage of 24/- a week the men have been compelled to purchase tools to enable them to make the fences and the ditches. The Minister points out that the men have their remedy. I want to ask him, what remedy have poor hungry men? If the Minister has any doubts as to the correctness of the statements that I have made he can write to the home assistance officer and get a report from him. It will show that these poor men had to be given home assistance for two weeks until their wages arrived. These men are paid fortnightly. There are only 20 men employed, and in view of the huge staff that is employed by the Land Commission it surely should be possible to pay them weekly, the same as every other contractor has to do. They are taken off the labour exchange in the middle of the week, and, being in receipt of only 12/-, it is surely hard for them to make provision for themselves and their dependents until they get their first wages a fortnight later.

That is nice treatment for poor hungry men. My objection is not alone to the small wage of 24/- a week which they are being paid, but to the whole policy of the Department, a policy which compels men to work for 6d. an hour, but if they lose an hour they are stopped 1/-. That is the same kind of policy that has been adopted by a Minister in another Department. I want to tell the Minister that I will do everything in my power to try and secure for the men engaged by the Land Commission the same rate of wages as that which is being paid by the farmers in the area. As I have already said, I have made agreements within the last three months with farmers in the area. Under those agreements the farm labourers are not only guaranteed full-time regular employment, but they are being paid not less than 26/- a week. All that the poor men who are engaged by the Land Commission can get is casual employment. In the case of the men employed under the agreements that I negotiated with farmers, they are not obliged to do Sunday work. If they are, that means extra payment, but here the Land Commission, by threatening to stop their unemployment assistance, compels men to accept 24/- a week. They are told that they must either accept that, or that they will be starved into accepting it.

The position with regard to the men on this estate is so bad that one of the gangers had to write to the home assistance officer asking, in view of the fact that the money had not arrived for the payment of the men, to give them home assistance so that they would not be left hungry. That is a nice position of affairs for men employed by a Government Department. The Government is supposed to be a model employer, to set a headline for other employers and to pay decent wages. What I have described actually occurred in this particular area. The Land Commission are trying to do what no other employer would dare to do, and that is to get men to work for a lower rate of wages than that paid by the farmers in an area. The Minister stated that he had not received any instructions on this from the Board of Works. I accept that statement. But bad and all as the Board of Works is, even if they do pay less than the rate recognised by the farmers in an area, they do not ask a man out of a miserable wage of 24/- to spend 8/- of it on the purchase of tools. I know that the Land Commission is a very big Department, but I am going to hold the Minister responsible. I am bringing the matter forward here because I have failed to get redress elsewhere. If what I have stated represents the policy of the Department in the past it is about time now that it should be changed. We on these benches are not going to allow this sort of thing to continue, of taking men from the labour exchanges and forcing them to take up employment at a lower rate of wages than that paid by the farmers in an area. I only wish that those men were in some organisation. If they were the Land Commission would be forced to pay them the recognised rates of wages.

I have no complaints to make with regard to the division of land. I know that there are always a great many people looking for land, and that disappointed applicants will have a grievance. What did surprise me in this debate was to see Deputy Dillon showering bouquets on the Land Commission. That made me feel rather suspicious, when we had Deputy Dillon pointing out all the good things that had been done by the Land Commission.

Mr. Boland

I did not hear him say anything like that.

Mr. Everett

He did. He spoke about the special roads that had been made. A good many Deputies have to complain that works in which they are interested are not done. They write to the Land Commission, and in about a year's time they get a reply, when the thing has been forgotten about, and nothing is done. The explanation sometimes given is want of staff. I think they have sufficient staff in the Land Commission at present. In my opinion, something should be done with a view to acquiring estates for distribution amongst the people in Wicklow and Kildare. I know that in the County Wicklow we have a number of derelict farms with nobody on them, and yet the county council is compelled to meet charges on them. A number of small farmers have made application for the taking over and distribution of those farms, but nothing has been done. The present position is that they are a heavy charge on the funds of the county council. Some of them have been derelict for six and seven years, and one for at least ten years.

In conclusion, I make a final appeal to the Minister to pay a higher rate of wages than 24/- a week to the men employed by the Land Commission on those estates. As things are, the Land Commission are simply forcing hungry men to accept starvation rates of wages. I appeal to the Land Commission not to adopt the tactics of a Hitler, to say to these men, "We will compel you to take this wage, and if you do not take it we will starve you into submission." As long as that continues to be the policy of the Land Commission, I will oppose it, and I will criticise not only the Department, but the Minister and his Party for allowing the Land Commission to compel hungry men to work under such conditions. We hear a great deal about the Christian State, and the policy of the Government to try and provide work for the people. If this is the kind of work that the Government are going to provide, work at starvation rates of wages, then the sooner there is a change of Government and a change in the department of the Land Commission, the better it will be for the people of this country and for the Labour Party.

Mr. Boland

That is a great speech.

Mr. Goulding

I agree with what Deputy Dillon said with regard to the courtesy of the Land Commission. All on this side can endorse what he said on that. While I believe the officials are doing their best to meet the situation, when I go around the country I find it very hard to persuade people looking for land that that is so. I suppose practically every Deputy who speaks in this debate will say the same thing. We all want to see land divided in our constituency, but we find the greatest difficulty in getting it done. We are aware, of course, of the legal difficulties involved, but the people who complain of the delay cannot understand it. It would be well if we endeavoured to find out what these legal difficulties are, and try to remove them. I have a case in mind where the division of land has been held up in my constituency, and which shows how easy it is to hold it up when you take advantage of the law's delays. In this case the tenant was evicted by the Land Commission, but immediately entered into repossession of the holding on the ground that he had not been legally evicted. The result is that the matter has been hanging over for the past couple of years, and the land is lying derelict while the people are clamouring for it.

I give that as an instance of the delay caused by the legal proceedings in the acquisition of land. Every landholder who wants to hold up the division of land takes advantage of the legal technicalities and the result is that people come to us and complain. It is not our fault, and it is not the fault of the Land Commission; it is due to the delay in the legal side of the matter. The statement is made of course that the Land Commission cannot tackle all the land available owing to the fact that they are short of staff. Would it not be better to increase the staff even more than we have done and endeavour to speed up the work? It is causing serious unrest in every parish in the country and we are all getting blamed. If we could manage to speed things up a little it would take a lot off my shoulders, and I am sure off the shoulders of every Deputy.

There is another matter to which I wish to allude. We find great difficulty in collecting arrears of annuities. Sometimes farmers come to us and say, "My farm is too large; I cannot make it pay; if the Land Commission would take 50 or 60 or 100 acres of my land I would be very glad to sell it to them." Here again we come up against legal difficulties. The tenant is really anxious and willing to pay the annuities, but he is very often in the position that he is unable to work the large amount of land he has, and from his point of view, it is uneconomic. If he has 150 acres of land and is of opinion that he could work 50 acres economically and offers 100 acres to the Land Commission, for some cause the Land Commission appear to be unable to take advantage of that. I am sure every Deputy is getting letters from annuitants who complain that they are quite willing to hand over portion of their land to the Land Commission to help to defray the annuities due; but when we put the case to the Land Commission they tell us that there is some legal difficulty in the way. The next thing that happens is that the sheriff's officers come along. The unfortunate tenant is mulcted and we are blamed because we have not succeeded in getting the Land Commission to accept the debt in the form of land instead of cash.

While I am on that subject, I might say that I think it is a pity that some discrimination is not exercised in levying for arrears of annuities. It would be advisable that an effort should be made to ascertain whether the liability is due to laziness or inefficiency on the part of the annuitant or to sheer ill-luck. Time and again seizures are made on annuitants who have been doing their best to meet the liabilities. It is not due to any fault of theirs that they have to fall into arrears. Very often it happens that these are the unfortunate people who are the first to be visited by the sheriff's officers, while the cuter people, whose liabilities are due to their own ineffectiveness or laziness or something else, very often——

Mr. O'Leary

Or due to the policy of the Government.

Mr. Goulding

No. It does not matter about the policy; they will always find themselves up against these things. People will meet with losses in stock or crops. It does not matter about the policy—that is going to happen. The next question I wish to refer to is the reclamation of land, which is rendered unduly difficult owing to the fact that very often the land to be reclaimed is far away from the most important element in reclamation, and that is lime. The land most in need of reclamation is in the mountain areas and the limestone districts are very often quite a distance from it. Even in places where the limestone is fairly close to the land, lime-kilns do not exist. In my own constituency I know places which need reclamation most and which are 15 or 20 miles from where lime is available Surely it should be possible for the Land Commission, in conjunction with the Department of Agriculture, to open lime-kilns near these lands. In the old days the lime-kilns were often maintained by the landlord and when the landlord went the kilns fell into disuse. These were the places where the people got the lime reclaim the land. These kilns are not in use now, they are practically nobody's property, and the result is that the people who need lime more than anything else have to transport it such a distance that it is really uneconomic for them. I suggest that the Land Commission, in conjunction with the Department of Agriculture, should endeavour to provide lime for these people at the lowest possible cost and as near to them as possible. In the mountain areas land reclamation is held up to a very great extent owing to the fact that the people are unable to get lime.

General Mulcahy

It is a humiliating thing to think that it requires the near approach of a general election to get from the Fianna Fáil Benches the suggestion that there should be some discrimination when sending the sheriff after unfortunate farmers who are unable to pay land annuities. We have been asking for that for years, ever since Fianna Fáil monopolised the sheriff and his troop, going after unfortunate farmers to take their cattle, or to sell three cows, eight bullocks and so many sheep for £8 to the Government agent. We asked first the members of the Front Bench of Fianna Fáil, and then the ordinary members of the Party, who ought to know the condition of things in the country, to give the farmers a chance of showing before some kind of court whether they were really able or unable to pay the demands being made upon them by the Government. It has been pointed out repeatedly that for a debt of about £3,000,000, British Government machinery was taking from the farmers £4,420,000, that the Government were also coolly collecting about £2,000,000 in taxation which they held themselves, as well as taking another £2,000,000 from farmers for the halved land annuities. We pointed out the inevitable condition to which such a position brought the farmers, and we simply asked that some kind of court or commission should be set up, which would see that the bailiffs or the sheriffs did not go into farms and practically take the capital stock for next to nothing; in order to write part paid to some of the demands for the land annuities that were made. The records of the District Courts to which, in some cases, the farmers were brought in connection with rates, show that the district justices on going into these cases, so far from giving immediate orders for payment, actually made arrangements by which payments demanded for rates could be made over a period. Now we have Deputy Goulding asking the Minister to use some discretion; that while some of the parties might be lazy there were others who could not pay. There are others, hundreds of them, from one side of the country to another, after three and four years who could not possibly pay.

Mr. Goulding

Some of them are able to pay.

General Mulcahy

It is very humiliating that a Parliament which wants to discuss this question should have to wait until now to hear even a small voice raised from the Fianna Fáil Benches.

Mr. Killilea

It is a long time since we protested against the Free State Army lorries being sent out.

General Mulcahy

A long time, and no one has learned more about lorries in the passage of time than Deputies on the Fianna Fáil Benches. It would be quite a long list and quite irrelevant matters would have to be gone into there.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy and the Chair are now in full agreement.

General Mulcahy

Fianna Fáil Deputies are in thorough agreement with me, but they do not care to give expression to the views they really believe. I would like to hear the view the Minister takes on this, as being of importance in connection with the administration of his Department, and as having an important economic bearing on the future. Replying to Deputy Hogan on the 11th March, the Minister told him the number of new holdings provided in the years 1934, 1935 and 1936, and the number of acres. It would appear that the average holdings provided in 1934 contained 25½ acres, in 1935 something less than 23 acres, and in the last year 18 acres. I think where there is a very substantial drop in the size of the holdings provided by the Land Commission between the years 1934 and 1936, being something greater than a quarter, the House ought to get some explanation of the circumstances and the conditions under which the Minister or his Department arrived at the decision so substantially to reduce the size of the new holdings. It must undoubtedly have a bearing on the economic future of a large number of people, and must have some definite mark on the type of agricultural economy that will be pursued. Certainly, from what we have heard from Deputy Hales about wheat-growing on his farm in West Cork, there is no great planning for the foundation of the wheat crop in reducing the size of the holdings that the Land Commission has been distributing by nearly a quarter. The Minister gave some figures as to the cost of providing new holdings, and indicated that the cost of providing one set of holdings in Meath for migrants from the Gaeltacht was £980, and that the average was about £294 more than the cost of an ordinary person being provided with a new holding. I would like to know from the Minister what part of that £980 is recoverable. Is there more than £100 of the amount recoverable by the State by way of land annuity? In other words, what is the total irrecoverable cost, on the one hand, of putting a migrant from the Gaeltacht into a new holding, and, on the other hand, of putting an ordinary holder into land? It seems to me that the total irrecoverable cost of putting a migrant from the Gaeltacht into Meath is about £900, and that the total irrecoverable cost of providing a new holding for another person is about £600. If that is so, it has an important bearing on the future cost. When we take into account the burden of taxation that the country is bearing at present, and—in spite of what may be said to the contrary by Ministers—the reduction in our productive capacity, and the amount of national income from which taxation can be raised, I doubt, if the cost is as high, if a substantial amount of land division can be done in the Gaeltacht. These and other reasons have a bearing on this question, and I should like to hear the Minister dealing with them.

Mr. O'Leary

I should like to say that I think the figures quoted by Deputy Mulcahy are not the same as the figures that were given to me last week by the Minister.

Mr. Boland

I corrected that in my opening statement, but the Deputy was not in the House at the time.

Mr. Beegan

Deputy Dillon criticised the Land Commission about certain matters, and, while I am not here to throw bouquets at the Land Commission, I do not agree with the Deputy in everything he said. I was rather amused to hear the Deputy leader of the Opposition Party saying that this was the one Department of the Government from which definite information could not be got. The nature of the work to be done is such, and the legal procedure that has to be followed makes it impossible, in many instances, to get definite information. One of the things I am concerned about principally is the speeding up of the acquisition of good land, particularly in County Galway. The Land Commission has done a good deal since the passing of the Land Act of 1933, and has acquired a considerable amount of land, but, strange to say, there are very large tracts of the best land in County Galway still undivided. A few individuals hold from 600 to 1,300 acres. That is a matter that should be taken into consideration. We have been making representations for years in this matter, but it seems to be just as far away as ever. We have the Daly estate in Kilconnell area, and part of the Pollock estate, where there are large holdings, in the Eyrecourt area. There would be many opportunities for relieving congestion and for migration in certain parts of them, rather than to do what was attempted in another area, where congests were brought into an area where the people were not under the £10 valuation limit, but which, at the same time, is an intensely congested district in regard to population.

There are also other holdings—and in this I join issue with Deputy Everett—which I want to have acquired. They are the derelict holdings with regard to which representations have on various occasions been made to the Land Commission by the Galway County Council with a view to having them acquired. They are not the type of holdings referred to by Deputy Dillon — holdings created within the past five years. They are very old and of considerable size, and it is too bad that the local ratepayers should have to pay for these, and that derelict holdings of this kind should not be taken over.

With regard to the division of land, generally, it is satisfactory. I raised a matter on the adjournment here the other night regarding the division of one particular estate and a certain allotment that was given to an allottee there. I wish here again to emphasise my protest regarding that allottee. The matter is in no way political, even though it was asserted to be so by a member of the Party opposite. The people there, irrespective of politics or political opinions, are all up in arms against it, and it has caused any amount of discontent, ill-feeling and confusion in the district. It has done more to bring about strained relations in respect of resorting to methods we do not wish for, than anything else done in that part of the country for years. I hope there will be no recurrence of it in future, and that it will, if possible, be revised and not permitted to continue.

With regard to Deputy Dillon's statement that the improvements of estates are not anything like as good as they were, and that they would not pass the inspectors of ten or 15 years ago, I say, and I think I know as much about the working of the Land Commission in rural Ireland as does Deputy Dillon, that the improvements can compare very favourably, and more than favourably, with the improvements of a decade ago. I know that county surveyors and their assistants have even expressed surprise at the way roads built by the Land Commission have been carried out. In regard to improvements, however, I wish to say that on some estates which have been allotted, it appears that a sufficient estimate is not given for the work, with the result that the work is left unfinished, and even though the work done is very fine, the fact that a certain part of it is left unfinished takes away from its appearance. I suggest that the full estimate should be given, or at least an estimate sufficient to finish the work, so that when an estate is taken over, allotted, and improvements carried out, the improvements would not have to continue over a number of years, but would be dealt with at once, or at one and the same time.

A considerable amount has been done by the Government in regard to rural housing. The Local Government Department, as well as the Land Commission, has done very fine work in this respect. The Local Government Department has made available grants of £70 and £80 to tenants whose respective valuations are under £15 or under £25. But those grants are not always sufficient, or anything like it, to build a house. A number of people to whom the grants have been made have not sufficient money of their own to supplement the grant. I know that the Land Commission are doing something to help. In a number of cases, they have made advances, but the trouble is that the advances are few and far between. I understand that on a vested holding the Land Commission cannot give any grant, but what they are asked for is an advance. They have given the advance in a number of cases, but in the vast number of cases there is considerable delay, and this is holding up the building programme of the Local Government Department. It may be argued that the reason for the delay is that the staff is too slender to deal with this work, but I imagine it would not require very highly - qualified engineers to deal with it. I know that secretaries of public utility societies send in an application on behalf of an applicant, in addition to the application sent in to the Local Government Department, giving all the necessary particulars and data, but very often, after all this is supplied—the receivable order number quoted, the date on which the instalment on the annuity is paid, and all the rest of it—a stereotyped reply will be sent out stating "As your holding is a vested holding, we cannot make any grant available to you, but if you are sanctioned for a Local Government grant and then renew your application over your own signature, the Land Commission will consider making an advance available to you."

That to the applicants is very disheartening when they have definitely stated in their application that it is an advance they require. I imagine that the Land Commission, in order to speed up this work—one of the most important works of that Department, I believe—should not require any extra engineers. Good supervising gangers would do quite well. They could go around, ask for the receivable order of the tenant, and inspect the house. The advance, of course, will not be made available, nor do we ask that it should be, unless the Local Government Department gives approval for it. Having got the receivable order, and having seen that it tallied with the application, and having got the report of the supervising ganger on the matter, it should not have to go through any further lengthy process. If that were done, the housing problem in rural Ireland, particularly on vested holdings, which are mostly old holdings, would be very greatly relieved, and I ask the Minister to make a special note of that.

Deputy Dillon had a solution with regard to migration from the Gaeltacht, and he said that the people taken from the Gaeltacht would lose the language. I have met people who have come from the United States after 45 years there, and they have not lost the language. I am sure that the people taken to the colony in Meath, or elsewhere, are not going to lose the language. I only hope that many more of them will be taken to the districts where suitable land is available for migration. I am aware that the Land Commission has a very difficult task. Deputy Mulcahy referred to the collection of the annuities and said it was only on the eve of an election that a Fianna Fáil Deputy got up to make representations on that subject. My experience of the Land Commission in this respect is that any annuitant in default who made a reasonable case was given every opportunity and every assistance. So far as I know, there were no evictions under the Land Commission since Fianna Fáil came into office. It would be a rather difficult task to set up a commission to determine who was able to pay and who was not able to pay. I think that the Land Commission have more important functions than that to discharge. Even in the best days—between 1914 and 1921—some people in the country found it hard to discharge their obligations. They were, I admit, few, but we had them. Speaking of the Land Commission generally, I believe they are doing good and useful work. What many people, particularly in my county, cannot understand is that in those cases, where representations were made by us, at the solicitation of people interested, to have lands acquired by the Land Commission, the stage has only been reached at which we have been told that our representations have been referred to the Land Commission and that they are to have an early investigation. As far as land acquisition is concerned, in the eastern portion of County Galway particularly, that is a matter which would remove many of the ills of the rural population. Generally speaking, the houses built by the Land Commission are very good houses, but the cost of material is increasing at the present time.

Therefore, I should like to bring to the notice of the Minister the fact that if the Land Commission continue giving only the grants they have been giving for the past two or three years, the allottees will find it difficult to get on with the work. They will find it very difficult to get any contractor to take a contract at the amount allowed by the Land Commission. Although the Land Commission hold that the allottees should give free labour, it is not easy, where material has to be brought from a distance, to find time for that. Therefore, I ask that, if at all possible, the grants for building of houses should be increased to a reasonable extent.

Mr. McMenamin

The remarks made by Deputy Everett induced me to rise. The Deputy said that the sooner the Government was out of office the better for the Labour Party. It is a pity he did not explain that remark. I should like to know what relation that remark has to the Vote for the Land Commission. Apparently, the remark made by the Deputy has reference to the rate of wages being paid by the Land Commission. The Deputy referred to "scandalous wages" and said that the Department was insisting on hungry men working at these wages or they would be more hungry. The men have, he said, to go to a local shopkeeper and buy a spade at 4/- to work, while they are paid from 24/- per week downwards. It did not occur to Deputy Everett that, in impeaching the Minister, he was impeaching his own Party who are not without responsibility in this matter. I went out to the Library and got there a list of tariffs. I find that there is a tariff of 50 per cent. on spades. When I was handling spades——

An Ceann Comhairle

I do not think that the imposition of duties comes within the manifold functions of the Minister for Lands.

Mr. McMenamin

It is only an aside. The price of a spade when I was handling them was 1/3. I take it that the men who are making spades constitute part of Deputy Everett's organisation. It is a commentary on the whole machinery of labour that a spade which used to cost 1/3 now costs, according to Deputy Everett, 4/-, while the man who pays that sum is being coerced by the Government to work at a wage at which he should not be required to work. It would be much better if Deputy Everett slid over this whole question of the wages paid by the Land Commission or any other Department because if he impeaches the Minister he impeaches himself. I remember on this Vote, or a kindred Vote, making certain suggestions to the Department with regard to the employment of men. The leader of the Labour Party violently denounced me and told the Government that what they lacked was a brain-box. Apparently, he was then creating a position whereby he would be called in. The brain-box was there readymade. The Government did call it in, but I understand that the Government have kicked it out now. The whole thing is a terrible commentary on the attitude of Deputy Everett and his Party. The salary of the Judicial Commissioner is, I think, charged on this Vote——

Mr. Boland

No; on the Central Fund.

Mr. McMenamin

It is a charge on the Central Fund, but is it not added to this fund and then deducted?

An Ceann Comhairle

I do not think it appears on this Vote at all.

Mr. McMenamin

A great deal has been said by Deputy Everett and by Deputy Dillon on this Vote. I suppose I give the Land Commission as much trouble as anybody else, perhaps more than most Deputies. What our constituents forget is that this House has been piling on a great deal of extra work on this Department for the past 15 years. Deputy Beegan is now going to ask them to undertake house-building, although there are three departments dealing with house-building at present. Under the many Acts we have passed, the functions of the Land Commission have become colossal. There have to be Deputies and other local advisers and State advisers considered in the division of these lands. With regard to the taking over of the ranches, we are told that in Galway the Land Commission is not doing the work quickly enough. Then, on the other hand, you have the local authorities urging the necessity of giving portion of the land that is to be divided for housing schemes. At the rate these new housing schemes are being carried through, there is a considerable amount of work involved in dividing the lands so that suitable sites will be left for these houses. In all these matters there is a considerable amount of technical work. This Department really has become colossal and the work is most intricate. The Land Acts extending back over a period of 70 years have been more or less interwoven into one web, and the thing has now become a menace where it is necessary to reconcile one Land Act with another Land Act.

The next matter to which I wish to refer is about the holdings given to those men. Apparently the area of the holdings given has been gradually reduced. Deputies will see that from the figures of the average area of these new holdings published by the Land Commission themselves. The area has dropped down as low as 18 acres, an area that is certainly too small. I think it is certainly a wrong thing to make the holding as low as 18 acres. That, at all events, is my opinion and I think this procedure will create in this country a new congestion problem. I hope I am wrong, but I know I am not. In fact, in dividing these holdings my desire would be to approach as near as I could to the 50-acre farm. Reducing the holdings down to 18 acres is only creating a new congestion problem for the future. If we were able to give all the people decent holdings, well and good. Irrespective of the side of the House on which Deputies sit, it would be well if they got this into their heads—that if the amount of land to be divided is strictly limited, as we know it is, yet that is no reason why the amount of available land to be divided is being divided in small lots as low as 18 acres. What I say is, that men getting land should be given as much land as will give them an opportunity to make good. To say that because there are large numbers of applicants for each of the estates to be divided and that therefore the best thing to do is to satisfy as many as possible of them, or at least to give land to as many as possible of them, is certainly looking at the matter the wrong way. Because there is not enough land available to give all a decent holding is no reason at all why we should start now creating another congestion problem for the future by dividing the estates into very small holdings on which men cannot make a living. Increasing the number of holdings and giving each man a holding that is not enough for him on which to make a livelihood is, beyond doubt, going along the road that is going to create new problems of congestion in the future.

We have heard a good deal said with regard to bringing people from the Gaeltacht to Meath and elsewhere. That, of course, is not an innovation. I would be prepared to agree with what Deputy Dillon said about this matter. That is to say, the land should be given, first of all, to young men, single or married. It is only young men should be put into these holdings, because they would have the initiative to face up to the new conditions under which they had to live. I know that constituents of mine have been brought from Donegal to Meath and elsewhere, and I have seen pictures of other migrants who have been brought from Connemara. These men were 50 to 60 years of age. Now, there is an old saying that after a certain age the oak should not be transplanted and cannot be transplanted. In these cases of the migrants you are taking men from congested areas to lands like Meath and elsewhere. These are men who never stood behind a plough or a pair of horses in their lives. These are men who never handled a plough or harrow or grubber or cultivator and never harnessed a horse in their lives. You are taking men of that class between 50 and 60 years of age and migrating them. These men are expected, the morning after they are migrated to Meath, to start off behind a pair of horses and plough or harrow or grubber. These men cannot do that work. It is not feasible. It may well be that the sons of such a man from 16 years onwards may, in a short time, be able to plough, but they are not able to do it now. It would be all right if the fathers of such boys knew how to teach them to plough. The father would take the boys with him along the furrow and would gradually initiate them into the art of ploughing.

I think it is quite wrong to transplant men of 50 years of age from a congested district and expect them to work agricultural implements, plough, grubbers and cultivators, and so on. The thing is going to be a failure. These men cannot farm their land by horse power. The only way in which the sons of these men can learn the sort of farming that would be needed in Meath is by hiring them out for six or 12 months on a tillage farm. Some of them may learn ploughing in that way, but that is not always possible either. The farmer who employs a workman to plough wants a man who is able to plough, and he cannot afford to have a boy walking up and down along the furrow with that ploughman. At all events there is a considerable amount in what Deputy Dillon has said, and it deserves the careful consideration of the Land Commission. These men, no doubt, would be more adaptable if they were younger. At 20 or 25 years of age men are more pliable and better able to adapt themselves to new conditions of farming. Taking men from Connemara and Donegal and expecting them to work a tillage farm in Meath does not seem a very good prospect for anybody; if the new holders are expected to make good they must have some knowledge of tillage farming.

There is just one other matter to which I would refer. There was a very extensive campaign of the seizure of cattle a few years ago. On that question I did not form any definite opinion. I think it will be generally admitted now that everything has settled down and any cases of seizures that arise are due to the incapacity of the annuitants to pay their annuities; they are due to their financial stress. I saw within the last week a report in the Press of a seizure which took place in Cork or Kerry. According to the report the animals seized were put up for auction. It was significant to notice that they were knocked down to "Mr. O'Neill." I take it that that is the man who has been associated with the auctioning and buying of cattle at these sales for the last few years. However, that is by the way. What I want to know is this —does the Minister give instructions so as to make certain that when the cattle are seized because the tenant through financial stress is not able to pay his annuity, that a price as near as possible to the market value of the animals would be reached?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Is the Minister responsible in that matter at all?

Mr. Boland

He is not responsible for the auction. That is for the Minister for Justice, and Deputy McMenamin ought to know that.

Mr. McMenamin

I beg your pardon —I did not hear what the Minister said.

Mr. Boland

This matter is not under my jurisdiction as Minister for Lands, and it should not be discussed on this Vote. The Minister for Justice is responsible.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister for Lands has statutory responsibility for the collection of annuities, but the machinery by which that is imposed is not under the control of the Minister for Lands.

Mr. McMenamin

I quite appreciate that. That is all right. It is a distinction without a difference, because the money is being collected from the annuitants for the Department for which the Minister for Lands is responsible——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

There is a difference. The Minister for Lands is not responsible for what the Minister for Justice enforces.

Mr. McMenamin

With all respect, Sir, I submit that under the present procedure the very instrument which the Minister for Justice operates is issued by the Minister's Department; it is not an order of the court, but it is an order of the Minister. I do not want to be hair-splitting about that. I want to get to the serious thing. It is only a question of protecting the public, if we can do it. I think the Minister should see that in cases of this kind stock are not knocked down at a scrap price. In the interests of the man from whom they are seized, I think the loss should be brought down to as low a point as possible.

There is in my constituency, I regret to say, a matter that seems to be extending. At one period it was a very unusual thing, but within the last couple of years I notice it is becoming more acute. I refer to the number of holdings that are becoming derelict. I saw a very striking example of it on a holding where there were two boys, very good workers. They were fed up with everything, discontented over matters for which the Minister is not responsible, and they sold the stock and implements, locked the door and went away. They did not even let the place in conacre. If that sort of thing develops it is going to present a very serious problem. In that case the non-paid annuities are charged on the remaining ratepayers, together with the rates. If this is to be attributed to economic reasons, it is very difficult to know what remedy the Minister could find. It is a matter, however, to which I would like to draw the Minister's attention. When he has time, perhaps, he will look into it and work out some machinery with the object of improving conditions.

A survey of the statistics for County Donegal will give an idea how prevalent that condition of things is. It is mainly on the smaller holdings that it is taking place. There was a fall of 35,000 acres in the matter of tillage last year and that is mainly the case in holdings of this type. Small farms along the mountain ridges and holdings that have been reclaimed from bog land are being affected by this decline. It may become a very serious thing for the local authorities, because they will be responsible. They will lose the agricultural grant and the rates which should come off the holdings.

It is quite easy to make a strong case against the delay that takes place in the Department. I must say of those who feel disappointed at the speed at which things are done, that if they knew the amount of work that has to be carried out and the intricacy of the work, they would not be so critical. It is only right to be fair and just and, whether it is popular or unpopular, I will try to be that. If anyone buys land and wants to build a house, he writes to a Deputy here and he thinks he can do everything in the space of a few days. A man buys, perhaps, a plot of land on which three or four houses can be built. He gets a sub-division of the whole plot, and he sells a site to me and wants another sub-division. He thinks all this can be done immediately. A little appreciation of the work of the Department is really necessary. So far as the general work of the Department is concerned, it has really become colossal and, under the circumstances, they do it very well and efficiently. I must say there is nothing but efficiency, considering the colossal work they do and that this House has thrown upon them. There are 101 provisions of legislation extending over a period of 80 years to be considered, and I may say that the Land Commission do their work very capably.

Mr. Killilea

It was rather amusing to observe Deputy Mulcahy shedding crocodile tears over the people whom the sheriff had to visit during the last few years. Deputy Mulcahy's Government had very little sympathy with such people when they were in power. They closed their ears to the appeals made by many of us when we were sitting on the benches they now occupy. We asked them earnestly to try to keep the sheriffs away from the doors of the unfortunate people. My experience then compared with the conditions now, was that I went into the Land Commission as often in one week as I went in for the last 12 months in order to try to get a sheriff to leave the people alone. The types of people that the sheriff has been visiting recently are in an entirely different class to the people whom we were asking the Land Commission years ago to deal leniently with. They were exactly the types of people to whom Deputy Goulding referred.

They were not the big ranchers; they were not the people from whom the bailiff could take a piano, a wireless set or a motor car. The most of the poor people have made an honest endeavour in the last few years to meet their commitments. If, years ago, the Land Commission took over the ranches, as we suggested, and gave those poor people the land, there would be very little poverty now because those people are prepared to work and they would find ample employment on their own holdings. It did not come so well from Deputy Mulcahy to speak on those lines, because our memories are not so short as that we do not remember the time when he and his Government went out to protect the ranchers at the time the plain people were carrying on the land war. When they were talking so much about freedom they should have realised that a very important factor was the giving of the land to the people and leaving the road for the bullocks. The Deputy's Party took up a very different attitude at that time. I think we have passed that stage, and even if some of us have to criticise the Land Commission from time to time none of the criticism has to run along the lines so customary when Deputy Mulcahy and his Party were in power.

The Land Commission have gone into the question of migration and have been dealing with it fairly well, but they have not gone at anything like the rate at which we expected they would go. I happen to come from a part of County Galway where a lot of the land is practically as poor as in any part of Connemara, and where the problem of congestion is very big. There is very little land to be acquired or resumed in most of that part of the county, and, now that the Land Commission are taking over a lot of land in some of the bordering counties, such as County Roscommon, unless they are prepared to make a bigger effort and to show more speed in migrating the people from Galway into Roscommon, I am afraid there will be no hope for these people at a later stage and that, if they do not get going while the going is good, as the saying is, our hopes will begin to disappear. These types of migrants are people who, as has been proved time and again, always will make good, if they are migrated and if they get the land to work. As I say, it is a question that should be taken up immediately and dealt with seriously. I realise, of course, that there are enormous difficulties and obstacles in the way, and that wherever land is to be taken over you will have an agitation in the particular district concerned with regard to the landless men in that district. Nevertheless, these difficulties must be got over, and the whole question must be faced up to more seriously and dealt with at a much greater rate of speed.

There is another big question that I am faced with from time to time, and that is that in days gone by the Land Commission took over large tracts of bog or turbary and divided it, but never made a drain or a road into the bog. Those unfortunate people are now vested tenants and the Land Commission can do nothing for them, and how can they get turf? They are paying for it, and yet they are getting no benefit from it. I say that something should be done in that direction and that some of the relief grant moneys that are being spent should be allocated to that particular type of work. The bogs to which I refer are bogs which there is no possible hope of the Turf Development Board being able to touch, because of the fact that the people concerned are living ten and 14 and 15 miles away from a railway station. That in itself is a big problem, and the cases are very numerous. Of course, there are cases where the Land Commission partially completed the work—where they made a road a bit of the way, but never completed it.

The Land Commission should complete such work now and, if an unfortunate tenant has signed his vested form and is a vested tenant, the agreement should be carried out and the Land Commission should complete the work. After all, it was an honourable agreement and it should be carried out in an honourable way.

I have to agree with Deputy Beegan that the acquisition of the bigger ranches, at least in the particular area in Galway that I represent, that is, North Galway, is not going on as fast as we should like it to go. Deputy Beegan was able to compliment the Land Commission on the amount of work they did in his particular district. I admit that they have done good work there, but I am afraid I cannot be so optimistic about North Galway. because the Land Commission have not faced up at all to the problem there, and they have not made any decent attempt to deal with it. After all, it must be remembered that in that district there is a great opportunity for tillage farmers at the present time if they only had land. By that, I mean that there is a beet factory there and that the people who are willing and prepared to grow beet for that factory are the people who have not the land on which to grow it. A lot of them have to take over land in conacre from the graziers or ranchers, or whatever you like to call them, and I think it is very unfair that the man who has land to let in conacre should be allowed to carry on, while the people who are prepared to work that land and make a livelihood out of it are left without land. One could start at Headford, travel on by Tuam, and go down to Milltown on to Creggs and up to Kilkerrin, and you will find farms of 400 and 500 and up to 1,700 acres which the Land Commission, as far as I can understand, are making no attempt to get hold of. There was a case quite recently that went through the Land Commission Court, and I fail to see how the Land Commission Court came to the decision to which they did come. That was the case of a man who had a part-time herd working on about 300 acres of land, who had not tilled an acre. I refer to the case of Garvey, of Milford and Creggs. He went into the Land Commission Court and he beat the Land Commission, although how he beat them I do not know. What case did he make or what sort of information had the Land Commission collected in connection with him? He had not an acre tilled. I can tell the House and the Minister that it is very hard to convince the people there that there was not something going on behind the scenes and that there was not some friend in court. Whether it was the inspector who investigated the case or not, I do not know, but certainly something happened, because that man had no case to make in court or to make anywhere. The same thing applies to a big number of farms there. There are cases of a couple of farmers in Williamstown about whom I inquired some few years ago. These people were grazing their lands at that time, and they are still grazing them. It strikes me that what is happening in the Land Commission is that the lands about which people are not bothering very much are being divided up and that nothing is being done about such farms as Castlehacket and such places which should be divided up. I think that the whole thing is a disgrace, and that the problem should be faced up to and a little more speed put on.

Another matter to which I should like to refer is the question of the rearrangement of holdings. The Land Commission have started to do something in the matter of rearrangement, but I am afraid they are not going far enough. I have noticed where a few farms were divided recently where the people are living two and three and four miles away from the holdings. This is land that they got from the Land Commission a few years ago, and, although the Land Commission could have made rearrangements, they did not do so. That, of course, creates a particular hardship on any small farmer, because he starts off early in the morning to do a day's work on that particular piece of land and, when he arrives there, if the morning is wet, he starts home again, and by the time he gets home the day is practically finished and there is nothing to be got for it. This matter of rearrangement should be dealt with more satisfactorily than it is being dealt with at the moment, and even if the Land Commission have to put themselves out in order to do it, they should start to do that work of the rearrangement of holdings wherever it is at all possible to manage it, and they should try to do all they can to make the holdings as compact as possible.

I think, Sir, that is about all I have to say, except that I hope that, when the Land Commission have heard the grievances that have been put forward here, they will take serious notice of them and start in to try to make right some of the things that, in my eyes, and, I think, in the eyes of the vast majority of the people, are not right at the moment. I refer to the acquisition of the bigger ranches and their division amongst the people, because, if that is done, two things will be solved, as far as Deputy Mulcahy is concerned, at any rate, and that is that the bigger ranchers or graziers, who have not paid their rates, and who probably would not pay their rates in any case, will not be asked to pay them in the future, and the smaller man, who has been neglected in the past, will be put on his feet; and I will guarantee that he will be one of the people who will pay his rates and annuities, and I think that the records will show that he is the man who always pays his rates and annuities, and I think that most of our attention should be focussed on that.

Mr. M. Ryan

There are a few matters to which I should like to refer in connection with this Estimate. We had a discussion here to-day on the question of defaulting annuitants. I must say that, in my experience, the Land Commission have been very lenient and most reasonable in connection with defaulting annuitants in any instance in which a fair case had been put up to them. We had in my constituency, especially in North Tipperary, a very serious problem affecting the county council there as regards defaulting annuitants. Deputy Mulcahy and some others referred to the fact that it was owing to the terrible economic hardships under which the people were existing that these annuities were not being paid. My experience on the North Tipperary County Council does not coincide with that statement. We had a list of defaulters before us some time ago, and prominent in that list were professional people, people to whom farming was a very small side line in their business, people who could very easily afford to pay and who, for some reason or another, were not inclined to meet their obligations.

We have also a number of derelict holdings, a small number I will admit, on which neither rates nor annuities have been paid for years. In many cases the owners are anxious to dispose of these holdings. I think it would be well if some steps were taken towards their acquisition. They are at the present time an eyesore to the country and they are a burden to the people who themselves are meeting their obligations. They are, furthermore, situated in districts where their acquisition and division would be very much appreciated. As regards the improvement of estates, I should like to call attention to the fact that we have a number of cases in County Tipperary where estates have been divided for the past ten years, and where the improvements, which it was intended to carry out, have not yet been completed. In that connection, I should like to mention one estate in particular which was divided, I think, about ten years ago, namely, the Butler-Stoney estate. A number of improvements sought by the people who got land on that estate have not yet been carried out. I think it is unfair that there should be such a delay. Undoubtedly the Estimate has been considerably increased and the division of land has also been speeded up, but I think any Deputy coming from a rural area, or any part of the country outside a city, will agree that we are still far from coping with the demands of the people for the acquisition and division of ranch land.

It is noticeable, to my mind, also that the Land Commission seem to be tackling the smaller estates. In cases where there are two or three estates adjoining they come along, pick out one, and proceed to acquire and divide that estate. To my mind, that is not the best way to approach the matter. In cases where there are two or three estates adjoining, if they were taken together and dealt with simultaneously, it would be far more effective. Undoubtedly it would be less expensive. It would take up less of the time of the Land Commission and would give more satisfaction to the people generally. I must also complain—though I suppose the Minister has got the figures and he will beat me in the argument—as regards the rate of acquisition and division of land in County Tipperary. We are told that we are getting our quota but we find that it is very hard to convince people down the country to that effect. We have large areas of fertile land which is not being used and for the acquisition of which we have been making representations for a long time, especially in the extreme north of the county. Very little has been done in that direction. We have also a considerable amount of congestion in these districts and we have a large number of landless men who need no training in the working of land, first-class agriculturists who are in a position to make a living on the land if they are given an opportunity. Many of them gave good national service in the past. I should like to appeal to the Minister to endeavour to speed up the acquisition and division of land in that district. We have, as I have said, been urging it for a long time. We have a large number of estates that are not being used and I think it would be to the advantage of everybody concerned if they were made available for the people.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

This discussion on the Land Commission always appears to me to be rather a bit of a humbug because, when one points out anything wrong, anything that the Land Commission has done that it ought not to have done, up gets the Minister—at least his predecessor adopted that practice, and when I put him a question the other day, the Minister took up the same attitude, and says: "Oh, do not blame poor little me; I have nothing to do with it. It is these bad fellows, these independent fellows in the Land Commission, the Land Commissioners. They cannot do everything, but I am not in the slightest bit responsible; do not blame me for their faults." But, unfortunately, if the Land Commission do what is right in any case, out comes the chest and up goes the head of the Minister and he says: "What a magnificent fellow am I. Look at the amount of land I have acquired and divided." That is the inconsistent attitude which the Minister is endeavouring to take up. Either he should take full responsibility in this House, instead of hiding himself behind the fact that these are reserved services with which he has got nothing to do, or he and his Party ought to take up the attitude when they go round the country of saying that the division or acquisition of land is something with which they have nothing to do. To endeavour to take the praise and to escape the blame is a very illogical attitude, and an attitude which I do not consider a very straight or correct or fair one for the Minister or for his predecessor to take up. His predecessor took up that attitude very strongly, and I am afraid there are signs and symptoms that the Minister is going to try and get the praise, and that, like his predecessor, he is going to try to escape the blame.

The position in the Land Commission is to my mind absolutely hopeless. Looking at the Estimate here, I find that the Estimate for the Minister is £1,700 a year. I go down further and I see a Parliamentary Secretary, and the Estimate for the Parliamentary Secretary is £1,200 a year. What have those two gentlemen got to do? Nothing. If you take away the acquisition of land, and they have nothing to do with the acquisition of land, if you take away the division of land, and they have nothing to do with the division of land, and if you take away the improvement of estates, and they have nothing to do with the improvement of estates, what is there left? I wonder very much how the Minister for Lands and his Parliamentary Secretary pass their time. There is no work for them to do; no file can go before them —certainly no file of any importance. There is nothing left. They are the two most complete figureheads in the country. Unless they amuse themselves by going into a room and playing pitch and toss, or marbles or something of that kind, I cannot for the life of me make out how that poor bored person, the Minister for Lands—if he does not interfere, and he has no right to interfere—and the still more bored person, the Parliamentary Secretary, manage to pass their time. To talk about the work of the Land Commission and to find fault with what has been done, with a Minister who has got no control of any kind, seems to me to be rather wasting the time of the House.

The Minister has got no legal control, but I wonder if he is endeavouring by another way to get control. A constitutional monarch—and I suppose that is very much the position that the Minister is in—whose Ministers do everything, while he has got no power, occasionally sways those Ministers by the use of influence upon them. There is a statue standing outside Leinster House, a statue of the late Queen Victoria. In theory, she had no power on God's earth, but in practice, as her letters have shown, she was daily interfering with and swaying her Ministers. She liked this Minister and did not like the other, and she let it be known. I am very much afraid that the same thing is happening here, and that the Minister is endeavouring by influence to get certain things done, or that members of his Party are endeavouring by influence to get certain things done, because most undoubtedly in regard to the distribution of land in the part of the country that I know—I have very little to say against the acquisition of land—complaint after complaint is coming to me about the undue preference which is being given to prominent members of the Fianna Fáil Party; complaints that if persons have worked for Fianna Fáil they are getting enlargements of their holdings or getting fresh holdings to which they would not be entitled if bare simple justice were to be done without any regard to people's political views. Those complaints are coming to me regularly. I have investigated a few of them, and it does seem to me that they are thoroughly well-founded. What is the cause? I do not think that the Land Commissioners, who are civil servants, are themselves in the slightest bit influenced by any political consideration. I do not see why they should be. But there must be some force, some sinister power, something behind the scenes, which is working upon them and influencing them, and I cannot see what that can be except the Minister.

I sincerely hope that when the Minister gets up to reply he will be in a position to tell this House that in the past he has never made a recommendation to the Land Commission which would in any way influence their judgment when they are dealing with a reserved service, because that is his duty as Minister, and I hope that when he gets up to reply he will give a definite pledge to this House and a definite pledge to the people of this country that never in the future will he make a recommendation to the Land Commission with reference to a reserved service. The Party to which the Minister belongs brought in a statute taking away all power from the Minister and placing all power in the Land Commission. Having done that, they should honourably keep not merely the letter of the law but they should honourably keep the spirit of the law. I sincerely hope that the Minister, when he gets up to reply, will be in a position—I am afraid he will not be, to tell the honest truth— to say that in the past he has not used influence upon the Land Commission. He is in a position to make an honourable pledge to this House that as long as he is Minister he will never again make any recommendation to the Land Commission with reference to the acquisition or distribution of land, those reserved services which were especially taken away from the Minister in order that full and unfettered power and complete discretion should be left in the hands of the Land Commission.

I have spoken shortly on that matter. There is a great number of details about the way in which the Land Commission is working in regard to the distribution of land, and, to a very slight extent, the acquisition of land, which I should like to go into. But what is the use? The Minister has got no right to interfere with the Land Commission. There may be representatives of the Land Commission within hearing, but they are not within the House, and one is supposed to address one's remarks entirely to the Speaker in order that the House, and not the gallery, or any side gallery, may listen to those remarks. Therefore, it appears to me that it would be entire waste of time to go into many of the details. If the Minister had full control, if the Minister had any power which he could exercise, no doubt I would point out a considerable number of things to him. For instance, I object very strongly, in a congested county like Mayo, to people being brought from other counties to obtain holdings of land there. I object to a man being brought from Roscommon, for example, and given one of the best places in Mayo. I am told he came off a small bog holding in Roscomman, and he is given a magnificent place, Hollymount House, in the County Mayo. There is a gate lodge in the place. Not satisfied with giving him the house, they give him the gate lodge in addition, and the unfortunate man who was living in the gate lodge has been ejected by the Land Commission. I do not know whether that has actually been carried out, but I happened to be in court when an order was made by the Circuit Court judge in Mayo giving a decree for possession in favour of this gentleman from Roscommon, who is getting a magnificent mansion house—I suppose 40 or 50 rooms. In addition, he is getting the gate lodge. The workman who had been employed on the land by the previous owner, and who had occupied this gate lodge, was put out on the road with his wife and family.

In the immediate vicinity I discovered again a man from the County Galway brought down and given a holding in the County Mayo. There is less congestion in Galway than there is in Mayo. There is a great deal more untenanted land there than there is in the County Mayo. Therefore, I think that in a congested county like Mayo it is absolutely wrong, if you are going to relieve congestion, to bring people there from other counties. Bring them up if you like to non-congested counties, to Meath and Westmeath, or bring the large landholders from Mayo up to the midland counties, where you can acquire land, but to bring a person from an outside county into the most congested county in the Free State is completely wrong. I could develop that theme by quoting further instances, but there is no use in my doing so, because I know that I am talking to thin air. The Minister cannot interfere, and the Land Commissioners, I am afraid, cannot hear him.

There is another thing that I would like to deal with. When a person is willing and anxious to set his land, and there are other people who want to hold on to and farm their land, I think the Land Commission should acquire the land which is going to be voluntarily sold before they acquire land which the owner is farming and does not want to sell. I came across an example of that recently. It occurred in the same parish as that in which the other incidents that I have referred to took place. There was a gentleman there, a retired bank manager, who was anxious to sell his place. He held quite a nice, substantial farm. That gentleman got leave to sell, and I wondered very much why. I made the discovery that the purchaser was one of the most important Fianna Fáil persons in the neighbourhood. I can give the particulars to the Minister. Of course, the Minister has no power to interfere, and if he got the particulars he would send them on to the Land Commission. With regard to that particular case, I wrote personally to the Land Commission. There was a great deal of dissatisfaction in the neighbourhood, due to the action of the Land Commission in allowing that voluntary sale to take place. The farm was a very substantial one, and was one that might have been used for the relief of congestion.

I do not propose to take up the time of the House in citing other instances. As the law now stands, the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary are complete figureheads. They have no power. This is the only Department of State in which there is a Minister who is completely powerless. As the law stands, he has no power to direct the Land Commission. He may say to the Land Commission that he does not think that the sale and distribution of land is going on quickly enough in, say, the County Roscommon, because I am sure the Minister is anxious that as much land as possible will be divided up and as much money spent as it is possible to spend in that county between this, say, and next June. But suppose the Minister did go to the officials of the Land Commission and said to them: "I am rather dicky in Roscommon, and I would like to see you spending more money on the division of land there." As the law stands, the officials could say to the Minister: "My good sir, you are most impertinent; that is our job and we are not going to be influenced by you." That is the attitude which they not only could take up, but it is the attitude which in law they ought to take up.

For these reasons it seems to me that a debate on the Land Commission Vote is really the greatest humbug. I propose to conclude as I began, by expressing the hope that the Minister is going to play perfectly straight with the people for the future; that when he goes on a political platform and says that so many acres have been acquired within the last three years and that so many acres of land have been distributed within the same period, I hope he will have the common honesty to say: "But I have had nothing to do with that and my Party have had nothing to do with it, so that if you blame us for going too slowly you should put the blame on the officials of the Land Commission; if there is any praise that you have to give, that praise is due not to us but to the Land Commission. Neither I nor my Party is entitled to either blame or praise." That is the truth, because that is how the law stands at the moment, and I assume that the Minister is going to obey the law. I see Deputy Smith sitting behind the Minister and smiling. He seems to think that the Minister has not got a conscience; but I hope that, when Deputy Smith gets on a political platform in Cavan, he also will tell the Cavan people that the acquisition and distribution of land, whether it has gone on too quickly or too slowly, is entirely due to the Land Commission officials; that since the Act of 1933 was passed, making it a reserved service, it would be an impertinence for the Minister or for the Parliamentary Secretary even to give a hint to the officials of the Land Commission as to what ought to be done. I hope the Deputy will have the honesty to tell the people that there is no credit or blame to be attached either to him or to his Party.

Mr. Keely

As one who represents a rather congested constituency, I want to urge on the Minister to pay more attention to migrating the people from the old congested areas, and to do this in time. Otherwise, the land available for the relief of congestion will be divided up and given to other allottees, so that the old problem in my constituency, and I am sure in Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney's constituency, will remain for all time. Complaints have been made about the Land Commission both in this House and outside of it. I am not going to make any complaint or any allegation against the Land Commission, but I have heard complaints similar to those which Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney mentioned in the course of his speech. About three weeks ago, I heard discussed here a question concerning the distribution of some estate in the County Galway. In that case it seems that the Irish Land Commission migrated, or proposed to migrate, five or six persons, small landholders, from the congested areas. The allegation was made by two members of the House, one sitting on this side and the other sitting on the opposite side, that these migrants should not be brought in. The allegations made went so far as to say that it was through influence that had been brought to bear on the Minister that certain of these migrants had been brought into the Dunsandle district.

I have inquired as to whether there were any reasonable grounds for that complaint. Here are the facts that have been given to me. Deputy Brodrick, when he was making the complaint, referred especially to the influence brought to bear on the Minister. He also referred to a supporter of his Party. I understand that the Land Commission do not bother about the supporters of one Party or the other in this country, and in doing that they are perfectly right. He referred to a supporter of his Party: of an only son remaining at home being put into a farm of land, while the father at home had a holding of some 60 acres, the valuation being £35 10s. In the village from which the Land Commission wanted to bring the migrants there are seven families, the total number of persons being 39. I have taken the valuation of each of their seven holdings. It amounted to £35 4s. 6d. The Land Commission have been held up, for bringing those migrants from this congested area into the other area, by the opposition of local people, supported in their opposition by members of this House. I think that is most unjust and most unfair. I think it is a scandalous thing for any Deputy to suggest that it is through influence that the Land Commission performs what is really its function, namely, to divide up land in a fair and equitable manner. I urge on the Minister, irrespective of what the local opposition may be, to continue the good work that the Land Commission have taken in hands, almost too late, I am sorry to say, of migrating congests from these districts and bringing them wherever land is available. I do not mind whether the congests are taken from Donegal or Kerry or Mayo as long as they are taken out of these areas and given holdings where they will be able to earn a living for themselves and an opportunity also given to those people who are left behind to make a living I mention this matter to show that the complaints made against the Land Commission are not justified; that the Land Commission are making the best endeavour they can to solve this problem in the Western counties.

There is another matter which needs some remedying. I am not going to refer to forestry, but forestry comes into it as it is a branch of the Land Commission. The forestry department are taking certain areas of land in the mountain districts for afforestation. What I suggest is that when the Land Commission migrate people from the mountain areas, instead of giving the land to the people who remain they should hand it over to the forestry department for afforestation purposes. There is one particular case which I have brought to the notice of the Land Commission on several occasions. In one village there are 10 or 12 families living and each of these families has an area of about 500 acres of mountain land. The valuation of these holdings would range from 17/6 to 30/- I put the proposition to the Land Commission on several occasions that some of these people should be migrated and that their land should be given over to the forestry department for afforestation purposes. The Land Commission contend that they have not the legal power to allocate any of the lands in their hands for forestry purposes. I cannot say whether that is true or not, but I ask the Minister to inquire into it and see what can be done. I should like to stress the point that Deputy Beegan raised with regard to advances to supplement the grant made by the Local Government Department for housing purposes in areas such as I represent, where valuations are small and where the people cannot very well get credit. In cases where the people have their annuities paid up to date I suggest to the Minister that a small advance of from £30 to £50 be made to the numerous people who have applied for an advance to supplement the Local Government Department's grant to enable them to build houses. With the halving of the annuities and the small annuities concerned in these cases, I think there will be full security for any small advance made to these people. It would speed up the work of housing in these congested areas to a very great extent. Last week I handed in many scores of applications from people who are prepared to build houses if they could only get a small grant. I ask that the matter of advances to these applicants should be dealt with speedily as the Housing Act is to expire on 1st April next year and, unless these applications are dealt with speedily, these people will not be able to begin the work and, therefore, will not be able to complete it before the Act expires.

Mr. Walsh

In reference to remarks made by Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney, I was rather astonished to hear it stated that the Minister had no power or authority over the Land Commission. I was very much astonished to hear that, considering that Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney and other Deputies for the past couple of years have been making the allegation of political administration on the part of the Land Commission and that land is divided from the political standpoint. It is a rather extraordinary thing after that campaign to come along now and tell us that the Minister has absolutely no power.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

No power, but a lot of influence. That was my objection.

Mr. Walsh

The Deputy is qualifying the statement.

A Deputy

A change of tactics.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

No, the same all the time.

Mr. Walsh

One matter which has induced me to speak on this Estimate is the delay in dealing with congested estates in Mayo. I refer to estates from which people have been migrated. The small portions of land from which they have been migrated have been left undealt with for the past 20 years and are let at rack rent rates for grazing purposes to neighbouring tenants. There does not seem to be any desire or effort on the part of the Land Commission to deal with these small holdings. There are several very bad examples of that in my constituency. In fact, the Minister is aware that recently in the Hollymount portion of the Sligo estate this matter led to a very bitter agitation and disturbances broke out. I have no hesitation in saying that it is very hard to blame the people concerned. About 20 small holders were migrated out of this district. A good many of these people left over 20 years ago and their neighbours, who expected to get that land, are still left expecting it. I would make a special appeal to the Minister to deal with this problem immediately, because, undoubtedly, if it is not dealt with, it is going to lead to trouble.

It has taken a big effort on the part of some of us to stop trouble breaking out on some of these estates. I will say that on the whole the people have exercised great patience. Anyone can realise the feelings of a small holder, who may have only four acres of land, whose neighbour who had five or six acres was migrated 15 years ago, when, after expecting to get that land, he has to pay in grazing rent four times as much as the former tenant paid for that land. I know in some cases they are paying five times as much. I know of cases where small holders, who were migrated, were paying £3 or £4 for their holdings, and these same holdings are now let to their neighbours at as much as £16 or £17. Still they are not owners, and no attempt is made to make them owners. They have merely grazing lettings.

Deputy Keely referred to a question that is very urgent—housing—or the assistance given towards housing by the Land Commission. It is hard to understand why there is not a more speedy method of dealing with applications. My experience is that the average application put in by a small holder for an advance takes 18 months before a decision is given one way or the other. When an application is made to the Local Government Department, and when it is passed for a grant, if the applicant goes to a local trader to ask for credit it will not be given until it is known that an advance will be given by the Land Commission. It is extraordinary that there cannot be a speedier way of dealing with applications. I ask the Minister to try to have decisions speeded up. If people are not entitled to an advance they should be told so, and if they are to get an advance arrangements should be made to give it. I do not agree with Deputy Keely's statement about handing over bits of land for forestry purposes. That might suit in portions of Galway, but land is so scarce in Mayo that I do not think that would be a suitable proposition there. If such a policy were adopted it might lead to trouble and agitation. Before putting such a policy into effect the Minister should give it serious consideration.

Regarding the position of the land question in Mayo, I must say that for the last 12 months a good deal of work has been done, and a lot of land has been acquired and distributed. The problem is, however, a big one still. Mayo is one of the biggest counties in Ireland, and there is only one solution of the land question there, and that is that many more people will have to be brought out of the county if they are to have a chance of living at all. That applies to other districts in Mayo outside the Gaeltacht, districts that are not classed as the Gaeltacht. Take the area from Kiltimagh to Ballaghaderreen, it is the worst rural slum in Ireland, and it is not classed as the Gaeltacht. The people there have not lived there for generations out of their small holdings, but simply on their earnings as migratory labourers in England and Scotland, as well as remittances from their sons and daughters in America. It would be impossible for them to exist otherwise. I appeal to the Minister to have some far-reaching policy announced to deal with this big problem, as it affects thousands of small-holders. It is not dozens or scores of people are affected, but thousands, and something should be done to relieve their condition in such districts. As I believe these to be the most congested districts in the Twenty-Six Counties, I hope the Minister will give the problem early consideration.

Mr. Smith

In my experience of Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney over a period of six or seven years in this House——

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

Ten years You came in 1927.

Mr. Smith

——I never saw the Deputy in a more ungenerous mood than this evening. I must say that I admire the new tactics of conveying to the public and to everyone concerned what the legal position was, and pointing to the limitations imposed by law on the Minister and on the Minister's Party.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

I was not.

Mr. Smith

Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney will have to admit that the machinery by which the Land Commission has been able to deal to the extent that it has done with the acquisition and distribution of land has been pointed out in public pronouncements by the Minister. Surely the Deputy will, at least, give the Minister and this Party credit for having made that machinery available, although we have rid ourselves of certain powers that we as a Government possessed, of distributing patronage amongst political friends——

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

I absolutely deny that there has been any alteration in the machinery since 1923.

Mr. Smith

The Deputy made a speech in which he was at great pains to point out the limitations that had been deliberately imposed upon the Minister. He went further, and said that the Minister of all the other Ministers was the most ineffective figurehead.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

On a point of order. I never said there was any alteration in the machinery but that one man was working the machinery at one time; that is to say, the Minister had been put away from the machine altogether, but that the machine is the same machine.

Mr. Smith

The Deputy will have to agree that while his tactics from the Party point of view were very good, at the same time he did what many others have done, he carried it a little bit too far, because he went on to say that the Minister and this Party had not contributed in any way to make it possible for the Land Commission to proceed with the policy of land acquisition and land distribution as effectively as in former years. With regard to the acquisition of land, there is one question about which I would like to have some explanation. When the Land Commission decides to acquire certain land, the owner has the right of appeal. It has often occurred to me that the owner takes advantage of that right, and provides himself with the best legal assistance that can be procured. One can just imagine somebody as persuasive as Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney going before the Land Commission courts to make a case on behalf of some owner who is resisting the decision to acquire land, while at the same time the Land Commission, as far as one can follow these cases from outside—as we are compelled to follow them— seems to be served by no one. I think that is unfair. My experience of the decisions arrived at as a result of the determination of these appeals leads me to believe that there must be something wrong with the system. While I am prepared to concede all the rights provided under the law to the owners of land, at the same time I want to make a protest from the point of view of those who want the land acquired, in connection with the making of the case on behalf of these people, who are living under conditions that can be improved only by acquiring land.

I want to point out to the Minister, or whoever is responsible, that if there is any fault in the machinery which has been set up, or any fault in the law, while conceding full rights to owners of land, I think better provision should be made to ensure that the Land Commission courts will not have to depend solely on Land Commission officials who go there and give evidence, perhaps in a simple and unpersuasive manner. I think that is a lopsided method, and I think the experience of most members here in cases such as that to which I have referred is that there must be something wrong with that system, and that, in most cases, the individual bringing the appeal gets all the consideration, while the unfortunate people, who are looking forward to the acquisition of the land, are left out in the cold, with nobody to make their case before the tribunal, as it was made for the owner. There is the important question of making some provision for dealing with retained holdings under the recent Land Acts. Quite a number of those holdings are to be found all over the country, and a number of them are urgently required for the relief of congestion. They are changing hands and obstacles to their acquisition are being created as time passes. If there is anything wrong with the legal machinery, I think it is our responsibility to see that it is made perfect.

The acquisition of land for the relief of congestion and for the creation of new holdings is an important matter, but the vesting of tenanted land in the tenants is also an important matter. You have this question of subtenancies, and a number of people responsible for the annuities on subtenancies who are continually raising the question of making these subtenancies direct tenancies by the Land Commission. You have also the question of improvements on tenanted lands. I seem to have been making representations for 20 years to the Land Commission to get them to carry out improvements on estates that are not yet vested, and I think that, even if they are not in a position now to vest, they should at least make some effort to carry out improvements that are long overdue. I must say that I have got little satisfaction in all my efforts in that direction so far, and I hope that in future the Land Commission in that respect will mend its ways.

It is very interesting sometimes to listen to a debate of this kind. I have often heard the Corkmen accused of being always on the mark, but I think the Westerners are getting away with a terrible lot by throwing the entire responsibility on the Corkmen. I have heard Deputies talk of advances being made to the occupiers of vested holdings, and I have heard Deputy Dillon referring to the delays on vested holdings in getting the Land Commission to make grants for certain improvements. He went to great pains to point out that these moneys can only be made available after the sanction of the Department of Finance had been secured. I was foolishly under the impression that it was not possible under any circumstances at all. I listened further, and found that other Western Deputies cited cases in which the Land Commission had actually assisted a man on a vested holding in the erection of his dwelling-house. We unfortunately find that we cannot get them to cooperate with our people who want houses even when the lands are not vested. It was interesting from that point of view to listen to the debate. I have no objection at all to the people from the West, the South, or any other part getting assistance of this kind, but if the rural housing condition is to be improved as every Deputy would like to see it improved, I would appeal to the Land Commission to deal in a much more generous way with the people in respect of making loans available to small holders, who, no matter how generous the free grant from the State may be, cannot take advantage of it.

As Deputy Beegan, Deputy Killilea and a number of others have stressed, I think there should be some means devised by which all such desirable applicants—and by "desirable" I mean those who have a good record so far as paying their annuity is concerned—could get a loan from the Land Commission—let it be five times or ten times the amount of their annuity as a maximum—and that if they want to take advantage of such a system, they would be enabled to pay back the loan over an extended period in their annuity. We may talk as we like about the adoption of the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Act by local authorities, and free grants by the State and other moneys provided to encourage rural housing—everybody agrees that a good deal has been done in that direction— but there are still quite a big section of our small farmers who, for one reason or another, cannot take advantage of these generous provisions in the Housing Acts. I think a more generous policy of making money available in the way I have outlined should be adopted by the Land Commission. After all, it is a big and an important thing to set out to improve the housing conditions of small farmers.

We have heard some Deputies talk about some holdings. There were always derelict holdings, I suppose, but it seems to me that, in backward areas, the general tendency, not alone here, but in every part, is to leave and to get into more convenient centres. If we want to stop that —and we may not succeed entirely— or to curtail it, we must try to encourage those who are living under difficult and poor conditions, to improve themselves, and devise some system by which, in addition to the free grant provided by the Local Government Department, the Land Commission might accept the certificate of the former when a job is complete, and make a loan the maximum of which would be determined by the Land Commission and paid by the occupying tenant. I hope Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney will think over the advice I have given him. I must say again that I have always regarded him as a fairly good tactician, but tactics should never be carried too far.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

Deputy Smith has accused me of carrying what he calls tactics a little too far. As a matter of fact, I did not start the tactics. They were started in self-defence by, as he then was, Senator Connolly and his Parliamentary Secretary, at a time when I took rather strong objection to the way in which lands were divided. That was the first time the plea that they had no responsibility came along. Also, in a very bad case, which was much discussed, from Wexford, there came the plea of no responsibility. I accept the plea of no responsibility, but if you will not take responsibility for mistakes in the Land Commission, it is not a manly thing to try to take credit for what they have done. I will just ask Deputy Smith to think that over carefully, ruminate on it, and see, when he has sufficiently chewed the cud of bitter reflection, whether he will not agree with me in that.

So far as the court work of the Land Commission and the hearing of objections is concerned, Deputy Smith can have his mind perfectly at ease. I agree with him so far as one thing is concerned. I think the Land Commission did make a mistake when they dropped being represented by counsel. Up to a year or so ago, the Land Commission used to be represented before the Commissioners hearing the cases. Possibly, it may be said that I am saying that from the professional point of view, and that I would like to see members of my profession receiving fees. Frankly, I would.

It is a very human view and one may as well admit to human frailty, but in a good number of instances it would be money very well spent. So far as the actual decisions go, my experience before the court is that I have not been persuasive at all, as Deputy Smith was kind enough to say I might be. The objections I have seen upheld have been, I think, always on points of law—that there was no power in the Land Commission to acquire these lands. I think that has always been the case. The ad misericordiam appeal, as it is called, has, in my experience, been very seldom acceded to. I said, on the discussion of the last Land Bill, that it very often happened that the lay commissioners strained the law to acquire land. At least, the Act of 1933 was interpreted in a certain way by the Minister for Defence who introduced it. I tried to argue before the Land Commission that the Minister for Defence had put into the section what he had said in this House he was putting into it, but the Land Commission have regularly held that he did not say that at all. I pointed out that in the debate on the last Land Bill.

Mr. Bartley

I should like to support Deputy Walsh in appealing to the Minister for a far-reaching policy in connection with migration. The Minister ought not to pay too much attention to what has been said against the migration policy. I speak for the congested districts, particularly for the congested districts in Connemara area, and when you come down to examine the question of finding a permanent solution for the economic conditions there, I cannot see any other solution than that of pursuing the policy of migration. I think that that ought to be done and that we ought to float a loan for that purpose. I do not think that the cost ought to be charged on the ordinary, annual revenue of the Land Commission. I think that that ought to be done on a big scale and, furthermore, that a decision as regards it should be come to quickly because, at the rate at which land has been divided for the past few years, it seems to me that, in ten or 15 years, it will not be so easy to carry out large-scale migration as it now is. It ought to be possible for the Land Commission definitely to decide in areas such as Connemara the extent to which they will have to go to provide, at least, livable conditions for the people who remain. I do not make the case that it would be possible to leave the people economic holdings on the type of land they have, but, at all events, the valuation could be raised considerably.

Large numbers will have to be migrated from Connemara and I should like to assure the Minister that the statement made by Deputy Dillon, that the people do not want to go, is, to a very large extent, not true. From my experience for the past 12 months, I can say that there is a growing number of people in the Gaeltacht districts who are now anxious to go. A number of letters I have received show that. Apart from the letters, I made inquiries in districts where I was doubtful that the people would be anxious to migrate and representative people said to me: "Let the Land Commission make the offer and they will find how many will be prepared to go." I believe the Land Commission would be surprised at the response if it invited applications or if it sent around some of their local representatives to make inquiries.

On the question of the language, I should like to join issue with Deputy Dillon. The solution of the Gaeltacht question cannot be brought about by industrial development unless there is a big change of State policy and unless we have State-controlled industries, because the people interested in the industrial revival will not establish their factories in districts in the Gaeltacht. Even if they did, urban conditions would be created around these industries and urban conditions would introduce English and injure the national language. If the language is to be preserved in the Gaeltacht, it must be done under the best rural conditions which it is possible to provide for the Gaeltacht. These conditions can only be got where the land is good. That being so, I am all in favour of this migration scheme.

Furthermore, it is necessary to create a Gaeltacht in the midlands. The argument regarding the loss of the language by the people migrated to County Meath does not hold water when you consider that people who have gone to the United States—a place where you would not expect that they would hear any Irish—and have spent their lives there, come back, after 30 or 40 years, with their Irish as fluent as ever it was. With the Government policy of fostering Irish, I cannot see how the children in these colonies can possibly lose the language. In Rathcarn they have a school of their own and these colonies will, in my opinion, have their effect on the surrounding English-speaking areas. I think that the Government ought to take a bold line and have a much larger migration policy. They should make more money available and I think they should do that by way of loan and not by way of charge on the ordinary revenue. I was agreeably surprised to hear the Minister say that the cost per household was under £1,000. If we were to tot up the amounts given by way of special grants to these districts for the past 30 or 40 years, we should find that it would migrate the people three times over. We shall be, therefore, saving the money which would have to be spent if conditions were to remain as they are. In my opinion, this is a very good investment from every angle from which it can be regarded. The danger of the depletion of the Gaeltacht is a myth. The Gaeltacht must be depleted, in my opinion, in order to save it. The Land Commission should, I think, give attention to those parcels of land which are available for division in some of the congested areas. There is, for instance, a farm of 400 acres in Clonbur. There are a large number of congests living around that farm and they have been clamouring for its division for years. I have been writing to the Minister and to the Land Commission for years about it and nothing has been done. I think it is a great shame that these farms, which are so few in congested areas, should be left undivided up to now.

Mr. Curran

There are a few points to which I should like to direct the Minister's attention on this Vote. I should like to call attention, in the first place, to the flooding of lands. It is well known to the Land Commission that considerable hardship is imposed on farmers by the flooding of their lands. These lands are practically no use to these people at all. I am aware that the Land Commission have been approached in connection with the matter, but the thing seems to go on from day to day. Within a few miles of my own place there are hundreds of acres flooded. Recently I was asked by a tenant farmer to go and see his place. It is not a very extensive farm, and so far as dry land is concerned there is no more dry land on that farm than the area of the inside of this Chamber. The apple trees in the garden are actually under water. I brought the matter before the House some short time ago. On that occasion I appealed to the Land Commission and I was told that an inspector would be sent there. Probably an inspector has been sent. There are other submerged lands in the neighbourhood and the situation there is also very acute. Only last evening as I was passing through the district the whole place looked like the Irish Sea. Only one bit of the flooded area is in my constituency, for the place is in close proximity to the town of Carrick-on-Suir and the River Suir. It seems that the Land Commission has been approached and asked to do something. The Land Commission says the responsibility is on the farmers or tenant purchasers, that they accepted responsibility when they took over the holdings. Legally that may be so. It may be that the farmers in their anxiety to get rid of landlordism accepted any responsibility put on them. Unfortunately, they accepted responsibility for the upkeep of these embankments. But they have actually no land now and they are being pressed, and pressed severely, for the land annuities which they are compelled to pay. I hope I am not making any extreme statement when I say that the commissioner, when the case was put up to him, remitted the rates on these lands. Now when a similar proposition is put up to the Land Commission they are not prepared to act in a like manner, though this land is at present absolutely valueless. So far as the future is concerned I do not know what is to become of this place.

I listened to the Deputy who has just sat down talking about 400 acres of land. But in my immediate neighbourhood there are hundreds of acres of land under water. These lands are likely to remain submerged because the owners will not accept responsibility for these embankments, and the Land Commission will not face up to what I call their responsibility in connection with this flooding and do something for the tenant. I would like if the Minister, when replying, would deal with this question. There is very little of the injury done through the flooding in my constituency—only in one man's farm. The rest is in the County Kilkenny. The Land Commission is perfectly well aware of the situation there. Talking about acquiring and dividing land, while we have land in this area going waste, it seems to me to be very ridiculous indeed.

A good deal has been said under this Vote as regards the division of land and the kind of people to whom it should be allotted. As far as I know, the people put into possession of these divided lands are very suitable. I am speaking from my experience of them. I am satisfied that the Land Commission have done their work fairly and well and there has not been much partiality shown as regards the allottees in the matter of dividing the land. I came across a case recently where the Land Commission thought fit to acquire a man's holding of fairly considerable size—200 acres. They took that man's land and left with the man's house a very small portion of land. It seems to me that whatever the future may be, leaving a small portion, say 29 acres, with farm buildings, that in the past were capable of carrying and farming over 200 acres, is carrying out a very strange policy. I am sure the Minister knows the estate to which I am referring. I suppose lands will have to be acquired, but even so, I think there is something wrong here. I think, when a portion of the land is being taken away, a reasonable amount of land ought to be left with the man's homestead. What has been done in this case will make uneconomic for all time the 29 acres left with the farm buildings. I am only dealing with matters that have come under my notice in connection with these activities of the Land Commission. I heard recently of a farm purchased by public auction two years ago. It appears that the vendor was not of age. Recently he came of age. I do not know very much about the law in the matter, but at any rate after two years notice had been served by the Land Commission that they intended to resume the holding. I am wondering whether there is any mistake in this case. It seems a ridiculous idea to come along after two years and say that they are going to acquire that holding. It must be apparent to anyone of understanding that if a man comes in and buys a place by public auction he should be entitled to occupy that place and live there. This may be an isolated case. I do not know, but at all events it has been brought under my notice. Deputy Bartley referred to the migrants, the Irish language, and so on. I do not want to deal with that aspect of the situation. I think the question was asked here a short time ago about what it cost to put migrants from the congested districts into a farm of approximately 21 acres. I think that is the amount of land these people hold. So far as I recollect, the reply was that it cost approximately, £1,200 to put a migrant into one of these holdings. If it cost round about that sum to put a migrant into 21 acres, then all I can say is that it was a very extravagant payment, or a very large amount of money to pay in order to put a man into so small a parcel of land. I do not know what is the answer of the Land Commission to that question, but I do know that a very poor return is made to the State for the £1,200 spent in putting a tenant into so small a parcel of land, and the whole thing seems to be very extravagant. I do not know how the extravagance comes in, or what would be the various items which would go to make up that amount.

These are the few points that I want to put before the Minister. I am aware that a good many people are in arrears with their land annuities. Representations have been made to the Land Commission to see if anything could be done. One must face the fact that in the case of some farms where, say, the husband dies, the same system of farming could be carried on as heretofore, when the husband was alive. It so happens that in some of these cases a different system of farming is resorted to in order to meet the exigencies of the situation. The widow, who might have a young family, would be inclined to let the land on the 11 months' system. Of necessity that might have to be done, because there would be nobody in the home to run the farm. Where that happens down the country the next thing is that an agitation is started to divide that particular holding. I think that procedure is very regrettable, and I have no hesitation in saying that it is all due to statements made by members of the Government.

I have seen it stated recently that if the Land Commission will not do their job they will have to get out. I was present on one occasion when a farm was being sold under an order of the High Court. In the first instance the Land Commission were to acquire it. The case was appealed and the farm was ordered to be sold. I was present at the sale, which was objected to with the usual story: "We want this land divided." These are very regrettable incidents in connection with the whole policy of land division. As a matter of fact, it is hard to know where it is all going to end or whether in this country you are ever again going to have a free sale of land.

I merely refer to these things because they have come under my notice and I desire to draw them to the attention of the Government. If lands have to be acquired, and I suppose they have, some consideration should be given to the people from whom they are being taken. So far as I am aware, the prices paid are not very extravagant; indeed, it is the other way about. I mentioned a while ago about £1,200 being paid in order to put a migrant on a 21-acre farm. I recently met a man who had given a farm to the Land Commission, the extent of it being 150 acres. He told me the price he was paid came to £800. It is very funny if the Land Commission can acquire a big farm for £800 and it costs £1,200 to put a migrant on 21 acres. To my mind there is something wrong. I suppose the cost of building forms a considerable item. I think that, so far as the Land Commission prices are concerned, they should pay those from whom they acquire land—there is nobody else from whom to acquire it but farmers, because practically all the landlords have gone—at least its good market value.

As regards this whole question of agitation in the country, it is very easy nowadays to prevent the sale of a farm. A few people may gather and say: "We want this land divided," and that finishes it. It is about time some steps were taken to stop such a line of argument and such statements. This policy is due entirely to the statements of members of the Fianna Fáil Party. They assure the people that they will divide this and that. So far as I understand it, the policy of the Fianna Fáil Party when they go to the country is to say that they will divide the land, take it off somebody and give it to other people.

Statements similar to that have been made by very responsible members of the Government, but such statements may go too far. I have made my protest. I consider the whole policy unjust. I hope the Minister will make some reply to the points I have mentioned.

Mr. Boland

The last point Deputy Curran raised had reference to the clamour there is to have land acquired. I do not think that is anything new. Deputy Curran himself knows that it is not. People whose lands the Land Commission propose to acquire have the right of appeal. Every Deputy knows that very often these appeals are upheld. I need not say any more on that point. So far as preventing Deputies from saying foolish things in the course of their speeches is concerned, that is a job that I would not like to take on. Every Party comprises people of that kind, and I am not going to try to prevent Deputies down the country from saying things which perhaps in their calmer moments they would not say.

Coming now to the question of the flooded land, that is really a very big question. Deputy Curran mentioned a particular case, and, even though he may have written on the subject to me, I do not think, when I have not been notified that he intended to raise it here, that it would be fair to expect me to deal with it now. If the Deputy sends me particulars of that case I will have it inquired into, but I am not promising that it will be rectified, because it may not be within my power to have it rectified. The whole question of flooding and of the State taking responsibility for it is really too big for me to deal with at the moment. Indeed, it is a question upon which I am not prepared to make a statement now. It requires consideration by the Government, and it is not a matter purely for the Land Commission.

With regard to embankments, the position is that when these lands were taken over there was a certain amount of the purchase money put into a trustee fund, and these trustees were to maintain the embankments. Where they did not do so, it is not the fault of the Land Commission.

Mr. Curran

The evil exists now.

Mr. Boland

It may exist, but I cannot promise a ready remedy here. If the Deputy will supply details of any case he has in mind, I will see if anything can be done. With regard to people being allowed to hold on to land that they bought by public auction, that would amount to giving those people who purchased the land rights that the vendor might not have had. If the Land Commission proposed to acquire 300 or 400 acres the owner might be inclined to sell his land by public auction, and the buyer, according to the Deputy, would have rights that perhaps the vendor would not have got.

Mr. Curran

I mentioned a particular case.

Mr. Boland

There may be a particular case, and if there is I am afraid I could not deal with it without having full particulars. Coming back to the general question of a man whose land the Land Commission proposed to acquire, the point is that that man goes off to sell his land by public auction. Is Deputy Curran suggesting that the buyer of the land should have certain rights which, perhaps, the vendor did not have? If he is dealing with a particular case, I would like to have that case examined.

Mr. Curran

Perhaps the Minister will allow me to explain. My point is this: if anybody buys a farm at a public auction, is he not entitled to keep that farm and hold it and work it?

Mr. Boland

It would all depend on the circumstances.

Mr. Curran

Or is it the policy of the Government that, if a man buys a farm for £1,000 or £800, or whatever the price may be, the Land Commission can come along afterwards and, if they see fit, acquire that farm?

Mr. Boland

If the Land Commission want any particular lands that come within the provision of the Land Acts, they can acquire them. I do not see how the Deputy can make the case of the man who buys land at a public auction as against the case of the man who already has land in his possession. One might as well say that the Land Commission should not have power to take land from anybody. It seems to me to amount to the same thing.

Mr. Curran

Oh, no.

Mr. Boland

Well, that is my opinion, at any rate. Deputy Bartley and other Deputies dealt with the question of migration. In fact, the debate opened with Deputy Dillon's statement about the migration that has taken place from the West and other Gaeltacht areas. Both he and other Deputies seemed to think that the most unsuitable people who could be got have been migrated and that the scheme had not been a success. Well, my information—and we have been well-informed on that question— is that these migrants, at least in the first colony, have been very successful. Of course, the others have only just come there, so we cannot speak with accuracy about them, but I believe that they will turn out just as well.

Deputy Morrissey and other Deputies asked a supplementary question the other day about the emigration that has taken place to England from this colony, and I saw, in a Dublin newspaper recently, that a great fuss was being made about some emigration that had taken place. The fact is that some of the adult people in that colony have gone out of it—that is, the elder boys and girls—but it must be remembered that they are big families, and in no case has the head of the family gone. It is just the kind of thing that would happen in the normal course of events, and I should like that to be realised by Deputies and by the public. Of course, the design behind that was to convey to the public that the scheme was a colossal failure. It is quite the contrary, as a matter of fact. These people have adapted themselves very well to the new conditions and the new surroundings, and there were only two cases in which the people returned to their old homes, and these people returned for purely personal reasons. They expressed themselves as being quite satisfied, and they returned to their old homes for purely personal reasons not proper to be debated here. Personal reasons induced them to return, and it was not owing to failure either on their part or on that of the Land Commission.

I shall not attempt to prophesy as to whether they will lose the language as a result of this migration scheme. Deputy Dillon, of course, not alone knows all that is happening in the present as well as all that has happened in the past, but he also knows all that is going to happen in the future. He says that they will lose the language. Well, perhaps they will, but I do not think they will. I think that the fact that they have been brought in in such numbers to form a big colony will have the result—and it is to be hoped that it will have the result—that, far from losing the language, they will help to spread it in that district. If it were the case of just a few families, there might be a danger of losing the language, but where there are 50 families in one colony and 30 families in another, I think there is every reason to hope that they will keep the language.

I do not know how much further we can go on this scheme, but Deputy Bartley can rest assured that anything we can do to relieve congestion in the West will be done. I am sure, however, that he realises it is a very big problem. With regard to the acquisition of any land that is still available in the Gaeltacht areas, I shall ask the Land Commission to speed up the acquisition of such lands. Another question that was raised by Deputies was the question of the Land Commission helping in housing. There may be some delays, but they are not quite as big as was represented here. Somebody suggested, I think, that 18 months was about the average time that was taken to get these claims through.

The fact is that, where the local government have sanctioned a loan, the Land Commission generally supplements that loan by an advance which is repayable, and if there have been delays, they were unavoidable. Of course, these cases are not as easily settled as people would imagine. They require a lot of consideration and, besides, it must be remembered that the Land Commission is very busy on its own particular work of acquiring and dividing the land. Generally speaking, however, I believe that the Land Commission is not much in arrear with these housing claims —not nearly as much in arrear as people would be led to believe by listening to the statements of some of the Deputies.

Deputy Smith raised the question of the representation of people who were expecting allotments in the case where an appeal is made by the owner against the acquisition of his land. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney is wrong in what he said with regard to the representation of the Land Commission by counsel. I do not know whether he definitely stated it or not, but the fact is that the Land Commission, I am informed, never were represented by counsel in these cases. At least, so I am informed.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

I am afraid I cannot agree.

Mr. Boland

The fact is that the Land Commission decide that they propose to take over certain lands. If the person whose lands are to be acquired feels that he has a grievance and that his lands ought not to be taken, he goes to the Land Commission and objects to his land being taken, and, of course, he is represented by counsel. He is appealing against the acquisition of his land by the Land Commission, and I think it is only reasonable that he should be represented by counsel. The Land Commission know the facts of the case and they will decide the question on its merits. Accordingly, I do not think there is very much in that point.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

Do I understand the Minister to say that the Land Commission, on the hearing of objections, have never been represented by counsel?

Mr. Boland

I mean at the Land Commission itself. At the appeal tribunal they can be, but not at the Land Commission court.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

They can be, of course, in either; but, in fact, have they never been represented?

Mr. Boland

That is my information—that at the Land Commission court they have not been. Now, Deputy Dillon repeated the complaint he made on the Supplementary Estimate about the type of improvement work that is being done. I have to say that his statement is not correct. The fact is that, as other Deputies have testified, the improvement work is of as high a standard as it ever was. On the occasion of the Supplementary Estimate, I think it was Deputy Roddy who said that we were spending three times as much money and doing far less work. The fact is that we are spending three times as much money and doing three times as much work, and the work is of as high a standard as ever it was. The question of arrears of annuities was also raised. Now, I am sure every Deputy knows—and when the last Government was in power I had experience of it—that where defaulting annuitants make any kind of reasonable case at all to the Land Commission, their cases will get favourable consideration. That was the case then, and it is the case still. However, where you had a regular campaign against the payment of annuities taking place—which is not taking place now—I do not think it is reasonable to expect that the Land Commission should simply allow that campaign to succeed: a campaign which, if it did succeed, would destroy both local and central government. In view of that campaign, the Land Commission had to take action, but even while that campaign was at its height, wherever a reasonable case was made, the Land Commission was always open to give full consideration to any reasonable proposition that was put up.

Deputy Mulcahy referred to an answer I gave dealing with various matters—the cost of these new holdings, the difference between the cost of holdings given to migrants in the Gaeltacht and those given to local men, and also the size of the holdings. He wanted to know why there had been a drop in the size of the farms from 25 acres to 22 and 18 acres. In the latter case accommodation plots are included, and that fact has been responsible for bringing down the average size. When we take into consideration the smaller plots of three, four or five acres, naturally the average is less. It cannot be argued from that that smaller holdings are being allotted. The Deputy also asked about the cost of the holdings, and how much of the money was recoverable. The answer I gave was that in the case of holdings such as on the Maher-Heffernan estate, the total cost was £980. In the other statement I gave the figure was not the same because there were other people included.

Mr. Curran

Was the reply given to Deputy O'Leary correct?

Mr. Boland

In that case I did not advert to the fact that there were some local people. The total cost of a migrant's holding is £980; that is £295 over the cost of putting in local men. Including buildings, improvements, etc., the total cost of each holding is £685, and then the additional cost of bringing in migrants is £295 in each case. The Deputy also asked how much of that is recoverable. None of it is recoverable. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney had to bring in the charge that we were giving Fianna Fáil supporters undue preference. He was the only Deputy who made that charge. Other members of the Party admitted that in these matters there was no question, as far as they could find, of discrimination. I think Deputy McMenamin and Deputy Dillon said so.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

I am making my charges definitely for my own constituency, the only place I know.

Mr. Boland

The Deputy has no foundation for any such statement. Deputy Dillon, and, I think, Deputy McMenamin, said that quite the contrary was the fact. We hear complaints from each Party. Members of my own Party and supporters of ours complain that supporters of the Opposition have got land that our supporters thought they should have got.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

Will the Minister look up the division of the Ormsby and Levin estate and see what happened?

Mr. Boland

We have no way of knowing——

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

You have letters of recommendation on which to go.

Mr. Boland

The Land Commission have no way of knowing what the politics of people are, and Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney does not bring any credit to himself by getting down to that level. There has been a good deal of complaint about delays in acquisition, especially from Galway Deputies. As far as I can recollect, Galway has done better in that respect than any other county. We had most complaint from Galway and Tipperary, but the fact is that these are the two counties in which most land has been divided. All I can say is that Deputies will have to be patient. There has been three times as much land divided since we started operations than in any similar period—something like 270,000 acres in the last three years. That has involved a tremendous amount of work, and Deputies will have to be satisfied and have a little patience, as everything cannot be done at the same time. We should all like to have things done the very moment we ask for them, but that is not possible.

Deputy Dillon complained that, when he asked for certain information none was forthcoming and that nothing was ever done. Deputies may know the type of information they want from the Land Commission, but they should also know that they cannot get it right away. Inquiries of all sorts have to be made, and a lot of questions put to the Land Commission have reference to matters upon which a decision has not been come to at all. Sufficient time must be allowed to the Land Commission to come to a decision on such matters, and no matter how much Deputies may wish to speed up these matters it is not always possible to do so. I think Deputy Dillon was entirely unjustified in his statement in that regard. I am perfectly satisfied that I can endorse what my predecessor said in reference to the Land Commission officials. They are working as hard as any officials could work in their Department. Generally speaking, they have given entire satisfaction. There have been a few complaints here and there, and there may have been foundation for some of them, but on the whole, considering all the work that has been done in the last few years, I think they deserve the greatest credit and I should like to pay them that tribute before the debate is concluded.

Mr. Everett

Would the Minister deal with the questions which I raised?

Mr. Boland

I beg the Deputy's pardon. I forgot it for the moment. The Deputy complains that the Land Commission is actually paying a lower rate of wages than the farmers in certain districts. My information is quite to the contrary. As a matter of fact, in County Wicklow, from the returns we have available, I see that the Land Commission is paying more than the farmers. They are paying 24/-, which is 2/- more than the rate for County Wicklow. We are advised that 22/- is the rate of wages paid by farmers in County Wicklow taken as a whole. There are districts in County Wicklow in which a higher rate is paid by the farmers, one of which was mentioned by Deputy Everett. He made representations on the matter in that district and he was able to show that the farmers were paying 30/- a week. As soon as we ascertained that, we were able to adjust it and pay the same rate, but for the County Wicklow generally the wages paid are 2/- per week higher than those paid by the farmers, not less than is paid by the farmers. The body which advises us on these matters—the Inter-Departmental Wages Advisory Board—has been in existence for a very long time. It was set up by the last Government and there are representatives on it from the different Departments. They inquire at stated periods—I think annually—as to what changes are taking place in rates of pay, and, as I have told the Deputy, we are paying a higher amount than the amount paid in County Wicklow generally.

On the question of tools, as a general rule the Land Commission workers in country districts have their own spades and shovels. The other tools are supplied by the Land Commission. In some cases men who were sent out from the Labour Exchange did not have these tools. It might be possible to make some arrangement to meet such cases, but workers are not required generally to have tools except such as I have mentioned. Most of these workers have shovels or spades of their own, and when they get a job they are expected to bring them along. Other tools like picks and crowbars are supplied by the Land Commission.

Mr. Everett

You would not require such tools for making fences.

Mr. Boland

As a general rule they have the other tools themselves, and it is assumed that they will bring them with them. The Deputy is incorrect in his statement that we are paying less in any district than the prevailing rate of wages.

Mr. Everett

If I satisfy the Minister that under an agreement arrived at between a farmer and the union in a particular district, a higher rate of wages is being paid, will he look into the matter?

Mr. Boland

Deputy Everett and the Minister for Agriculture, who was himself paying wages, made such representations before, and the Department of Finance got the matter adjusted. If Deputy Everett can show that we are not carrying out that rule in any case we shall inquire into it and have the matter adjusted again.

Mr. Everett

I am prepared to admit to the Minister that, in certain places in West Wicklow, the farmers may be paying a different rate, but in the eastern part of Wicklow there is a higher rate of wages than in the west. That is the place I complain of, where we have written agreements between the employers and the representatives of the employees. The farmers are paying a higher rate than you are paying in that district.

Mr. Boland

If the Deputy will let us have those particulars the matter will be gone into.

Vote put and agreed to.