On reading the statement made by the Minister when moving this Vote, I was amazed at its brevity, and at the amount of information given as to the activities of the Department during the past 12 months. There was a decrease in the amount asked for of £208,356, while practically all the sub-heads showed considerable reductions. That is rather an extraordinary state of affairs at a time when the Department of Agriculture is asking for more extensive tillage operations during the emergency period. We are practically shutting down land distribution. We are given no comparative figures to show the amount of land divided during the past 12 months as against previous years, but we are told that the untenanted land came to 39,000 acres, which appears to be a rather low figure. In the last paragraph of the statement, the Minister referred to the collection of land purchase annuities, stating that they had been reasonably well maintained, and that of the amount collectable for the November-December period, 75 per cent. had been collected. I want to draw the attention of the Minister to the very high costs that are very often incurred in the collection of these land annuities through the sheriff's office. Deputy McMenamin has already referred to the matter, but the Minister may reply that that is not a responsibility of his Department. It is a matter that ought to be considered, as there is collective responsibility of the Government there.
Committee on Finance. - Vote 52—Lands (Resumed).
The Deputy should realise that in Estimates the individual responsibility of a Minister is emphasised, and for that reason they are taken separately. Nothing may be discussed but matters for which a Minister is responsible.
If I may say so with great respect, the Minister is responsible because he makes the choice either of suing a tenant in court or of acting outside the court by sending the sheriff.
I accept the word of the Deputy and, that being so, Deputy Hughes may continue.
I do not feel that I have any responsibility for the sheriff's costs.
The Department has.
I will deal with that matter.
No effort has been made to facilitate unfortunate people who are seriously in arrears with land annuities. The custom simply is that the matter is pushed into the sheriff's hands. Has any attempt been made by the Minister or his Department to devise some other method and to make these unfortunate people aware that the Land Commission are prepared to afford them reasonable facilities? I know that facilities have been given after representations have been made but, very often, before tenants become aware of that, these costs are incurred. The Minister should understand that some of the people concerned are not well-informed and they find themselves in this unfortunate position as a result. There is no doubt that the costs that are piled up as the result of getting those amounts collected by the sheriff have very considerably increased the burden of these people. As the Minister is not directly responsible, I shall not go further into that matter, save to refer to the information we got this evening, which the Minister did not advert to in his statement. The number of returns of nulla bona has shown an alarming increase—from 3,422 last year to 4,970 this year. That means that there are 1,548 additional farms without any stock. That is a very serious situation. There is an increase in arrears of annuities from £1,215,000 to £1,228,000—an increase of £13,000.
I should like to say a few words regarding the acquisition of land for the purpose of division amongst uneconomic holders and landless people. After the great land agitation of the past century, we had various Acts passed to give the tenant fixity of tenure in his holding, fair rent and free sale. Under one of these Acts the Land Commission was set up. The tenant was in that way encouraged to improve his farm buildings and the general condition of his land—to open up drainage and increase the fertility of the farm of which he now became owner. In recent years, the position of the farmer in that respect has been upset. I shall not go into that aspect of the case because I am aware that I am not entitled to criticise legislation, but we have often argued that the situation that obtains as a result of that legislation has rendered land no longer collateral security for the raising of loans by our agriculturalists. One of the reasons for that is that the occupier from whom land is about to be acquired has not got fair compensation from the Land Commission. The banking institutions would, I believe, be prepared to advance loans against the security of land, but they cannot anticipate what is likely to be paid by the Land Commission in the event of the land being acquired. If it is good national policy to acquire and divide land, then the State ought, if the price be not economic, to make good the difference and not victimise the unfortunate owner. We have several examples all over the country where ordinary-sized farms have been practically confiscated by the Land Commission. The procedure is that a fair price is first fixed by the Land Commission. The cost of redemption is deducted from that, and the net result is that the residue is so small that it is tantamount to confiscation.
Particular cases were referred to last year. I had a particular case in County Kildare, where lands were acquired at Barronstown. An advance of £1,200 was made on a farm of considerable size, and the sum paid in compensation for the holding, when acquired, was not sufficient to meet the bank debt. The widow in that case never got a "bob" for her holding. The Minister admitted at that time that the case was one of very serious hardship. On other cases mentioned by Deputies, he said he was sorry they had occurred. Is anything going to be done about the matter? I think that there is a bounden duty on the Government to undo, as far as possible, the gross injustice done to those people. Their cases should be revised. In the particular case I referred to, the woman, who was in a very good financial position a few years ago, is now in a very bad way. The Land Commission stepped in, wrecked her position, and left her a burden on the country. The responsibility is on the Government to remedy that injustice at any cost.
The Minister informed the House that "preparations have been made for an extension of colony and group migrations, and 23 families from the Connemara Gaeltacht have recently been installed in a new colony at Allenstown, County Meath, in promising circumstances. Under the group migration scheme over 100 families have been already settled in the Midlands." In my constituency in North Kildare there are very bitter feelings as a result of this policy of migration, because the claims of local people are overlooked and ignored in the division of big estates there, while strangers from the west of Ireland are brought in. I do not think any serious objection is taken to bringing these people in provided the claims of local people are carefully examined and get first preference when so entitled. It is an extraordinary state of affairs that, when an estate is about to be divided, the claims of local people, some of whose ancestors were at one time in possession of the lands, are overlooked and ignored. There is no serious objection to these people coming in, provided local claims are first dealt with on a just basis. We were told in the Banking Commission Report, apparently from information received from the Land Commission, that this scheme is costing on an average £960, for each family, or approximately £1,000. We are also told that, under a group migration scheme in respect to 100 families settled in the midlands, the cost to the State already has been £100,000.
I do not wish to interrupt the Deputy, but I do not think the figures which the Banking Commission Report quoted apply to the migration schemes which are being carried out at present.
Will the Minister give us the figures that are applicable to the present situation?
It is estimated that the extra irrecoverable cost entailed in providing for a migrant as compared with a landless man, works out now from £120 to £140. May I point out also that the migrant gives up his holding to the Land Commission for rearrangement in the district from which he is migrated, and the landless man gives up nothing?
The Minister mentions the comparative cost. What is the gross cost?
Does that excessive cost not take in the value of the land he has given up?
Some allowance is made for the applicant's interest.
What is the gross cost?
The cost for the Rathcarne migrants, changed in 1935-36, is estimated at £392 9s. 0d. The estimated cost in the case of the Allenstown migrants, transferred in 1939-40, is £212—that is in the case of Gaeltacht migrants. The Land Commission also have in operation a further scheme of group migration, whereby, although persons are migrated, they do not receive the special terms which Gaeltacht migrants get. In 1938-39 the group migrants received on an average £168, and in 1939-40 the amount was £141 5s. 0d.
Do these figures take in the cost of providing them with stock and farm implements?
Yes, and including removal expenses. In the case of the Gaeltacht migrants, it includes removal expenses, horse, cart and harness, implements, stock, poultry, ploughing, fuel and fodder and internal fencing.
And a new house and out-offices?
Am I to understand that the total cost of the group migrant is only £168?
No, £141.
It costs that much for a group migrant as compared with a local landless man?
Yes.
Does that take into account any land he has surrendered to the Land Commission, or is it a net loss?
It is a net loss.
There is no use, then, in the Minister dragging the red herring across our path that the man is giving up his land.
He is giving up land.
But you say that it is included in the net loss?
I am informed now that it is not included.
Will the Minister give us detailed costs in regard to the land, the house, the out-offices, the stock, the plough and other agricultural implements? How is the figure of £140 arrived at? I am amazed at all this.
The country will be amazed, too.
These are the extra special items which apply to migrants. In the case of housing, they receive the usual treatment common to all allottees. If the debate does not finish to-night, I shall try to get further figures and other information on the question of costs.
Why did the Banking Commission so grossly miscalculate it?
I could not answer that.
Am I to take it that the migrant costs over and above what is commonly spent on allottees?
Yes, that is so—between £120 and £140.
The ordinary allottee who gets a house and out-offices puts a considerable cost on the State and in the other case there is a sum of money over and above that. Is that what the Minister means?
What percentage does the excess represent?
I could not answer the Deputy off-hand.
We would like to know.
With regard to Allenstown, I doubt if we have the complete figures at the moment.
It is nearly time we had some complete figures.
The Deputy can always put down a Parliamentary question.
It is the Minister's business to give us the information we require when he wants money.
I am giving the Deputy all the information at my disposal. I am quite prepared to give him all the information that he requires.
I am sure of that, but the point is that you have not the complete figures at your disposal.
I assumed that the figures given by the Minister's Department could be relied upon. There was indicated in those figures an average amount of £960 per family. I suggest that from the point of view of the State you cannot justify that expenditure.
Quite right.
May I say that the figures given in the Banking Commission Report with reference to the Rathcarne migration do not apply? I take it, the £960 referred to there includes half the cost of the land and whatever is the usual proportion of grant towards the building of a house given by the Land Commission.
And it also includes the stock and the farm implements?
Yes; in addition to the amount I have read out.
Does it include the amount given to them for a period of 18 months?
It includes everything.
I submit it is a loss to the State. It is a perquisite given to a family out of the finances of the State and I suggest that £960 is too substantial a sum to be given in that way.
The war was a godsend to stop all this.
There are many economic problems in this country that concern the bulk of our people and we cannot afford to spend that much money on a group of families. We have spent approximately £100,000 dealing with 100 families. On the subject of an economic holding, will the Minister tell us what is the size of the holding given to each migrant under this scheme? Is it a holding of 20 or 25 acres?
Up to 25 acres.
And to set up a man on a holding of 25 acres costs the State £960?
Yes.
I hope that will not be censored and that the country will get it.
We will take it that each man gets 25 acres under this scheme. From my experience as a working farmer, I say that it is utterly impossible for any man with a wife and family to live on 25 acres and I suggest that we are simply creating another congest problem.
When you get such a holding for nothing, cannot you sell it when you are hard-pressed?
This is simply creating another problem for a future Government. This scheme is absolutely uneconomic, and it is time to revise our ideas in regard to these matters.
They are giving farms of about six or seven acres in County Dublin.
I have no objection at all if they give uneconomic holders additional pieces of land. If a man is living on a small piece of land, and if it is possible to divide an estate in that locality and increase that man's holding so as to make him an economic holder, that is, to my mind, good national policy; but, on the other hand, I consider it is a rotten policy to establish additional uneconomic holdings, and that is what the Land Commission are doing under such schemes as these. If you want to consolidate two small holdings, the Land Commission, I understand, will not be a party to such a proceeding if the combined holdings are not going to make what in their opinion would be an economic holding.
I suggest that their present policy is tending to set up problems for future generations in this country. Do we not all know that putting a family on a holding of 25 acres is not an economic proposition? It simply means slavery—drudgery and slavery—and it would be better for that family to attempt to earn a livelihood by some other method. That type of holding cannot possibly make for economy of management. It does not justify the possession of a pair of horses, and how can a man properly cultivate his land without a pair of horses? A holding of 25 acres will not carry two horses. How can you expect a man with 25 acres to buy the implements necessary for the proper cultivation of his land? He cannot eternally be relying on the assistance of his neighbours.
We have not always ideal weather in this country. We have a good climate, and people have to try to do their work in weather that is not ideally suited. Men have to adapt themselves to weather of this sort. We have to get in the crops when the opportunity offers. A man sometimes has to wait until some good neighbour comes along to his assistance.
All this shows that the system of dividing land and making uneconomic holdings is creating nothing but hardship and poverty and is an ill-advised system. That brings me to the point of co-operative farming. I understand that Ford has a co-operative farm at Dagenham and has made a great success of it. Whether it is possible to work such a system with Irishmen is a different proposition. But there is nothing to prevent the Government trying it. The Government might acquire an estate of 300 acres and put in, say, under a manager 12 tenants on that 300 acres. Working that 300 acres under a manager, the profits arising therefrom would be distributed amongst the tenants who could live together in a group of buildings or dwellings. They could be supplied with water much more easily than under the present system. At present we hear a lot about this new unit for farming operations, the Ford-Ferguson tractor plough.
For a 25-acre farm?
No, for a 300-acre farm. Some experimental attempt should be made to work 300 acres of land on a co-operative basis. By putting in good economic equipment it would be possible to work successfully a farm of that kind on co-operative lines. It is not feasible or possible to work 25 acres of land by itself. The farmer has to maintain two horses on a farm of that size. The Government can either adopt the co-operative method or if they do not believe in the co-operative method, at all events they should experiment in that direction. If we are not prepared to do that, there is only one alternative and that is to increase the area of land given to each individual farmer. I say that because we are not bestowing any real benefit on a man when we give him 25 acres of land. I disagree with the policy of the Department for the reason that that area is too small. If we are going to put a family to live on a farm it ought to be an economic farm, a farm out of which one can live.
At the present time a good many people get about 20 acres, and they cannot live on it. They have to supplement the income they get from that by working on a bigger farm. That type of man is a nuisance. If a bigger farmer has that type of man employed he finds his man is always looking for assistance; he is looking after his own land, and the very day he is needed on the big farm he is absent. We should either make him a whole-time farmer or a whole-time agricultural worker. In the case of the agricultural worker, it is a good policy to give him a couple of acres of land for the grazing of a cow and calf or two, and for a supply of milk for his family. There should be two definite types of holding created by the Land Commission. That is the very small type of farm that will provide milk for the agricultural labourer, a farm where he can keep a cow, and raise a calf or two. He can sell that calf or two to provide clothes for himself and his family, but such a farmer should not have more than two or three acres of land. When you go beyond that you are creating a farm not sufficiently big to be an economic proposition for the family to live on it without having to go outside that holding to supplement it.
On the question of the selection of tenants, I just want to add a word to what has been already said to-night. I am in entire agreement with the condemnation that has been voiced here on the methods of the selection of the candidates. I have no doubt political considerations very often enter into it. The system of sending down an inspector working like a detective in the district is a bad one. You often find one man telling lies about his neighbour. The inspector comes along and he asks that man: "What are the circumstances of your neighbour so-and-so; do you think if he got a bit of land he would work it?" That is not a proper system of examination. It is very difficult for a man coming down from the city to get correct information on a matter of that sort. Some sort of public inquiry should be held. Information should be got by public examination at an inquiry, and not have secret detective work. When an inspector comes down sometimes an individual in the district gets an opportunity to do his neighbour harm, and he makes full use of it. That opportunity is given by the inspector calling on him. Very often an injury is done to a decent man, because the inspector gets untrue information from a neighbour who has a grudge against him. That is not a proper system at all. There should be some sort of local cooperation, and some sort of a committee formed where that sort of inquiry would be done publicly. No suggestion could be made afterwards that political influence was used. The inquiry should be over and above board. Under the present system it is open to much suspicion, often for the very good reason that political influence is being used. Some people get preference in the giving of the land over others who are better fitted to work it. The decent man is passed over, and the unsuitable applicant gets the land.
On the question of fencing I just want to say a word or two. I do not know that the system of fencing land adopted by the Land Commission is an economic method at all.
The holding which the Land Commission calls an uneconomic holding is already a very small one, but, small as it is, nine or ten feet of it is under a fence. You have big gripes on each side. Why not, instead of that class of fence, put down concrete posts and wire, and then set some quicks? There is a terrible waste of land by having these big banks.
How long will the wire fence last?
The quicks grow up in a short time, and with the wire and concrete posts you would have a very satisfactory fence. I agree with other Deputies that it is utterly impossible to get any information from the Land Commission. I would not go so far as to say that the officials there are lazy, or are not doing their job. I know that the pressure of work is enormous, and that they have a very difficult task, but while that is so, when a Deputy is approached for information by a constituent, he is surely entitled to get some consideration from the Land Commission. As a rule, when he writes he gets a formal acknowledgment, and that seems to end the matter. If he writes again, another card comes along. From the point of view of Deputies, that is a very unsatisfactory state of affairs. I am sure Deputies in all parts of the House suffer in this respect. We have been put in our present position by the people, and we are surely entitled to get some help and assistance from the Minister's Department. In the absence of that assistance, we are forced to seek information by means of Parliamentary Question. That is very unsatisfactory. Would it not be just as easy for the Department to give the information in answer to a letter as to be forced to give it by way of answer to a question in the Dáil? This matter was mentioned last year, and still there is no improvement. I hope that something will now be done to bring about an improvement, and that the Minister will give the matter his attention.
It was not my intention to speak on the Estimate, but I think it is only right that some Deputy should reply to the remarks made by Deputy Hughes about the migrants. If the Deputy knew the conditions under which those people had been living, he would not, I think, have spoken as he did.
From his point of view 25 acres of land may seem a very small holding for a family to live on. But a holding of that size represents an immense improvement on the conditions under which those migrants had previously been living. Quite recently the Minister told the House that a number of migrants had been brought up from Connemara to Allenstown. It might surprise Deputy Hughes to learn that some of them had been trying to exist on two acres of land. These were people who worked very hard. They are very thrifty, and if the Deputy knew all the circumstances I am sure he would agree that it was really a miracle how they managed to exist at all. In this connection I would ask the Minister to give to the House, as he did last year, a statement indicating the production on the new holdings compared with the production on the old holdings. I believe that if the Deputy had an opportunity of studying that statement he would change his views, and would not be quite so hostile to the settlement scheme in operation.
I can quite understand that he should be anxious to get first preference for the people in his own constituency, but this question of land settlement cannot be looked at from the parish, the county, or a provincial point of view. After all, if the Government did not use the residue of untenanted land for the relief of congestion, taking the country as a unit, they would, in my opinion, be doing very bad national work. One has to admit that land settlement is costly, but there is an aspect of it that ought not to be lost sight of. It is this: that if we were to go back over a period of forty or fifty years, and total up the amount of extra grants which the congested districts have got from various Governments—the British Government and our own Governments here—grants over and above what people in other parts of the country were entitled to get—we would find, I think, that we could have migrated practically all our congests for the sums of money spent in that way. I think that any Government here must continue to keep that point in mind—the amount of money which the public purse has to provide to assist people who are so circumstanced.
In my opinion, what the Government are doing in regard to this scheme is a good business proposition from the point of view of the Government, apart from the uplift it gives to those people who have been suffering so long. It is a good £ s. d. proposition. I think it would be nothing short of a national disaster if the Government, during the present national emergency and the financial stringency it has brought about, were to be diverted from the policy. Those people, as we know, had been living under miserable conditions. They managed to exist simply because part of their subsistence was provided by their sons and daughters who emigrated to America. Emigration has now stopped. Usually young persons who emigrated to America sent money home for a period of ten years. After that they settled down, and the people at home received no more help from them. Now that emigration has been stopped, and that the American money has ceased to come, it is up to the Government to fill the void.
In my opinion, this migration scheme has met with a better response than the Land Commission anticipated when it was first formulated. Land Commission officials and others with whom I discussed the matter when I was first elected, told me then that I was wrong in my estimate of the people's attitude to it when I said that the people were anxious to go. There was a time when they would not leave the congested areas to migrate inland, but the closing down of emigration definitely gave a new outlook to these people, and they were the first to realise, because it was on them that the shoe pressed, that some other outlet would have to be found for them. In my opinion, the Government found that outlet. My only regret is that they cannot go ahead with it on a larger scale, and try to get this question of the congested districts dealt with once and for all.
I am convinced that it is the primary duty of the Government in the matter of land division and land settlement to see that the people in the congested areas are first dealt with. If they do not do that, the duty is on them to see that they are served in some other way. I cannot see the problem of the congested areas being solved industrially unless you have industries run as they are in other countries on the continent and forced into districts where, in the ordinary course of events, people would not place them. From the point of view of the Gaeltacht and the language I do not think that would be very desirable. Therefore, I think there is no other policy for the Government to pursue. Assuming that Deputy Hughes' argument about congestion is right, that 25-acre farms represent a new congestion problem, in answer to that I maintain that if we are to have congestion on the land here that congestion should be on the best land. If Deputy Hughes says that 25 acres of the best land is a congested holding, I maintain that it is not so congested a holding as three or four acres of waste land. That is the only argument I offer to it.
There is another matter to which I want to draw the particular attention of the Minister. There is a motion on the Order Paper in the names of Deputy Beegan and myself about a matter of rather minor importance, namely, the letting of two houses which were formerly a coastguard station. I would not have put down a motion on a matter of that kind except that no other course was open to me. There are two houses in the coastguard station on Inisheer in the Aran Islands which were vacant. These houses were let, I understand, by the Land Commission without any tenders being invited publicly. I have been asked by constituents there to request the Government to see that these lettings are put up for public tender so that everybody interested can get a chance of tendering. I think the matter was dealt with in a very high-handed fashion by the Land Commission. As a rule, these buildings are under the care of the Board of Works and they always let or sell them by public auction or, at any rate, by inviting tenders. After all, these buildings are State property and, in my opinion, all the citizens who were interested should get a chance of tendering. I think it is most high-handed on the part of the Land Commission to give away this property to an individual in their own absolute discretion. I ask the Minister to see that this letting is cancelled, that everybody who is interested will have the right to tender, and that the highest bidder gets the property.
The debate on this Estimate is always, to a very great extent, an unsatisfactory one, because the main work which the Land Commission is doing is the acquisition and sub-division of land, and when anybody in this House points out that land has been acquired which ought not to be acquired, or that land has not been acquired that ought to have been acquired, or that land has been improperly divided by the Land Commission, the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary, as the case may be, can always blandly say: "That is not our job; we have nothing to do with the acquisition of land; we have nothing to do with the division of land; we have nothing to do with the deciding of the question whether there is to be a Gaelic colony or not in County Meath." The Government has nothing to do with that, because, by statute, these are reserved services which are left to the Land Commission in which the Minister cannot interfere at all.
Therefore, as I say, discussion of this Estimate will be unsatisfactory this year, as it has been every year since that alteration in the law took place, and the Minister will say: "No doubt there has been this shocking indictment brought by Deputy O'Higgins against the Land Commission, but do not blame me because I had nothing to do with it; I am not responsible for it." In other words, there is no Parliamentary responsibility in the Land Commission, and, in consequence, the Minister has got a very easy time. Deputy Davin and Deputy McMenamin expressed surprise to-night that there should have been so many changes from time to time in the office of Minister for Lands. I am not surprised at all. If any Minister wants a half-time job I am sure he goes to the Taoiseach and says: "I am getting a little tired now; will you give me the Land Commission? There is nothing to be done in the Land Commission. The Land Commissioners do the whole thing. Give me a year of a half-time or a quarter-time job." If the Minister was altogether lazy, I am sure he would say to the Taoiseach: "Give me the Department for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures where there is no work to be done at all." But if he is willing to do a half-time job, the Land Commission is a very admirable half-time job without any responsibility. Except for forestry, there is really nothing to do there, because, as I say, the Land Commission in all their big work are, by statute, perfectly independent of the Minister.
At the same time, the Minister is the only public channel through which we can convey our views to the gentlemen whom in a previous debate I described as the "Big Four" and who decide this question of the acquisition and division of land. I should like the Minister to convey to them that, as seems to be envisaged by this Estimate, the complete shutting off of the acquisition of land would be very bad indeed for the country at the present time. They might slow down, but I appeal to them not to give up completely the acquisition of land.
To go into individual cases of the acquisition of land in a debate like this, or to pick out one particular farm of land for acquisition, is in normal circumstances a very stupid line of argument to follow, because if every Deputy were to mention a particular farm of land which he wished to have acquired, we might be here for many weeks on the Estimate.
Therefore, it is only owing to abnormal circumstances that I want again to draw the attention of the Land Commission, through the Minister, to what, in my opinion, is the very necessary acquisition of a comparatively small remnant of demesne land, consisting of about 130 acres, situate at the south end of my constituency and bordering on North Galway. It is a demesne with a very curious history. I am sure it is well known to the House. A millionaire bought it and intended to build there, but the people were determined that they would get this particular farm. There was a great deal of agitation, and for 20 years the land has been grazed. Recently the owner sold the land for something over £1,000 to three purchasers. The reason I mention it in particular is that I understand that there is grave danger of the revival of agrarian trouble in that neighbourhood. From newspaper reports I understand that the police were sent for, and that there is a good deal of "feeling" in the district. I need hardly assure the Minister and the House that no one stands more firmly for the administration of the law—there is no greater enemy of lawlessness in any shape or form—than I do. Any influence I may have in that neighbourhood will be exerted to prevent the slightest act of lawlessness. I will condemn it as strongly as I can, but I want to assure the Minister that there is grave danger of lawlessness, and that there is a tremendously strong case for the acquisition of this particular place. There is very bad congestion in the district.
Amongst those who came to see me was a man who travelled 25 miles. He is making a living on land for which he pays an annuity of £1 per annum. He is not the only person in that position in this extremely congested area. In all the circumstances it seems a case that ought to be dealt with immediately and, above all, dealt with in the interests of harmony in a peaceable neighbourhood. Owing to the amount of congestion there is a stronger case for the acquisition of that land than for the acquisition of any holding in any part of Ireland. It would be very bad if a row started and if the Land Commission said that they would not buy. After a great deal of bad feeling and rowing, possibly under pressure, the Land Commission at the end of a few years may buy it. It would be unfortunate if that state of affairs should arise. I ask the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary to convey to the Land Commission what I have said, seeing that these three purchasers have not yet gone into possession, or, if they have, it is only within the last three days. I have been assured, not by them, but by others that the purchasers would be willing to take the price they paid the owner, and that the people around would be perfectly willing to repurchase from the Land Commission at that price. Only that the circumstances are abnormal I would not have brought up this particular case in the House, but I do so in order that the peace of the neighbourhood may not be disturbed.
I mentioned that there was a man in that county who supported a wife and a family on land on which the annuity was £1 a year. That brings me to what Deputy Bartley said about the Gaeltacht and the migration policy. I only know the West of Ireland, and the farming and social conditions there intimately. I have a smattering of knowledge about conditions in other parts, but if the ordinary small farmer in my constituency was told, as Deputy Hughes and Deputy McMenamin told them, that 25 acres of good land are not enough for an economic holding, they would simply laugh. Any experienced Land Commission official or ex-Congested Districts Board official would say that such a statement was wrong. When dealing with this matter I think reference to acres means nothing. I happened to come across a case the other day in which 425 acres of land were involved. Strange to say, there was an action about one acre, but the total valuation of the holding was 17/-, not 17/- per acre, for over 400 acres. Therefore, when we start talking about acreage that may mean nothing. I prefer to think in terms of poor law valuation.
A person who has a holding on which the poor law valuation is £25 a year in my part of Mayo will be looked upon as a man with a better holding than any of his richer neighbours. The efforts of the Land Commission and certainly of the old Congested Districts Board aimed at £8 or £10 valuations as economic holdings. I sincerely wish it were possible to bring every small holder in Mayo or Galway up to the £8 or £10 valuation, because if that could be done we would have solved the problem of congestion as we understand congestion. To talk about giving these people 25 acres of land or holdings on which the valuation was £25 is simply useless. That would be desirable if the land was available. I venture to think that if holdings with a poor law valuation of £25 a year could be given, in a short time there would be applications for sub-division between sons of the tenants. That is what used to happen.
That is the kernel of the whole problem. There is not enough land to give all economic holdings.
There is not even enough land to give holdings of £10 valuation to economic holders. That is where we differ.
How much wheat and beet will be grown on these holdings?
They will grow as much wheat and beet on them as common sense directs them, and that means none.
These crops will be as scarce as the land there.
Everybody who knows the congested districts realises that if the people could be brought up to the standard of having holdings with £8 or £10 valuations, and to have no holdings under that size, the problem there would be solved. I am afraid that will never be done. As far as Gaeltacht colonies are concerned I have not formed any very definite opinion on that question.
I am quite willing to believe that if the persons who have lived on farms in Meath and Kildare all their lives see these Connemara people coming up, men who have never held a plough in their lives, they will immediately scream with laughter at the amateurish efforts the Gaeltacht migrants are making. That will last for some little time. In my own vicinity, in County Mayo, a large farm was broken up. People were brought down from the Tourmakeady mountains and that neighbourhood to this farm, which is called Castlecarra. Their neighbours used to collect on Sunday to laugh at the crooked "scriobs" where the poor man who was holding a plough for the first time was trying to plough. That was about 15 years ago. They are completely and entirely up to the level of their neighbours at the present time. They simply learned. It will take these migrants, under entirely new conditions, eight or ten years to be as good farmers as the persons who knew the conditions beforehand. But they will learn. So much is to be put on one side as regards the migration of people from the Gaeltacht by the Land Commission.
There is another side to the matter. People talk very glibly of the breaking up of the big grass lands in Meath and Kildare. They say that these farms are an injury to the country and that it would make for better tillage and, as Deputy Norton said, more tillage if they were broken up and divided. The breaking up of grass land has not increased the tillage area and has not decreased the cattle population. I am old enough to remember when the Congested Districts Board first broke up a place immediately in my neighbourhood. William O'Brien saw it done and started his United Irish League for the break-up of land. I quoted figures in the House a couple of years ago—I have not got them now because I did not know that this subject would arise, but they are available to everybody in the House—to show that, in the County Mayo, which is the county in which the Congested Districts Board and the Land Commission have broken up most land, the tillage area has decreased since 1892. The human population has decreased and the cattle population has increased—the very reverse of the conclusion which, by a priori reasoning, one would have arrived at.
My objection to the breaking up of the grass lands of Meath and Kildare is the reaction it is going to have on the people in the west of Ireland. At present, the main source of ready money of the small holder of £8, £10, or £12 valuation in the west of Ireland is the price he gets for his cattle. He sells his cattle to somebody from Meath or Kildare to be finished. He sells them as stores—at present he has to sell them as stores—and these stores are brought to Meath and Kildare and adjoining counties where they are fattened upon the grass. If you break up the Meath farms entirely, you take away the principal market the small farmer has got for his stock, and you impoverish him in consequence. In other words, if you break up the rich lands of this country into small holdings, where the people themselves will breed store cattle, you aim a very hard blow at the economic basis of society in the west of Ireland. My idea for the relief of congestion in the west is: Take as much land as you can reasonably get in those counties for the relief of congestion and move, not the small farmers, not the people on £2-a-year farms, but the larger farmers. Break up amongst the smaller farmers the land which the larger farmers will have left behind. When they go to Meath these larger farmers will be purchasers of the cattle which will be reared on the land which they had, and which will have been broken up. A person I know very well farmed in North Mayo, which is not in my constituency. He swapped all the land he had in North Mayo for land in Kildare and Dublin, and he is now the main buyer in North Mayo fairs. He buys from the small farmers there the cattle reared on the land which he at one time farmed. That, in my opinion, was the ideal settlement of the problem. I think that it is a better and surer settlement, from the point of view of the west of Ireland, than the policy of migrating the small tenant to Meath. When all is said and done, is it not tinkering with the problem to take 100 families out of congested Mayo? You might take 100 families out of a square mile in parts of Mayo.
Another matter to which I desire to allude has been touched upon already. That is the question of rent collection and the method of collection. There are two ways in which the Land Commission can collect annuities from persons who are indebted to them. One is by ordinary process in court—either in the Circuit Court or in the District Court if the amount be small. In that case the person gets notice, has the documents served upon him, and the costs, if the amount is small, will be very small. The other method is, I think, under the Minister's direct control. It has nothing to do with the acquisition or division of land. The collection of annuities is not a reserved service, and is, therefore, under the Minister's direct control. The Minister can give instructions to the Land Commission's solicitor. He can say to him, "You are to go to court and get decrees," or he may say to him, "You are to put your certificate from the office in the hands of the sheriff forthwith."
Some of the cases which have been mentioned in the course of the debate here to-night are cases in which, if I may put it this way, judgment has been marked against individuals in the office of the Land Commission, and that judgment is being put directly into the hands of the sheriff. You get these shocking examples where the sheriff's fees for collecting 18/- were £1 10s. 6d. You did get these monstrous things at times, whereas suppose you brought proceedings in the District Court, the person would then be aware of the fact that the Land Commission were taking proceedings. He would have a great deal more to go upon, and would have costs amounting at the outside to 2/6 or 3/-.
If he employed a solicitor to defend him, how much would it cost? It would cost him his farm, probably.
Sometimes such cases do not cost anything at all.
Where are those solicitors? Give me their addresses.
Deputy Belton knows well what they cost.
I made their acquaintance all right.
I suggest the cost would be 2/- or 3/-. Now, with the permission of the Chair, I am going to give Deputy Belton a little bit of advice. It is this. Do not spend money on a solicitor or on a barrister when he tells you that you have no defence.
How many of them will tell you that you have no defence?
The case about which I have been talking is one where the tenant admittedly owes the money. These are all the remarks which I have to make upon this Estimate. This debate, as I have already pointed out, must of necessity be rather of an academic character. I will urge the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary to use their influence with the Land Commission to have that particular place which I have mentioned dealt with as expeditiously as possible.
I was rather surprised to get some information from Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney about the position in which the Land Commission find themselves. They seem to have control of quite a lot of matters. I should like to know have they got control of the forestry section on the same lines, or is that a reserved section?
I mentioned the forestry section as the one thing that kept the Minister busy. I said that if the Minister had not the forestry section to deal with he would have a whole holiday.
There are a few matters in connection with the Land Commission policy with which I should like to deal. Owing to the war the policy of the Land Commission has changed in the matter of the acquisition of land and, that being so, I suggest that the Minister might switch some of his officials who were engaged in the acquisition and division of land to devising a land drainage policy. There are certain large areas which have been flooded for the last 20 or 30 years and it seems to be nobody's business to see that these lands are again brought back into cultivation. This matter of flooding presents a very serious problem in some parts of the country. I might also mention that there are river embankments that require attention.
The River Barrow affords one instance. Deputies from Wexford are continually being told of the breaches in the embankments along the River Barrow. The Land Commission have had this matter under consideration for a number of years, but little or nothing has been done to remedy the situation. I believe that at the present time they are about to repair one small breach. They have tried it on five occasions within the last few years and they are still trying to repair the breach. There are at least five other breaches needing attention. I heard that they started repair work last week, and that there was a row with the ganger and the work was closed down after one day. That is the fourth or fifth time that the work of repairing that breach was halted.
As I have indicated, there are other breaches within a few miles of the one they are now trying to repair. The tenants of the affected land, in their original agreements, undertook to repair the embankments. There is no possibility of their being able to repair the embankments at the present time, because the cost of building up the embankments would be more than a man's whole farm was worth. The Minister should endeavour to get the Land Commission to take a serious view of this matter. A large area has been flooded on both sides of New Ross town for a considerable time. The Land Commission hold that they have no responsibility, and they are proposing to repair the one embankment to which I have referred by way of spending some of the money out of the employment fund. I think it should be the policy of the Land Commission to arrange a scheme for the drainage of land.
I mentioned this matter on a number of occasions here in the Dáil in the last few years but I failed to impress the Minister for Lands with the necessity for formulating a land drainage policy. I am aware that we had a Drainage Commission sitting but that commission was not concerned with land drainage at all. It was only with arterial drainage they were concerned. But arterial drainage would not affect land drainage. In the County Wexford there are large tracts of land flooded with water for years past. I do hope that some policy will be formulated that will deal with land drainage and land improvement.
There is another very important matter that I wish to mention and that is the question of the resettlement of persons on the land. In our county we have a large number of holdings which are for some time derelict. No annuities and no rates are being paid on them. In some cases this has been going on for the last ten or 15 years. The arrears are continuing to mount up and the neighbouring ratepayers are compelled to pay these in addition to their own. I know that in some of these holdings £500 or £600 annuities have accumulated and almost the same amount for poor rates. The farms are really not of value to anybody.
The Land Commission, in my opinion are acting quite wrongly in not acquiring these holdings for sub-division or otherwise. Something needs to be done about it. Even in the future the Land Commission will always need a policy of land re-settlement because for some reason or other a number of people will continue to drop out. That will happen no matter how prosperous the times are. Even in the time of the last war a number of people failed to make use of their holdings; yet they still hung on there though they are of no use to themselves or to the country. They are a burden on their neighbours who are compelled to pay the annuities and rates of these defaulters. I do not quite understand why other ratepayers should have been called upon to make good these arrears. For over ten years those charges are being set down against the land. The ratepayers all round the county would be glad to have these matters brought to an end. It would be much better to do so and even to have the arrears forgiven than to have the other ratepayers paying them.
There is another matter to which reference has been made. That is the housing policy of the Land Commission. I am convinced that in a number of cases where the Land Commission acquired land they built an inferior type of house. I refer to mass concrete houses of rather a poor type. I have had a number of complaints about those houses, though only a small number of them have been built in my constituency. The contractors tender for these houses at a very low rate. They could not afford to use proper concrete and give the houses a proper finish so as to make them fit for habitation. It would be much better if they were built with cavity walls. Such walls give a much better chance of having a dry house than walls built of mass concrete. This type of damp house will eventually be a big source of expense to the unfortunate people who are compelled to live in it.
I have noticed in several places through the country where the Land Commission have acquired lands that the timber on the estates is immediately cut down. How is it that the Forestry Act is not made apply in these cases? Whether it is the outgoing owner or the incoming tenants or the country at large who go into these estates and destroy the timber, cutting down the woods recklessly, I do not know. There is a certain period from the time the land has been acquired by the Land Commission until it is sub-divided, and in this interim nobody seems to be in charge at all. It is during that period that the destruction is wrought. I know that a very large amount of valuable immature timber has been cut down during that interregnum. But the Minister for Lands is also the Minister for Forestry; he should take serious note of this, see that the timber is protected, and that the incoming tenant should not have the right to cut this timber without applying to the Land Commission for permission. On these holdings I have noticed in a number of cases that the timber on the land was immediately destroyed after the estate had been acquired by the Land Commission.
Did the Land Commission give permission to cut the timber?
They did not. I do not know who was responsible.
The Garda should have reported them to the Forestry Department, and there should be a prosecution.
Well, it has happened anyway, and it is a thing that could be easily stopped. There is no necessity for allowing it to continue. I hope the Minister will formulate a drainage policy for his Department. This is a most important matter. At the moment no Department of State seems to have any responsibility for the drainage of land. I am aware that the Board of Works take no responsibility, and neither does the Land Commission. It is most strange that people who have all this flooded land can get no State Department to move in the matter. Many of these people are prepared to contribute something towards the improvement.
Would not the county council do it?
I do not see that the county council are responsible at all. There is no Drainage Act at present giving them authority to do it.
On a petition they could do it.
The ratepayers in some counties are not prepared to contribute.
But there are the men whose land will be improved.
The work is uneconomic for them.
It all comes down to £ s. d.
I know it does, but it is uneconomic for the holders of the land to bear the cost.
Oh, yes, make the other fellow bear it.
Yes, the community-at-large.
Well, this problem has been there for a number of years, and it is crying out for solution.
I think the Land Commission as a body are entitled to every respect for the work they are doing. They have a heavy and unpleasant task to perform. However, I do not intend to throw any bouquets at them, though I am satisfied that they have done a great deal of good work. So far as my county is concerned, the whole debate seems to be centred on the question of bringing migrants from the West of Ireland. I have been looking at that operation for the last few years, and while I have nothing to say against the migrants, it is a policy of which I do not approve. As a body of men I know that the migrants are decent, honest men, and in the majority of cases they are trying to do the best they can. From the point of view of that scheme I can definitely say that it is an absolute failure. It is costing a huge amount of money and is not giving any satisfactory return. I am satisfied that the majority of the holdings held by the migrants from the West of Ireland will, in the course of time, be linked together again and that one or two farmers will own them all.
It was all right to go a certain distance in this direction of land division. I myself was in the forefront of the movement to get the ranches broken up, but after ten or 15 years of that experiment we find that the County Meath is in a worse position than before we ever tackled it. Meath is a peculiar problem in itself. The land of Meath is very fertile. It was taken over, preserved and nourished for generations and it is probably some of the best land in Europe. But I think the problem should be tackled in some businesslike way. Before going any further there should be a public inquiry and the best brains of the country should be brought to bear on the question to ascertain whether we are doing good or bad in smashing up that county. We all know that the best cattle and the best horses in Europe were bred in that county. But when divided into 25-acre holdings, surely you cannot expect to breed good horses. All such a man can have is three cows, one horse, three or four calves and some store cattle. The rest of the farm will be in hay. That sort of farming will produce very little for the wealth of the nation. It may carry half a family but the other half of the family will have to go to Dublin, to England or somewhere else for a living. I ask the Department to put an end to the bringing of people up from the West of Ireland. Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney has spoken on this matter exactly as I would like to hear him speak. I know that the Deputies from the West are doing the right thing from their point of view in shoving in hundreds of their people into our county.
If they really think that then, as Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney said, they are doing an immense amount of harm. I certainly agree that the big ranches in Mayo and Roscommon and other Western counties should be divided up, and that the bigger men on them should be transferred and given, say, holdings of 60 acres in the County Meath. Men of that type would be an asset to our county. The lands from which they had been removed could then be divided up amongst the congests in the West. We would be glad to get the right type of people for land in the County Meath, but the people who are being brought there are no asset to it. They are being brought there without a penny in their pockets. They do not know how to till land, and it must be confessed that they find themselves in rather hostile surroundings. In view of what the position has been for some years, we in the County Meath think that we have behaved pretty well towards those people. As a matter of fact, there is a very strong feeling there, and it was suggested at meetings, secret and otherwise, that vigorous action should be taken against them. It was suggested that those colonies should be burned out. If anything like that had been attempted you would have had a conflagration the like of which was never seen in the County Meath before. If it had been started neither the Land Commission nor the Civic Guards or even this House could stop it, but I am glad to say that the advice of prudent men was taken, and that nothing of the kind occurred.
Congests are being brought up to the county in lorries, buses, motor cars, with as many as five, six, eight and ten inspectors accompanying them. Gangers are there to meet them and hand over their property to them— cows, horses, sows, ploughs, hens, ducks, meal and flour, turf and even piers and gates for the land, but while that is so the unfortunate men who had been herding those lands, some of them for 50 years, get nothing but 22 or 25 acres of scraggy grass land, and not even a gate will be put up for them. I ask Deputies is it not hard for the people in the County Meath to stand that? I think the proper solution of this problem would be the one I have suggested: that men in the western counties with large holdings should be transferred to the County Meath, and their land divided up amongst the uneconomic holders there. Otherwise, the fairs and markets in the west are going to suffer. You will soon have nobody with anything to offer at the great fairs of Ballinasloe, Athenry and other places.
There is no sense in bringing penniless men to Meath. If what I suggest were done, you would still have the people of the western counties in a position to produce the store cattle and sheep that are finished on the lands of Meath and Westmeath. That system in the past proved, and would also prove to-day, to be of benefit to the country.
Quite a number of old people, some of them 90 and 92 years of age, are being brought to the County Meath at the present time. During their lifetime they are of some assistance to their families. They have the old age pension, and others of them are getting the 30/- a week from a bountiful State. But as soon as these moneys cease to come in, the families have nothing. Their sons and daughters are leaving Meath and going over to England to take employment. That is a thing that was never known in the County Meath before. It is quite a common experience now. In fact, the example of those people has had a bad effect on County Meath people because some of the latter are now beginning to leave and go to England. That is a sad state of affairs. Those people were far better off before they were brought to our county. They are not able to live on the 22 or 25 acres of land they get from the Land Commission. They were able to do far better on the five, six or ten acres that they had in Connemara. The valuations were low, and they had not many charges to meet. For three or four months of the year the young people went away to the hop fields in Kent and brought home £40 or £50 with them. That was a great help to their families, and helped to tide them over difficult times. Some of those migrants have told me that if their old holdings had not been already disposed of by the Land Commission they would go back there again. Many of them, too, have told me that as soon as their present holdings are vested in them, they will cash them, if they can possibly do it. Another point is, that many of those migrants are single men. I think it is not right to be bringing them from the West and giving them land in Meath. Surely that is no way to relieve congestion. All this is a political racket. The Fianna Fáil T.D.s simply tricked and slipped it across the Land Commission, their object being to get rid of people who were becoming lukewarm in their support of them. Some of those people were really becoming a danger to the T.D.s, and they had them sent off to Meath. I can tell those Deputies that the people they have sent to Meath are not a bit welcome there.
Deputies should remember that the land in the County Meath is very highly valued. I am living on 30 acres of a divided farm myself. The valuation is £64 10s., and, before the annuities were halved, I was paying £60 a year for it. The rates are £18 a year. I could not employ labour, nor could I live on that holding if I had not some other means. It would be impossible for me to make it pay. During the last three or four years the rates have been increased year after year. Seeing that I could not make that holding pay, I challenge anybody to say that people coming from the west of Ireland can make a living out of those holdings.
As regards the Irish colonies, what happened was that from 1932 to 1935 land was given out to all and sundry. Anyone who shouted for land, and was able to show a Fianna Fáil badge, got a holding. It is true to say that 50 per cent. of those holdings are now derelict, so that the whole thing is a disgrace to the country and to the Land Commission. All that was done to make a laughing-stock of the County Meath. While that has been the position during the period I speak of, the sons of decent County Meath farmers cannot get a share of land in their own county. The whole thing is a disgrace and a blot on the Land Commission.
Is it fair that the Deputy should attack poor men in the way he has been doing, men who have no opportunity of replying to him?
If they were here I would say the same to them.
Can you prove it?
I can prove a good deal. The people in the Irish colonies were brought up with a great fanfare of trumpets. You had men on horses going out to meet them and big processions, with a lot of fools marching at the head of them. The people who did that would kick them home to-day. Some of those people are standard bearers and staunch supporters of Deputy Kelly and Deputy O'Reilly, but these two Deputies were ashamed to sit in the House because they knew what I was going to say. The people who were brought to Rathcarne did not behave as they should. The only persons getting anything out of them are the lawyers. They are lighting morning, noon, and night. Those people, instead of making Rathcarne an Irish-speaking colony, are going to make it a proper West-Briton, narrow, bitter, un-Irish type of colony. The story is told that when a parish priest in Connemara was asked why he had supported the removal of 30 or 40 families to an Irish-speaking colony in the County Meath, said he was glad that they had gone elsewhere. I move to report progress.