Deputy Harris raised a question about the flooding of certain lands in the County Kildare. If, in addition to the multifarious activities with which the Land Commission is entrusted by statute, it was to have forced upon it the additional duty of looking after the interests of people who have not taken action against the third parties concerned when they feel that their property is being damaged and have failed to seek a remedy in the ordinary way, its position would become very difficult. There are drainage boards and local authorities dealing with drainage questions throughout the country. As Deputies know, we will, in all probability, have a new national drainage authority set up when the Drainage Bill is introduced and, I hope, passed by the Oireachtas in the near future. I do not think that Deputy Harris has very strong grounds for asking us to take upon ourselves the protection of these neighbours of his whose lands are being flooded. As regards the particular case that he mentioned, we had some difficulty in identifying the land. In view, however, of the Deputy's interest in the matter, I have asked for a report from the local inspector.
Some Deputies seem to think that the Land Commission should be able to carry on as in normal times. The war has been on now for a considerable period, and each year on this Estimate I have had to emphasise that the Land Commission is working on a very restricted scale, first of all, because of the reduced staff which we are carrying, and, secondly, because of the fact that a decision was come to early in the war that only actual commitments would be proceeded with. As I shall explain later, it would be quite impossible for us to undertake new commitments at the present time. With regard to the position generally, as I indicated in my opening statement, the situation is much the same as it was last year. In fact, we are in a much worse position this year owing to the petrol shortage. We still have about 340 officers lent to other Departments. In the case of our outdoor staff, we have only about half the number which we normally had, and of that half only about one-fifth are in a position to use their cars. Normally, the Land Commission inspectorate used about 7,500 gallons per month. Now they are using, if they can get it, about 300 odd gallons. Deputies will realise, therefore, that it is absolutely impossible for the inspectors to cover anything like the area of ground which they used to cover in normal times. I would, therefore, ask Deputies to exercise a real discretion in bringing cases to the notice of the Land Commission unless they deal with very serious matters such, for example, as the danger of serious damage by flooding if not attended to. I think that Deputies ought to avoid bringing matters under notice when they know that really very little can be done.
I think, having regard to our circumstances, that we have done fairly well in the past year. As I have stated, over 20,000 acres of land have been divided among 1,400 allottees and about £250,000 have been spent on improvement works. When one considers the exceeding difficulty there is in getting houses built, roads made and fences provided at the present time, I think we have every reason to congratulate ourselves that a fairly decent programme of that character has been carried out in spite of emergency difficulties. At the moment, the Land Commission has about 40,000 acres of arable land in hands—that is to say, in the machine. This is land which, in normal times, the inspectors would be scheming. They are, as far as it is possible, preparing schemes, but the difficulties I have alluded to make their work very tedious, far more than in normal times. However, there is that amount of land in the machine to be dealt with. We have a further 45,000 or 50,000 acres in respect of which proceedings are in progress. In some cases, the price has been agreed upon or fixed by the tribunal. In other cases, the land has been gazetted for acquisition or notice of intention to resume has been served. That means, therefore, that there is a very considerable reservoir of land which, even if we had our normal staff and normal working conditions, would probably take us some years to clear off.
There is, of course, a further large area, running into hundreds of thousands of acres, which has been inspected either for suitability or price or for preliminary consideration. It will be very difficult to deal with that latter category for any considerable time. The position is, as I think I stated in the House last year, that with regard to the acquisition and resales branch of the Department, about two-thirds of the work is of a post-scheme nature. Deputies must remember that the settlement of the people on the land has to follow a recognised procedure which has grown up over a considerable period of time. Legal questions arise and, before the land is finally vested in the tenants, a great deal of work has to be done in the office. Even in normal times, the staff of the acquisition and resale division was not able to keep abreast of the correspondence from allottees all over the country. In the present situation, they are simply swamped and could only deal with a small percentage of these allotted parcels. The House will have some idea of the extent of that problem alone, when I say there are about 45,000 parcels which have been allotted under the 1923 to 1939 Acts, in which this post-scheme work has still to be dealt with. We are trying to do that and, with the reduced staff, it is simply impossible.
Then we have the vesting of holdings. Out of 104,000 holdings coming under the 1923 Act, only 30,000 have been vested, leaving some 74,000 still to be dealt with. A great many of these need to be rearranged, to have new buildings placed upon them and to have roads and fences constructed. When I am asked what the Land Commission is doing, I would like Deputies to find out for themselves the nature of the work which the officers in the acquisition and resale branch and the purchase branch have to carry out. This is tedious detailed work and, in the cases I have mentioned, each individual holding may have special points which have to be cleared up. It is not as in other Departments, where some general formula will cover a multitude of cases and, with the stroke of a pen and a decision at headquarters, everything goes along smoothly. These cases in the purchase branch, and often in the acquisition and resale branch, involve attention to individual holdings. If these individual holdings are not attended to, and if the work of revesting or completing the settlement of the tenant in the proper legal manner, according to the usual procedure of the Land Commission, is not done in the usual way, leaving no leaks or points to be cleared up later, it simply means that you have further correspondence. I would ask Deputies, therefore, to make allowances for the huge amount of work that the commission is trying to carry out under extremely difficult circumstances.
It appears to me that the vesting of the 74,000 holdings is one of the most important problems which remain to be dealt with. In addition we have the problem of congestion in the west of Ireland. Deputies probably know that there are between 40,000 and 50,000 holdings there, which were purchased under the old Congested Districts Board. It was intended that rearrangement of them should take place and that an effort should be made, not alone to provide houses, roads, fences and drains, but by the rearrangement to bring the existing holdings—of a very miserable character, in very many instances—to something more approaching an economic level. As Deputy Walsh has pointed out, there would not be enough land in the country to provide an economic holding for even a percentage of those 40,000 or 50,000 congests. I consider that it is perhaps the most important problem that lies before the Land Commission to complete that work, which is a legacy left over from the previous régime—which, in any case, showed that it had good intentions when it started and which, during its period, accomplished very good work indeed.
It is rather disappointing that we have not been able to make more progress in dealing with the problem of congestion. It is really a form of social service, in my opinion, which is superior to many of the social services which the taxpayers provide. Aid is certainly given by the State in carrying out this policy of resettlement, and in enabling migrants to be transferred from congested areas and have the holdings they left behind them used in rearrangement to increase their neighbours' holdings. But that money is very well spent, if it provides large families with opportunities to people the more fertile lands of the country, which are practically unpopulated, or were so until this scheme started, and also if it gives the people left in the congested areas a somewhat better chance to eke out an existence there. The money seems to me to be very well spent indeed. It is in the nature of capital expenditure, and a considerable amount of it is repaid.
Anything that tends to keep a healthy industrious and intelligent stock on the land, which might otherwise have become a proletariat in some foreign slum—not even an Irish one— is very good business. In these days, when we hear so much talk of social security, I am rather surprised that there could be any doubt that the policy of trying to relieve the very bad congestion in certain districts on the western seaboard should be pursued, and even pursued intensively. If it is true, as some Deputies have suggested, that far more will have to be done after the war and that people will require more security, I fail to see in what way you can give them greater security to build upon, not alone so far as being members of the State is concerned, as individual citizens, but for the building of healthy and happy families, which is also a matter of great importance.
The House knows that, some years ago, an interdepartmental committee was set up by the Government to examine the question of seasonal migration which goes on from many of those congested areas. This committee recommended that the Government should take all practicable steps to concentrate its energies on a policy of land resettlement, with a view to solving the problem of the congested areas. In paragraph 59 of their report the committee state:—
"The area of untenanted land available in the congested districts counties for the relief of congestion has been reduced considerably in the manner described in paragraph 56 since the abolition of the Congested Districts Board and is now definitely insufficient by itself to enable the conditions in the congested districts to be improved to anything like the extent required. It is not possible from the statistics available to state the precise area likely to be available, but it is estimated that it will exceed 100,000 acres. At least 50,000 acres of this total would be required for the enlargement and improvement of the holdings of adjoining uneconomic occupiers, and in order to provide scope for the rearrangement and enlargement of the remaining uneconomic holdings the migration of at least 8,000 families will be necessary."
That will give the House an idea of the extent of the problem. Later on the committee state:—
"The area of untenanted land likely to be available for distribution outside the congested districts counties is estimated at about 600,000 acres and we recommend that not less than one-fourth of this area, in large blocks, be ear-marked for migrants from the congested districts so as to enable migration to be carried out in colonies or large homogeneous groups."
The Government accepted the recommendation in 1938 after the committee had reported, but before we could put the recommendations into operation in the way that we would have wished, the emergency situation arose and our inspectors were transferred to compulsory tillage work, to turf work, and so on. Most of the turf schemes throughout the country are, of course, the result of the work of the Land Commission inspectors. In the same way, as I have explained to the House, the indoor staff of the Land Commission has been very seriously reduced, so that it was impossible to operate the scheme of migration on anything like the scale that the committee suggested, and that I believe the Government would have wished to do.
At the present time we are trying to carry on migration as best we can. There are great difficulties in the way, but I believe that, no matter what Government is here, that problem of bad congestion will have to be tackled by the Department of Lands, and that they will have to continue to pursue it for a period of time until a very substantial number of those families are taken out of the congested areas altogether. Those who have been taken out have proved that the Land Commission inspectors knew what they were doing when they recommended them for transfer under these migration schemes. They have impressed those who have come in contact with them by their industry and capacity, and I have no doubt whatever but that they will be a great success. They have been a success up to the present time, and I have not the slightest doubt that, far from being a failure as has been suggested, even if the scheme were to be stopped at the point that it has now reached, it will be of tremendous national benefit, because I believe that the families of these migrants will spread out. As the House knows, and as was pointed out during the debate, it would, of course, be impossible in a household of 14 children for everyone to get a livelihood on the land which the Land Commission has provided them with. But I have no doubt that a certain number of them will, through their industry, remain in the area, if not on the parental holding, and they may be able to acquire holdings themselves later on, if they are worthy and suitable. So far as the migration scheme is concerned, far from having any apology to offer, or finding it necessary to make any explanations, I am very happy and proud to have been associated with it during my period in the Department of Lands, and I think my predecessor and the Land Commissioners have reason to congratulate themselves on the success which has been achieved.
One of the points we have to keep in mind in connection with this problem of migration is that after the war it will be necessary to provide employment for very large numbers of our people returning to this country from Great Britain, and I do not see any way that is better socially than enabling people to have better homes, enabling them to have better means of living in the congested areas through the improvement works that the Land Commission have been carrying out. Very large sums of money have been spent, and I hope that when normal conditions are resumed far greater sums will be spent. It may very well be that if all these, or even if only a large percentage of them, return immediately the war is over, the Government will find it absolutely necessary to find employment for them in this way. There is scarcely any better way of providing employment in rural areas. Of course, the 40,000 or 50,000 holdings I have referred to are mainly in Galway, Mayo and Donegal. We have not got them in Kerry, and, therefore, we are not able to spend the same amount of money as we spent in the other counties I have mentioned. We have not the problem of re-arrangement and resettlement in the same way. The Land Commission are very restricted in what they can do in Kerry. But we have been trying to concentrate on turbary. I am afraid we have not always been met with the support locally that we would wish. When the surveyors of the Land Commission went down there, far from getting cooperation, they got opposition. Deputies who come from areas where turbary is a burning question will realise the extreme difficulty of getting agreement from the owners of turbary in connection with these schemes. It takes a very long time before a proper survey can be carried out, where there is a large number of tenants involved. If, in addition to the other difficulties that the surveyor and the inspector are faced with, they are to have the hostility of those who, for the time being, are using the turbary, it makes it almost impossible for them to carry out the work in the way that our friends in Kerry would like. Nevertheless, a good deal of money has been spent, and I hope that through the joint operations of the Turf Development Board and the Land Commission more money will be spent on bog development in Kerry. The bog in which Deputy Crowley is interested—Tooreencahill, I think, is the name—is the subject of discussion between the Turf Development Board and the Land Commission.
Deputy Fionan Lynch referred to the Emergency Powers Order which prevents the Land Commission from dealing with fresh applications for admission to purchase benefits under the Acts. Since the closing down on these applications has come about, it appears that landlords have been, more than was the custom, asking tenants to sign grazing agreements, but we are not in a position to deal with applications in the ordinary way, and it did not seem fair to allow the powers to continue and allow tenants to make application knowing that we were not in a position to deal with them. I shall consider carefully the Deputy's suggestion that perhaps applications made to the Land Commission under these sections might be filed away and acknowledged, even though we may not be in a position to deal with them at present. I think that in a good many cases in which these people have written in, they have been informed that note has been taken of the matter and that we may assume that the question will be taken up as soon as the emergency situation is ended. I shall look into the matter specially, however, and see whether we cannot have a regular plan, if there is not a regular system in operation already by which applications of that nature are noted for future consideration.
Deputy Dockrell referred to the case of Mr. Robert Lambert, who has been provided with a holding on the Smith estate at Rathfarnham. He wanted to know if Mr. Lambert has a pension of nearly £300 per annum, and if his wife also has a pension. I understand that he and his wife have pensions. His pension, I am informed, amounts to £67 and his wife's to £52 10s. Of course, the fact that a man has a military service certificate does not mean that he is excluded from eligibility where he would be otherwise eligible in the case of schemes for the division of land. Quite the contrary— in each category of ex-employees, landless men or uneconomic holders, as I think the House knows, ex-I.R.A. men receive preference. They will not receive preference over those in a prior class, but they will receive preference over others who may not have I.R.A. service in their own class. I am informed that this allottee is carrying on his business satisfactorily having regard to his circumstances. There are no buildings on the place which he has been given, and the inspector's report goes to show that he is carrying out a good amount of tillage and doing everything possible to utilise his land satisfactorily. So far as the Land Commission are concerned, they have, I think, no grievance on that score, according to the reports we have received.
Deputy Beegan wants the Land Commission to take over land, even if the staff is not there to divide it, keeping it on hands and letting it in conacre. It is true that that was the custom in the West of Ireland, and, although at present many uneconomic holders would be quite glad to get conacre, in the end I think, as experience has shown, they would be very dissatisfied indeed if the Land Commission were to hold land in conacre for a very considerable period of years. There seemed to be general dissatisfaction in the West of Ireland with the Congested Districts Board by reason of their having pursued that policy during the last war. The object of the Land Commission is to divide land with a minimum of delay after acquisition. The ideal would be to acquire to-day and divide to-morrow, and I fear that no other plan except that of maximum expedition will be found to satisfy those concerned.
The Deputy would also like us to increase grants for house building and to go back to the old Congested Districts Board system of direct building by the Department for the tenants. In the old Congested Districts Board days, the grants given by that body represented the only avenue by which the tenants could reconstruct their dwelling houses, and at present the situation is entirely different. We have a housing code and we have different Departments, including particularly the Department of Local Government, giving grants for housing. There is a certain anomaly in the Land Commission giving grants, particularly where the grants are at the higher rate than those given by other Departments when the same class of beneficiary is involved, and I fear it would be out of the question for the Land Commission to go back to the old system. We must have regard—I am afraid it is inescapable—to what is being done by other Departments, and, in our scheme of grants, we must pay attention to the amounts being given by other Departments.
I explained to Deputy Cogan that the Land Commission have made no rule against giving land to unmarried applicants. What we have done is to insist that bachelor allottees will get married within a year and, more recently, within two years. Owing to the emergency difficulties and the fact that our inspectors have not been able to get about, we have had to give the bachelors a little more latitude, but we do not intend by any means to allow them to escape.