Land Bill—Second Stage.

Minister for Lands (Mr. Moylan)

I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. The extent and complexity of the Irish Land Purchase code make me reluctant to make yet another addition to it but the introduction of a new Land Bill is a prime necessity if the Land Commission are to have the authority which is necessary to enforce the carrying out in practice of the policy of land settlement. Experience is perhaps the only method of bringing to light certain defects in the code and this short Bill is intended mainly to close certain loopholes which have afforded opportunity for evasion by allottees of their undertakings to the Land Commission in regard to the use of their parcels of land.

The first question is the matter of residence by allottees in the houses provided for them by the Land Commission. It is very important that houses built at considerable expense out of State funds should not be allowed to remain unoccupied or should not be sublet by the allottees. This matter was dealt with in Section 19 of the Land Act, 1939, which purported to give the Land Commission sufficient powers to enforce residence, but they have been advised that an allottee who has been called on, under that section, to take up residence within three months (or such longer period as might be allowed him) and who has actually gone into residence following that notice may subsequently cease to reside in the house, leaving it empty, and the Land Commission have no further legal power to interfere with him. Allottees have also discovered another means of evasion, that of a pretence of residence. They instal a few items of furniture, perhaps sleep occasionally in the house, but really live in their old homes. There is no guarantee that residence of this nature might not be held to constitute legal residence. It is therefore proposed to repeal Section 19 of the Land Act, 1939, as inadequate, and have it replaced by Clause 2 of this Bill. It would be very difficult to persuade me that it is a hardship on any allottee to compel him to take up residence in a house that has been constructed for him and I feel that the Dáil will support the view that the Land Commission should have the power to say, in effect, to an absentee allottee: "Get in or get out!" and that an allottee's residence should be to the satisfaction of the Land Commission which has provided him with his house and holding.

Secondly, there is the matter of the proper use by allottees of their parcels of land — a matter of vital national interest. It was thought that previous legislation had sufficiently empowered the Land Commission to enforce continued ownership or occupation and good husbandry. The purchase agreements signed by allottees contained clauses providing negatively against selling, alienating, subletting or parting with the possession of their parcels prior to vesting, and positively for the working of the land to the satisfaction of the Land Commission. In case of any default by the allottee in complying with those conditions the Land Commission reserved the right to recover possession of the parcels. Some recent High Court decisions, however, have declared that lettings of parcels by allottees for grazing or in conacre did not necessarily constitute breaches of the condition in the purchase agreements that the parcels should be worked in accordance with proper methods of husbandry, with the result that allottees unsatisfactory in this respect could not be dispossessed. The policy of land division never envisaged a mere changeover from big landlordism to little landlordism, but was intended to put genuine working small farmers on the land. Clause 3 of the present Bill is devised to prevent subletting of parcels and Clause 4 to prevent bad husbandry.

Thirdly, there is the matter of the devolution of parcels on the death of allottees. Clause 5 is concerned with this subject and is intended to remove a doubt which the lawyers believe to exist in connection with the devolution of certain parcels of land allotted by the Land Commission. The doubt exists only in regard to parcels which, at the date of allotment, were not registered in the Land Registry and, therefore, not subject to the provisions of Part IV of the Registration of Title Act, 1891, regarding devolution.

The position is that, after vesting, all parcels, and before vesting, those parcels which, at the time of allotment, are subject to the provisions of Part IV of the 1891 Act, devolve, as it is technically termed, as chattels real, i.e., they pass, on the allottee's death, to his personal representative for, broadly speaking, the benefit of the next of kin if the allottee died intestate, or for the benefit of the devisee if the allottee died testate. Clause 5 is designed to ensure that the remaining parcels (i.e. those not subject to Part IV at the time of allotment) shall devolve in the same way. The Land Commission have, in fact, generally regarded these parcels as so devolving. Section 32 (4) of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1896, was enacted to rectify an anomaly of an analogous nature in relation to purchasing tenants.

The clause will ensure that the Land Commission are satisfied as to their powers to appoint limited administrators in respect of all classes of deceased purchasers and to deal with such administrators as entitled to the interest of the deceased purchasers and to vest the parcels in such administrators. As very many parcels have been vested in personal representatives, the clause has been made retrospective for the validation of such of those vestings as would come within the doubtful category mentioned.

Mr. Dillon

I take the exceptional course, in view of the importance of this measure, to direct attention to the fact that there is not a quorum in the House. This measure is one of very exceptional importance and people do not seem to realise that.

Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present. House counted and, 20 Deputies being present.

Mr. Moylan

Fourthly, there is the matter of consolidation, i.e., the amalgamation of a parcel with an existing holding for the enlargement of which it has been allotted so as to form a single economic unit. The whole object of the allotment is nullified if the allottee is free to dispose of either his parcel or his holding before they are consolidated. Such a separate alienation is prohibited, except with the consent of the Land Commission, by Clause 6 of the Bill, and the prohibition applies to parcels allotted before or after the passing of the Land Act 1939. This Clause supersedes Section 23 of the 1939 Act, which was intended to effect the same result, but has been found not to be retrospective.

Clause 7 is complementary to Clause 6, being intended to ensure that, without the consent of the Land Commission, a parcel given as an enlargement to a holding should not be estranged therefrom by passing to a different person on the death of the original allottee. It is proposed that the parcel must go to the successor to the holding.

The Bill is largely an amending Bill and does not introduce new principles. The powers it confers on the Land Commission are complementary rather than fresh. It should assist in the expedition and improvement of the existing policy of land settlement.

The Dáil may desire to have some idea of the extent to which evasion of their undertakings by unsatisfactory allottees has taken place. Complete figures are not available, as it has only been possible thus far to investigate a comparatively small number of allotments as to usership, but the "cross-section" revealed has been sufficiently disquieting to make this Bill an imperative necessity. Owing to the pressure of land division under the Land Act 1923 and amending Acts, it was not until the year 1938 that the Land Commission found it possible to have special inspections made to ascertain how allottees were using their parcels — and then the investigation was only partial and occasional.

Up to the year 1944, over 4,200 allotted parcels had been inspected for usership and it was found that some 200 were badly worked and some 700 sublet in whole or in part — that is to say, in 21½ per cent. of the parcels investigated the allottees were not then properly fulfilling their obligations. It was also found that some 820 houses built by the Land Commission for allottees were either unoccupied or sublet to other persons. Subsequent investigation, however, showed that the warning letters issued by the Land Commission had a salutary effect in a large number of cases and a great improvement was effected.

In the year 1944 it was decided to set up a special section of the Land Commissions staff to deal with investigation for usership, and since then inspection has proceeded in a more systematic way. Including some re-inspections in cases already brought to notice by previous investigation, nearly 4,000 holdings and parcels have been inspected for usership during the past year, and of these some 700 were found unsatisfactory — 17½ per cent. Sixtynine of some 1,250 houses on holdings covered by this inspection were found to be unoccupied. Outside this systematic inspection, some 175 additional cases of non-residence and 500 cases of unsatisfactory user have been brought to notice individually, making a total of 1,200 unsatisfactory user and 245 non-residence cases disclosed so far. Appropriate action is being taken by the Land Commission, but pending the enactment of the powers asked for in the new Bill effective steps, other than the issue of warning letters, are not possible in the majority of cases. As regards action for the termination of agreements with allottees, some 90 notices of termination have been issued during the past year, and possession has already been obtained in 42 of these cases, covering an area of 473 acres. The enactment of the present Bill will enable the Land Commission to proceed with vigour in compelling allottees to fulfil their obligations. That is not to say, however, that there will be any harshness. The Land Commission are prepared to give special consideration to cases where there are mitigating circumstances and have, in fact, done so in many instances. The object is not so much to punish as to reform, but Deputies will agree that the Land Commission should have adequate punitive measures over the "incorrigibles". The Bill is very necessary and fills such a want on the part of the Land Commission that I have no hesitation in recommending it to the Dáil.

Mr. Hughes

I feel it is very regrettable that it should be considered necessary to introduce a measure of this sort, because it goes a long way, in a very positive way, further to undermine the fundamental rights of the individual tenant, particularly the right of ownership — and that is a very important matter. We are travelling a bit further on the road to regimentation in this country. I do not subscribe to the dictum of the Minister that the Land Commission should have power to say to an individual holder: "Get in or get out". We do not want bureaucratic control to that extent. Control placed in the hand of the bureaucrat is dangerous and is always open to abuse.

I feel the whole Bill is a reflection on the work of the Land Commission. I do not blame the inspectorial staff of the Land Commission so much for that as I do the policy forced on the Land Commission by the present Government. If the work of selection was properly carried out, there would be no necessity for a Bill of this sort. The prospective tenants were selected not for economic or social reasons, but for political reasons, and this is the result of the type of policy which has been in operation for 12 or 14 years.

In the early life of the Fianna Fáil Government we heard a lot about providing land for landless men. I think, under the present Minister, we are inclined to depart to a great extent from that policy, but still we hear a lot about land and we note the promises made in that connection by spokesmen of the Fianna Fáil Party when they are addressing their supporters all over the country. Even as late as last Sunday the Minister for Justice, addressing his constituents in Roscommon, said that land division was still a burning question. He put it this way, that "he was coming to the burning question of land division". That speech was reported in the Irish Press last Monday. The Minister said, in the same speech that four inspectors were now allotted to Roscommon, and he finished by saying: “There is no county that did better in way of land division than Roscommon, and I would like that to be borne in mind by members of our organisation.”

I feel that that is an inducement to every type of supporter of the Fianna Fáil organisation to come in and get his name down for land, irrespective of whether he is qualified in any way to work land. It is inevitable, if an estate is acquired by the Land Commission for division purposes, that his name will be submitted from the local Fianna Fáil club. I am sorry to say that such lists as are submitted by the Fianna Fáil clubs are permitted to dominate the selections made and the result of that type of procedure was clearly illustrated in the House by the Minister when he read the list of inspections made and the high percentage of failures shown by these inspections. He indicated that out of 4,200 inspections there were 200 holdings badly worked, 700 sub-let in part or in whole, and 820 houses unoccupied. Surely that is a very sad commentary on the work of a Department charged with the responsibility of selecting men qualified to occupy land.

This whole policy of land division is costing the State a considerable sum, and surely there is responsibility on the Minister and his Department to carry out a preliminary examination of prospective tenants so as to ensure that they have the capacity to work the land that is about to be given them as a gift from the State — land which men are expected to use in the interests of themselves and their families. Quite a lot of the tenants were selected on the political ticket, and they never had any intention of working the land. Their intention was to set it and cash in on it as quickly as they could. I know of cases in North Kildare, not small allotments, but very big parcels of land, that were allotted to the supporters of the Fianna Fáil Party, and they were allowed to cash in on their holdings to the tune of over £3,000 per allottee in certain cases. I addressed questions to the Ministry on the subject recently. I made a few cases the subject of Parliamentary questions. I say it is a shocking state of affairs.

Now, in order to remedy that condition of things, that inept administration of a Department which has pursued a policy dictated by a political Minister who is interested in allotting land for political purposes, this Bill is introduced. We have this sad story of the work over a long period of years, and then we have this type of bureaucratic control denying the individual any right of appeal. A civil servant will be sent down to find out whether a man is carrying on a good system of husbandry or not. The civil servant will be the judge and jury as to whether an individual is to be "hoofed out" or not. That is the type of legislation the Minister says he has no hesitation in asking this House to support.

I would, without any hesitation, vote against the Bill but for this fact, that there is a big problem there so far as a number of people are concerned and there is a good deal of Land not being properly worked. The land is abused as conacre year after year. Its fertility is being affected, with the result that if this situation continues it will be worthless. Some drastic action will have to be taken.

The whole idea embodied in the Bill is repugnant to me. The problem has been created by the political policy of the Government. The rights of individuals under the Department have been flagrantly ignored. They were promised certain things and these promises have not been fulfilled. Quite a number of them, working in a legitimate way, were expecting to be vested six or seven years ago after receiving the land, but there is no sign yet of the holdings being vested. Now, because of the failure to vest the land in the holders and the failure to carry out promises made at the time of the division, every individual who occupies an allotment will be at the mercy of the Minister under the administration of this measure. Civil servants will be sent down to decide whether or not an individual is working his land properly. If some of the conditions set out in the Bill were embodied in the purchase terms there might be some justification for such a harsh piece of legislation.

However, as I said, the position is so bad that some drastic action will have to be taken, and I suppose that, with the greatest reluctance, we shall have to consent to give the Minister power to deal with these cases of people who never intended to use the gift given to them in the way of an allotment. The majority of the people who, the Minister says, failed to comply with the conditions never intended to comply with them and some were not suitable, in the first instance. They had not got the equipment; they had not the means; they were landless men who could never hope to make good. They were selected for one reason and for one reason only.

The whole system of selection is wrong. The idea of sending inspectors around from one neighbour to another to ask Mick Murphy how John Doyle will work his land, and whether, if he got an allotment, he would work it properly, was an inducement to people to tell lies about their neighbours, because naturally a man who is asked these questions is afraid that, if he praises his neighbour and says he will be an ideal tenant, there may not be enough land for him, so that he will blackguard his neighbours. The whole method of sending an inspector to live in a locality for a few months, to poke around the locality and to find out in a secretive way, by secret service methods, the right type of tenant is all wrong. If the Minister intends to face up to the realities of the situation, he ought to overhaul the whole system of making selections and ascertaining the suitability of prospective tenants.

Let us hope that if, in the post-war period, we are to have land division, we will forget political angles and get down to the social and economic angle and give land to people who are entitled to it, that we will cut out all this nonsense about landless men and will face up to the problems which exist and try to solve them. I hope that when Ministers in future go down the country they will not try this political stuff which I have read out and which occurred last Sunday — this stimulating of political support by appealing to the greed of the people for land by suggesting that here is a grand opportunity for them to cash in on something with which the State can provide them.

I hope the Minister will face up to the realities of the situation and to the responsibilities placed on him and that when he gets these extraordinary powers which he is seeking they will not be abused. In addition to asking for these powers, he asks us to agree to paragraph (b) (ii) of Section 2 which sets out that the Land Commission may at any time revoke any direction given to a purchaser under the section. I hope that sub-paragraph will not be abused to permit certain individuals who have not fulfilled their obligations to continue to occupy land. I hope the Minister will make a resolution honestly to face up to his responsibilities in the matter.

Mr. Blowick

I do not see that there is any need for this Bill. There is only one section in it with which I would not find fault, that is, the section which makes inoperative any clause in a will which seeks to bequeath a portion of an allotment of land on death or subdividing a holding, thereby undoing the work of the Land Commission. We knew that a Land Bill of some kind was to come before us for quite a while, but we thought it would deal with different problems altogether. We find now that the Minister is seeking power which, so far as I can see, the Land Commission already has under various previous enactments. A clause is slipped into the Bill about bad husbandry and they take it upon themselves to define what is bad husbandry. I tell the Minister and the House that too many sacrifices have been made in the past for the land of this country to allow anybody to come in to a farmer and tell him that he is working his farm well or badly. That is one step we will not stand over or allow. We know quite well that it is deplorable that a farmer should not work his land in a good fashion, but it is still worse to put it into the power of any official to dictate to a farmer and to tell him that he is running his farm well or badly.

I should like to see every acre of the country being worked for all it is worth, and we know that in many cases there are holdings that are not being worked for all they are worth, in some cases through sheer idleness and sheer laziness on the part of the holders. I do not want to see that, but the way it is sought to remedy that position in the Bill is not the right way. To the end of time we will have people owning not only land but businesses who will not run them properly and we will have paid officials not doing their duty and acting as the bad or the slack farmer acts, that is, not doing his best for the country; but we will not allow anybody to tell a farmer that he must get out because he is not running his farm properly because that is taking a step which suggests we are inclining gradually towards the policy of a certain country in Europe. When we give into the hands of an official the power to tell a farmer to get out because he is not working his farm properly, we are reaching a dangerous point, and I tell the Minister that that is one thing we will not stand for.

I fully realise that there are many people in the country in a desperate plight for want of land to work. The Minister gave a list of holdings given by the Land Commission over a number of years past which have not been properly worked. I challenge him to produce 15 or 20 cases in the whole of my county of the kind he has described. I think he gave the number of 820 unoccupied houses. I wish he would give the figures for the various counties and tell us what happened. In the very recent past, men were brought up from particular counties and put into holdings at the expense of the State — men who could not reasonably be expected to know how to work that land for all it was worth.

What I should like to see done in regard to migration is people brought from very bad areas and put on fairly good land, and the people on those lands put on better land, because you cannot give a man who has perhaps made a living at fishing, or who is perhaps a carpenter or other kind of tradesman, 20 or 30 or 40 acres of the very best land in Meath and ask him to make as much use of it as a man who had previous experience of fairly good land would make. That is the cause of the Minister's trouble.

I thought that when this Bill came along it would be a Bill to help the Land Commission, to help to straighten out difficulties, to settle the land question once and for all, particularly along the west coast where there is trouble. With regard to the section which empowers an official to walk in and say to a farmer that his land is not being well worked, the first holder of land in the country against whom it would be operated is the Land Commission which has in its possession for 15, 25 and 30 years, holdings in my county which were taken over in fairly good order, which were perfectly free and good arable land. At present they remind one of what one sees on the cinema — pictures of the bush in Africa or Australia — absolutely overrun. That land has been deliberately held and not divided for any reason that I can see. If I go into the Land Commission about it, or put down a question in the Dáil, I will be told that they are waiting to acquire other land alongside it before proceeding with its division. By the time some of the farms acquired by the Land Commission are divided, no one will take them because they are absolutely worth nothing. It will take from £25 to £35 per statute acre to clear the scrub and the bushes that have grown on them since the Land Commission became the owners. This section speaks about bad husbandry, but if there was a complete and full examination made it is to the Land Commission itself that that description should be applied. I have spoken in the House again and again of the desperate situation in which many small holders in the West find themselves. I know quite well that the Land Commission have great difficulties to contend with, and that they have their own troubles. This Bill, in my opinion, is not going to remedy anything. If the Minister's figures are correct, there must have been great laxity on the part of the Land Commission in the past, or else deliberate mismanagement. We are now told that 820 houses are unoccupied. Surely, that is not due to the fact that those people got bad health or that something happened to their mental system. It must be that they should never have got holdings, or that the system of selection of migrants is altogether wrong.

Deputy Hughes spoke of the system of giving holdings of land to supporters of the Government Party, in recompense, I presume, for services rendered to the Party. That may or may not be so. But the Minister's figures show that there must have been great laxity on the part of the Land Commission. A tale of woe of that sort from the Minister does not inspire confidence at this late hour. If the Bill was introduced with the object of helping the Land Commission to settle the land question once and for all, we would support it. In my county, for example there will be continual trouble until the valuation of the holdings is brought up to £10 or £12. There will be grumbling and grousing. What struck me in connection with the Minister's statement was that there is not unity or harmony amongst the members of the Government themselves on the policy which should be followed in regard to land. If their statements are not actually contradictory, certainly their different statements would seem not to hang together on one policy, as one would imagine they ought to. The Land Commission, in my opinion, have failed completely in their jobs as far as the division of land is concerned. They have a huge area of land on their hands in my county, an area which, if distributed, would go a long way to even out things fairly well.

When the Vote for the Department of Lands was before the House in May or June last year, I suggested a way out to the Minister of settling the land question once and for all. I suggested to him that, in addition to the annual sum voted for the Department, he should also take the amount of the land annuities for the whole country, and with that sum of money settle the land question once and for all county by county. He could make a start with the counties that are most in need, with Donegal, Leitrim, Mayo or Sligo, or any other county. Even if a Government during its term of office were only to settle the question in, say, two counties, well, it would have done good work. The present policy of the Land Commission is to take over a farm of land and split it up like a patchwork quilt, giving portions of it to people who may live one or two miles away. That is proving to be more of a nuisance than anything else. While I agree with certain sections of the Bill, I want to warn the Minister that we here will contest strongly other sections of it. We are not prepared to give the right to any official to go in and say to a man that he is a bad farmer, and that he must get out of his holding of land, simply because he may not be working an acre of that land the right way. There is the danger, too, that that power might be used in a wrong way for political purposes by the present or some future Government.

There is the question of giving holdings of land to people and of seeing that they work them properly and of living in the houses. I am not advocating that the State should give a parcel of land as a free gift to a person, and then allow that person to sit down so that the land will grow nothing but nettles and weeds. In my opinion the correct solution for that situation is not contained in this Bill. I would be in favour of giving power to the Land Commission to deal with the odd case where a person takes a holding of land, goes away to England and leaves it unworked. Under Section 3, the Land Commission are taking power to refuse a person permission to sublet a part of his holding or to take in grazing cattle or set it out in conacre. What does the Minister mean to do in the case of a migrant, a man with a growing family who has been taken out of a small holding of 5, 6 or 10 acres and given a fairly decent one, and has not the necessary capital to work it? There is no provision in the Bill to provide the man with the capital which he would require to work that holding. Bear in mind he is the type of man who deserves help. If a man of that kind has a few hundred pounds to stock the holding he is all right, but if he has not what is to become of him? Is he expected to live inside the four walls of the house? He will not be allowed to sublet the land or set it for grazing to enable him to make ends meet. Is he to be pitched out, and if he is what is to become of him? Is the policy of the Land Commission going to be this, that it is only farmers with money — they may not be the right type of men to give holdings to — who are going to get holdings?

This Bill, in my opinion, is a huge disappointment. If the Minister had introduced a Bill which was aimed at getting at the root of the trouble and that would attempt to settle this Land question, we on this side would support it. There is no need to dwell on the conditions which prevail in my county. The Minister has already heard enough from me on that since I came into the House. I have said a good deal from time to time in regard to the various estates in the county. This business of using very drastic measures will never settle the land question. I think the Land Commission should go ahead with the powers they have already, acquire land and take steps to divide it. If some of the people who have been offered land will not take it, well there are plenty of others who can be got to take their places.

All I say is that the most objectionable part of the Bill in my opinion is the power of officials to go in and tell a farmer that he is working the holding in a good, bad or indifferent manner. I do not stand for that. That section will never hold. It is a section that will cause very serious trouble. It is the thin end of a wedge of a very definite colour that we will never tolerate in this country.

Mr. Corry

I regret that the occasion has arisen for the introduction of this Bill. I do not agree with all the uproar created by Deputy Hughes about it. The particular cases covered by this Bill are different from the cases of ordinary farmers. The persons covered by this Bill are persons who have received from the taxpayers of this State a present worth anything from £300 to £1,000. Surely if a man gets a present from the State of a farm of land, the State is entitled to expect that that man will live in the house provided for him and will work the farm. I admit we get bad farmers, just the same as political Parties, like Fine Gael, get bad leaders. Farms disappear just as Fine Gael disappeared. It cannot be helped. The first thing stirred up by Deputy Hughes was that there were political appointments and that these people got the land for political reasons. I do not know how long the tenants concerned have been in occupation of the holdings. I do not know whether one of those holdings is the holding of the district justice in Tipperary who got a present of 600 acres from Fine Gael, or not. But I do know that an individual of this State who gets a present from the State of a farm of land and a house, takes that holding over with its obligations, and should carry out those obligations. We hear all this talk about political influence and the suggestion that because certain people were members of Fianna Fáil they got farms of land. I remember individuals that I never suggested were appointed for political reasons, who were good friends of the Fine Gael Party, who got land. One of them got a farm of land on the Barrymore estate. He lived there for seven years. He had a small holding in Bandon, in the Leas-Cheann Comhairle's constituency. At the end of the period of seven years during which he lived on that holding he owed 6½ years' annuities. He was evicted.

The Land Commission had taken over approximately 30 acres of that man's holding in Bandon, for division amongst small holders in the locality. When the man was evicted he went back to the holding. He got six months in gaol. It cost £170 to shift him from Bandon to Watergrass Hill. When he came out of gaol the Land Commission made a bargain with him. What was the bargain? That they would put him back again into the farm in Bandon that the Cumann na nGaedheal Government had taken over seven years before for distribution amongst small holders. He was put back, at the cost of another £170, by the Land Commission. There was no political influence at all there. Nobody could touch Deputy Hughes Party in respect of that transaction.

We will have good farmers and we will have bad farmers just as in any walk of life there will be good workmen and bad workmen. If individuals take over holdings who are not prepared to do the duty that the State expects from them in respect of those holdings, then the State has every right to resume the holdings. As Deputy Blowick said, it is not the case of an ordinary tenant. These are men who have got a present of a livelihood in the shape of landed property. The least that can be expected from them is that they will work the land and live in the houses provided for them. If they are not inclined to do it they had no business in taking them over. I have neither sympathy nor mercy for the man who gets a present of a farm from the State and who is not prepared to carry out his obligations to the State.

As we are on the subject of land, there are other matters that I should like to refer to. I should like to know from the Minister how it is that the B. & I. were able to buy 700 acres of land in Meath which, as Deputy Blowick said, is wanted for division. I should like to know how it is that the Duke of Westminster or any other alien is able to sail in here, and buy farm after farm amounting to 1,000 acres of land that is wanted for distribution. These are matters we should like the Minister to tell us about. When the Minister is on the job of resuming holdings I hope to see him taking some steps to have the 700 acres taken from the B. & I. and divided amongst the people.

I would also like to see the big farms that the Duke of Westminster seems to be able to buy all over the country taken by the Land Commission and divided amongst those who have been dispossessed of them. These are the matters we want to hear about from the Minister. I suggest he should consider the question of the Duke's husbandry and the husbandry of the B. & I. Deputy Blowick made a great fuss about the power of taking over land because of bad husbandry. That power already exists in previous Land Acts, whether Deputy Blowick is aware of it or not, and it is not necessary to have it in this particular Land Act unless the lawyers have again driven holes in badly-drafted Bills.

As far as this Bill is concerned, while I regret that it has to be brought in, I regard it as necessary. If other Parties and other Governments did not carry out investigations to bring this matter to light, when it is brought to light, and when we have a Minister so earnest about his job that he dug into it and found out what was wrong, then we should support him. There is very little use in providing holdings for the people and putting the State to the expense of building houses on those holdings if you are going to have a large proportion of those houses unoccupied. There is no good in the State providing homes for people if the people are not going to live in them. It is all very well to talk about this right and that right. A man who gets a gift from the State has no right if he does not carry out the obligation due to the State. That is the way in which I look at this matter. I think it is a fair approach to it. Whilst I am more than anxious to see the land of this country divided up, and to see people living happily on those farms, I am not prepared to see State money put into land for people who are not prepared to carry out their obligations to the State in regard to the land they get.

Captain Giles

I, for one, am not prepared to vote for this Bill, although I come from a county where there has been division of land on a vast scale and where there are a great many grievances against many of the tenants who got the land. I hold that this Bill will not bring harmony and peace to the country. There are other ways of dealing with these holdings which are left derelict. I believe if the present Minister was in charge of the Land Commission 10 years ago, we would have a good system of land division. I believe he is an honest, straightforward man. But the Minister who was in control of the Land Commission from 1932 to 1938 should be arraigned for the manner in which he allowed land to be divided. Deputy Corry said there was no political patronage. I say definitely that 80 per cent. of the land in Counties Meath, Westmeath and Kildare was given to members of Fianna Fáil clubs from 1932 to 1938. Not three miles from where I live, an official of the Land Commission who came down asked for Captain So-and-So. That man was never even the captain of a goose club. He was supposed to be the captain of the new I.R.A. He could not write his own name. Yet a Land Commission official came along and brought him into a place in a back street and got from him a list of members of the new I.R.A. — people who never raised a gun in their lives. All they did was to try to loot. They were not I.R.A. men. Almost every one of the men on that list got land. Three or four, or even five or six, of these men who got land were living on home help. They never had a bob and, if they had it, would drink it. That is the type of man who got land in County Meath. I have been fighting for 10 years against this and I am glad that some Minister has had the courage to stand up to it. I am sorry that the present Minister has to do the dirty work.

I will not vote for the Bill because I know there is a better way out of this. Many of these men got farms eight or 10 or 12 years ago. Some of them when they went into the holdings were married and had one child. At the present moment I know some of them with nine and 10 children who are now down and out. I will not vote to put these people on the side of the road. The Land Commission put them on the land and it is the Land Commission's responsibility to deal with these people with equity and justice. I will stand behind these people in their fight for the home the Government gave them.

I know it is an awful thing to say, but I will say this, because I have a human heart. I know that for years the crow bar and battering ram were used to put people out of their homes. They will have to be used again to put these people out, because if you put them out by the front door they will come in by the back door. One thing that can be done is to vest all these holdings which have been divided for the last eight or ten years and allow those "duds" to sell the land. They may get a few pounds for it. The sons of good farmers with a few hundred pounds will buy the land and work it. That is the easiest and best way. I should like to see the Minister standing beside the sheriff and see him put a man with ten children out on the side of the road. I would not stand for that and I am sure the Minister would not stand for it.

The bringing in of this Bill is all "ballyhoo." There is no need for it. There has been ample power up to the present to deal with the matter. The Land Commission did not deal with it, notwithstanding the fact that they had hundreds of officials going around the country who were nothing more than spies trying to find out who were living in the houses. I know one of them who used to creep up to the window of a house to see if the bed was made in order to find out if the man had slept in it the night before. We do not want that. We want something manly and decent. They should have met the men themselves and found out whether they were living in the houses or not. If not, they should have given them three months to get out. After leaving these men in these houses for ten or 12 years during which they have reared big families, you are now going to put them out and flood the workhouses. That is a despicable thing for the Government to do. But the chickens are coming home to roost. The Government knew that this would happen.

I ask the Minister to withdraw this Bill and to get on with land division in a proper way by giving land to men who will work it and who have the tradition in their blood, not to those who are out to get things for nothing and who do not intend to pay either rents, rates or taxes. These are the men you have in these holdings to-day and these are the men you are going to put out of them. The job is yours. You will not get any help from me in doing that dirty job, although I would have been glad to help if you did it ten years ago, not now after you have allowed this corruption to grow and when these men have no home to go to.

Five or six years ago these men would have walked out willingly, but they have no place to go to to-day. There is no alternative but to vest these holdings and let them be sold and see that they are sold to men who need land and who will work the land and who have the cash to work it. What has been wrong about land division for 25 years is that, in most cases, land was given to men who had not any cash. How could we expect a man with seven or eight children to live on 22 acres of poor land, with the house not even furnished and without even an ass or a horse to start with? How could we expect men like that to be farmers?

The manner in which the Land Commission have divided land in the Midlands has sown greed and jealousy and hatred there. They bring men from the North, South, East and West to Meath, Westmeath and Kildare and give them a good farm of land, with a splendid house, a pump, gates and piers, flour and meal, hens and ducks and horses. They give them everything they want. They bring them there in buses and give them a feast in the nearest hotel. They are put into holdings that are fully stocked. In many cases they have not to pay any rent for two years. In other cases, they parcel out holdings of 15 or 20 acres and say to the allottees: "Go and fend for yourself; we will give you nothing only the bare grass". How can you expect these men to make good on these holdings? The result of that is that you have to-day hatred and enmity and jealousy. I know sons of migrants, some of the greedy type, who walked the derelict farms of these other men in County Meath 12 months ago. They knew there was a Land Bill coming in and they said: "I am going to see that I will get this land". In the next six months we will find that the sons of these migrants will be the grabbers of the lands of these unfortunate men in Meath, Westmeath and Kildare who are not able to work the land to-day. I will not help to flood my county with men from Connemara who never saw anything but a fishing hook. Some of these men were given land on the best farms in Meath which should never have been divided. They are now being brought into the police courts, morning, noon and night, and they are a disgrace to me, to the Minister and to Connemara. I am not saying they are all of that type, but many of them are. It is not alone Moore Street and Gloucester Street that are dangerous at night-time, where you might be knifed in the back. I defy the Minister to go on a dark night through the streets of Athboy after a fair day. He would be lucky if he came out of it with his life. Then we are told that land division is a success. I have been telling the Minister for the past 10 years that it is a failure and a fiasco, creating, bitterness and enmity.

I also say that a very good type of migrant was brought from Kerry, Mayo and Donegal who worked the land efficiently and well, but the devil thank them for that, as they got everything to make them work. The Commission did not take a migrant from Mayo or Kerry with a young family. Those who came had four or five sons of 15, 20 and 25 years of age in Ireland, and two or three sons in England and America, packing the money home to pay the rates, rent and taxes. As a result, many of the persons from Donegal and Kerry can buy, not alone a 20-acre farm but a 200-acre farm, on account of the gold flowing from the British colonies. The Minister did not bring any migrants with young children not able to work. In Meath, he put in the unfortunate person with a young family and even with a poor wife who could not help, because she was always sick and undernourished, and that man had not even a penny to pay wages to any man.

Then you say such a man must not be allowed to set part of his land on the 11-months' system. What is he going to do with it? Why should he not set it on the 11-months' system, if he gets good, honest, hard cash in the public auction and pays his rent, rates and taxes? If I want 15 acres of land, I go to the public auction and pay £10 an acre for it in cash, and the other man pays his rent, rates and taxes and his shop bills and clothes his children. You want to stop that man to-day and make a pauper of him and leave him nothing. I say he should be let alone, to set his land on the 11-months' system if he cannot work it. Is he to let it go wild, let the heather grow over it and let the grass grow across the ditches? Why should he not set it, if a neighbour happens to be better off and can stock more land? If by setting the land he can get something, why not let him? You put the wrong man there. I challenge the Minister to tell me of any honest farmer's son who came from 20, 30 or 50 acres of land, with a tradition of land in his blood, and who was a failure. In County Meath you have not alone one, two, three, but 50, 60 and 70 failures — failures before they signed the document giving them the land. They could not be otherwise, as most of them did not know the first thing about land and did not want to know it. They were good men, but they spent the whole time, even after Mass on Sunday, trying to get a drink in a public house and did not care who paid for it. They would do anything sooner than work any land. Now they are farmers in Meath and find they have to pay for the priest, the doctor, the nurse and the deaths, whereas before they got the land they had to pay nothing and needed only the red ticket to get nurses and hospital attention.

They find now where they stand and they are very sorry they touched it. They find that the old homestead is gone, and where are they to go? Will the Minister tell us what he will do with the ten children? I know one case beside me of that kind. Now, surely, if this Bill is passed, there will be an attempt to put the poor devil on the side of the road, but if you bring the crowbar and the battering-ram I will defy you and I will go to Mountjoy for it if necessary, as you have no right to do it. It means we are going to let loose in this country the Gestapo, to go along and take the lives and liberties of people into their own hands. You have them to-day, prying around and trying to get information and, if they are afraid to go to the front door, they will crawl to the back door or go to a neighbour. You always know that the second or third neighbour is looking for something for himself. That is the very man they will go to, and that is the man who will say that his neighbour never lives at home and is a waster, that he should be put out, that is the man who will say: "I have three or four sons and will work the farm." We do not want that game. It was played before in Clanrickarde's time.

I hope the present Minister, who is an old I.R.A. man, will not let that happen. He is a man who fought for the same thing as I fought for, who bled for it and who was prepared to pay for it with his life. He was never prepared to put up a Cromwell's "get" in this country, and I know he will not do it. I say he should withdraw this Bill. It is a dirty Bill, a mean Bill, an un-Irish Bill, and something like Hitler and the Gestapo tried to introduce. I stand four-square for these people, though they are no good, and I hate to say it. They are rotters and wasters, and many of them drunkards, and they never should have got the land, but I will not see it taken from them and them put out on the side of the road. I will take their side, much as I despise them, and I will do it as an Irishman.

Mr. Dillon

As usual, Deputy Giles, having practical knowledge of rural Ireland, puts his finger on one of the principal evils that have arisen out of the corrupt political interference in the Land Commission during the past 15 years. I am sorry that Deputy O'Grady, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Department of Industry and Commerce, has gone out of the House, as he was responsible for the administration of the Land Commission during the greater part of that time. What has Deputy O'Grady to say to the House, now that the present Minister for Lands has announced that 17½ per cent. of all the tenants comprised in the second survey of persons put in to holdings by Deputy O'Grady while Minister are going to be cleared out as unsatisfactory? Is not Deputy Giles perfectly right? Is it not true that for rotten, corrupt, political reasons, Fianna Fáil Deputies took unfortunate men and thrust land upon them which those men then set and proceeded to rear large families out of the proceeds of setting the land? They now find themselves with wide family responsibilities, and absolutely incapable of doing an honest day's work, because Fianna Fáil has turned them into lazy ne'er-do-wells.

The remedy Fianna Fáil proposes is to adopt the same attitude as Clanrickarde, that is, to say they are not good tenants and to throw them out on the side of the road. What are you going to do with them? Take the type of man to which Deputy Giles refers. It is all very well to say you are going to clear the man out, as he is not a good tenant, but what are you going to do with his wife and ten children? Are you going to treat him as Michael Davitt was treated, with the father in one end of the county home, the mother in the other end, and the ten children sent to an orphanage? Where are you going to put them? Do not let us imagine that we are dealing with striplings and with men of 20 and 24 years of age. A very large percentage of that 17½ per cent. of unsatisfactory tenants are men with large families. Are you going to provide a labourer's cottage and a guaranteed job for them, from the day you take the land over from them, and how are you going to do it?

This Bill has been made necessary by the corrupt interference of the Fianna Fáil Deputies with the administration of the Land Commission. Everyone knows that rotten, corrupt interference has been going on for the last 15 years. Certain elements in the Land Commission have strenuously and courageously resisted it and many a man has suffered for the honest fight he put up to maintain some standards of decency in the operation of the land law by the Land Commission since Fianna Fáil came into office. Why has everybody become so mealy-mouthed about it? Does not every Deputy of Clann na Talmhan know that Fianna Fáil Deputies went down to constituencies and proclaimed they were going to do the dividing? I remember speaking at a meeting in the town of Cavan and being told that one of the Fianna Fáil Deputies from Cavan was at that moment holding a meeting down in a village adjoining an estate being acquired by the Land Commission, with a view to dividing up the land amongst the members of the Fianna Fáil Cumann and he boasted of it and gloried in it. I have no doubt that, in some measure, some of the senior officers of the Land Commission do resist the wholesale depredation by those gentlemen, but I am as certain as that I am standing here, regarding 95 per cent. of the tenants who are going to be dispossessed under this Bill, that if we can get the files — which we will never get — dealing with the apportioning of land to them, we would discover in almost every case they got the land as the result of improper pressure brought by Fianna Fáil Deputies themselves or by the Minister, on the administrative officers of the Department.

I know the senior inspectors of the Department from their work throughout the country for the last 30 years and I will say that if the preparation of schemes for the distribution of land were left to the senior inspectors of the Land Commission, and their discretion was not interfered with, there would be very few people who would have to be put out under this measure. How many people had to be put off their farms prior to 1931? The Land Commission has been functioning for the past 50 years. Every estate that was divided, was divided by the Land Commission or by the Congested Districts Board, which is now a part of the Irish Land Commission. How many unsatisfactory allocations of land were made in the old days? Very few that I ever heard of. When did this crop of worthless tenants begin to grow? When did a situation arise when we had to take evicting powers in order to disencumber the land of this country from the worthless, thriftless characters that have been put upon it?

Who put them there? Were they put there 16 years ago, or 17 years ago? Were they not put there in the course of the last 15 years and, if they were, who put them there? Why do not the Fianna Fáil Ministers for Lands come in here and render an account of their stewardship? How is it that the present Minister for Lands finds 700 holdings sublet, 200 badly used and 820 houses sublet or empty, in a survey covering only a very small fraction of the total allocations that have been made during the last 15 years? How is it that, in a second survey, 17½ per cent. of the total allocations made are now deemed to be unsatisfactory by the Land Commission that made them, and 470 houses are not being lived in by their owners?

Why do not the Ministers who were responsible to this House for the Land Commission when these houses were built and these allotments made, come here and tell us how did that happen and what were they doing? Why did they allow the Department for which they were responsible to create a situation which it is now sought to remedy? In order to remedy that situation, what are we asked to do? We are asked in Section 4 to abolish the right of any citizen of this country to go into the courts with a view to having a matter of fact determined as between himself and the Executive.

See what can happen. A perfectly respectable individual may have a house built and an allotment given to him and, bona fide, he will go to live there, leaving his father and mother on the home farm. That man's father may get a stroke of paralysis three months after he has gone to live in the new house and he may go home to help his widowed mother, perfectly bona fide, until he is satisfied that she has made proper arrangements to make up for the absence of her husband from the working of his farm. Any Fianna Fáil T.D. can go to that man and say: “I will get the Minister for Lands to issue a certificate under Section 4 that you have committed a breach of the undertaking,” and when you go into court all that will happen is that the certificate will be produced and the moment it is produced you will not be allowed to say that your father got a stroke of paralysis, that your mother is a widow and could not carry on the holding without your help, and that you lived in the house continuously until your father was stricken down. You will not be allowed to say that you are going back to the house or that you have been out of the house only for two or three months. The certificate will be final and conclusive evidence and no other evidence as to the facts or the circumstances of the situation may be even tendered to the court.

We are driven to that expedient in order to clear the lands of the ne'er-do-wells that the Fianna Fáil Party put on them and now not one of the ex-Ministers for Lands is here to tell us how all this has come to pass. The only one who was here was Deputy O'Grady, but he has hooked it out of the House.

Mr. O'Loghlen

He surely left because he is afraid of you.

Mr. Dillon

Tell him to come in here.

Mr. O'Loghlen

Have you not an exaggerated idea of your own importance?

Mr. Dillon

What is that? Deputy O'Grady has to accept the responsibility because he was getting a good salary when he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Lands. Go out and get him. He should accept his liability in this matter with the same alacrity as he redeemed the £900 bond in County Clare.

Mr. O'Loghlen

That is vilely mean.

Mr. Dillon

What is vilely mean about it?

Mr. O'Loghlen

It is a mean thing to say.

Mr. Dillon

Now we are told that the situation amongst Fianna Fáil allottees of land has become so intolerable that if a man gets an addition to his holding he may not sell his original holding without the consent of the Land Commission. A man may have a holding of which he is full owner. He may get an additional parcel under one of the recent Land Acts, but that additional parcel may not vest in him for 15 years. During that time he has lost freedom of sale in respect of his original holding. He must now go to the Land Commission, exactly as people had to go to the landlords in the past, to crave permission to dispose of his tenant right.

Surely there must be some Deputies who understand sufficiently the atmosphere in which the land war was fought to appreciate that their fathers and grandfathers were not fools when they sacrificed all they did sacrifice to get freedom of sale, fair rent and fixity of tenure. Surely it was not for fun they worked out that slogan, the Three F's. Surely they knew that if these things were not maintained it would react to the disadvantage not only of the people who lived on the land but to the land itself and, consequently, to the whole community. Everything that Fianna Fáil has done in regard to land, since it came into office, has been directed towards destroying fixity of tenure and free sale. It has turned a large part of our people into grabbers.

Deputies will remember the case in Roscommon a few days ago when 15 respectable men walked on to a neighbour's land and drove his cattle off. They called in the Guards and said they had driven the cattle off, and, when they were asked why they did so, they said: "Because we want his land." Could anyone here ever have imagined that a situation would be created in which young fellows down the country would be tempted to go in and drive their neighbour's stock for no other reason than that they wanted his land? They knew that there was power in the hands of the Government to take their neighbour's farm and give it to somebody else. Was that situation ever anticipated by anybody who was concerned for land reform? Is it desirable or good? Do we want to turn all the people living on the land of this country into tenants again? Was the whole land war wrong? Was it all a mistake? Should we, when we were expropriating the landlords, have vested all the land in the Government and made the people liable for land annuities in perpetuity?

Is that the intention? Does the Fianna Fáil Party mean to say that they have changed their mind about fixity of tenure, about fair rent and about free sale, that they think free sale a bad thing, fixity of tenure a bad thing and fair rent a bad thing, and they want to revert to the system which the landlords defended in this country — that no man shall live upon the land and work the land unless he is somebody else's servant, that there shall be no land owners in this country and that everybody who adopts agriculture as his livelihood will be for ever under surveillance and have hanging over his head for ever the sword of Damocles, of being thrown out on the side of the road, because whoever happens to be the Government of this country does not like the way he is working the land, or does not choose to hear the justification he wants to make for the way in which he is living on the land, unless he is prepared to go in with his hat in his hand to a political Minister and crave him of his bounty not to make the certificate which he is entitled to make under Section 4? No man living on the land in this country hereafter will have the right to go into court even to claim his fixity of tenure because he knows he can be met there by the final and conclusive certificate under Section 4 of the Land Act of 1945. Did any landlord in this country ever dream of challenging fixity of tenure in such a way?

I am told that I ought not to oppose this Bill, that the land is encumbered with a collection of duds, frauds and "chancers", that the Minister himself says their multitude has become so great that he must take steps to clear them out. I am supposed gladly to forswear every guarantee that the tenant purchasers of this country have of fixity of tenure in order to deal with Fianna Fáil's duds. Now that Deputy O'Grady has come back, I want to ask him to intervene in this debate. He was Minister for Lands for a protracted period and was responsible for the working of the Land Commission. I want him to tell us how it is that, during his stewardship, persons were put upon the land who have produced this result, that, when a survey is made of 4,000 holdings, 700 are found to be sub-let, 200 badly used and 820 houses built under his administration or that of his colleagues either sub-let or empty, and that, in a second survey, 17½ per cent. of the people he put on the land are unsatisfactory and 470 of the houses built while he was responsible to this House for that Department are untenanted.

Have we not got a right to ask him to tell us how that came to pass while he was holding himself out to the House as conscientiously discharging the duty of trustee for this House of the Land Commission? Does he propose to get up and say: "I had nothing to do with it; it was none of my business"? Does he propose to deny that during that time he was warned again and again that if the Land Commission were called upon to divide land at the rate which, for political purposes, he insisted they should operate and that the Land Commission said that if they were persistently interfered with by his supporters down the country the allocation of land must be unsatisfactory and would be unsatisfactory and would ultimately call for reconsideration? He cannot deny it if he proposes to tell this House the truth.

Do people in this House realise what Fianna Fáil did when they passed the 1931 Land Act? Do they realise the "slush-fund" they opened for the purchase of votes in this country? Do they realise that under the existing land law the Land Commission buy an estate and improve that estate, and that, having done that, they ascertain the economic rent payable in respect of each farm on that estate, according to the formula laid down in the earlier land code and that that rent is designed not to redeem the price of improvement, for that is a charge upon the Exchequer, but to redeem what the land actually cost the Land Commission, together with certain minor expenses which are involved? That rent is further abated if, in the judgment of the Land Commission, the holding is not such as to permit of an annuity sufficient to liquidate the purchase price and to leave the farmer a reasonable standard of living, not only for himself but for his wife and family as well, and the rent, having thus been ascertained, is cut in two and the land conveyed to the incoming tenant at half its cost.

Is it any wonder there is land hunger in this country? Is it any wonder that every camp follower of Fianna Fáil is running around with his tongue out to get land, because the day he goes into a holding he acquires an asset corresponding to half of the total of the land for nothing? If he does not sell it, he can mortgage it. Is it any wonder that every Fianna Fáil T.D. went down the country and said: "We have largesse to distribute amongst our supporters if they will only toe the line?" Is it any wonder that their fulfilment of that undertaking has resulted in the necessity for this Bill? Let somebody answer the question put by Deputy Giles. What are you going to do with your own duds? What are you going to do with them, poor, miserable and contemptible as they are; poor wretched creatures who sold their souls for penny rolls and lumps of hairy bacon? We do not want to see them treated as dirt under your feet.

The Fianna Fáil Party may think it is practical in this country to go down and corrupt simple people, to degrade them, to use them and then to cast them aside like a sucked orange and trample them into the earth, but they will find they cannot, and it will not be their own wretched dupes who will rise against them. It will be the decent elements in the country who never allowed them to corrupt them, those who have not been taught the filthy lesson of jealousy and hatred and the desire to grab your neighbour's holding, those who would have scorned ever to grab their neighbour's land, no matter what powers were conferred on the Land Commission by the 1931 Land Acts or any of the Acts which followed it. You cannot take people for whose misfortune you yourselves are responsible and kick them into the ditch because the decent elements in the community will not let you do it.

I think it is deplorable that we have so many cases of this gross misuse of land, and when I speak of misuse of land, I mean its granting to persons who never meant to use it, and who, those who sought to get it for them knew, would never, could never and in fact never did use it, but I do not believe that that horrible situation can best be remedied by destroying the last vestige of fixity of tenure left to the people. I do not believe that situation can best be remedied by upsetting the whole system of the law, and remember that Section 4 more rightly belongs to a Criminal Law Amendment Bill than to a Land Bill.

Suppose there was a provision in any Criminal Law Amendment Bill that the penalty for an offence under the Act would be the confiscation of a person's entire property, would Deputies not say that that was an appalling penalty, a penalty worse than life imprisonment, because it meant a condemnation to disruption of the family and to chronic poverty and destitution? That is what Section 4 provides.

If the Minister for Lands issues the necessary certificate everything the unfortunate man has is gone from him because the alleged cause of issuing the certificate is that he is subletting the land and has neither stock nor anything else wherewith to work it. Does the House believe that that is a proper-method of dealing with an evil which the present Government itself created and admits itself that it created it? It was you put them on the land; it was you who chose them for the land; it was you who boasted that you were going to put them there and that you had put them there, in spite of everybody, and in the face of any advice that experienced persons were in a position to give you. I say deliberately that such a remedy is inhuman and outrageous. We, having made our bed, ought to lie on it and face the consequences. I do not deny the existence of the evil, but the right way to remedy the evil is to ensure that in any land settlement, and in the division of land in this country in the future, the Land Commission and its experienced officers will be allowed to do their job and that if a Fianna Fáil T.D. is seen approaching one of them the dogs will be set on him. I guarantee that if the experienced officers of the Land Commission are allowed to carry out their duties without political interference in the business of allocating the land of this country, there will not be .1 per cent. of complaint in the administration of the holdings they create. It may take some time for this particular problem that the Minister has in mind to work itself out, but it would be better to let it work itself out, and let these unfortunate ne'er-do-wells alienate their holdings to other persons, and bring the land back gradually into cultivation rather than remedy it by the provision of Section 4, and put the further inroad on free sale represented by Section 6.

I know full well that we are living in an age when principle and standards count for nothing. The only rule that runs in this country is: can you get away with it? There was a time when considerable numbers of persons, if given the opportunity to do wrong, would be ashamed to do wrong, and whether they were going to be found out or not would scorn to put their hands to work of that character. Now, as far as I can see, if you can get away with it anything goes. If we are going to set that example in this House it is only too likely that it will be followed gladly by a great many people down the country. Are we of opinion that, with a view to remedying not the mistakes but the deliberate, conscious, corrupt, misfeasance of Fianna Fáil during the last 15 years in connection with land division in this country, we should pass Section 4 which abrogates the fundamental rights of citizens to invoke the courts of law? I do not think that we should, and mind you I think we are making a mistake if on this side of the House, no matter what Party Deputies belong to, or whether they stand alone, we allow Fianna Fáil to stampede us by their misfeasance into expedients that commend themselves to Fianna Fáil.

It has never been the practice of people on this side of the House to do the kind of thing that Fianna Fáil had thought itself justified in. We never stooped on this side of the House to the shady transactions which Fianna Fáil has thought possible that they could get away with. We never appropriated a Republican Loan and we never purchased the assent of people to the abandonment of fundamentals by holding out to them the bait of monetary advantage. We never sought to purchase the mass of the people, nor stooped to corrupt and degrade them, and we should not allow ourselves to consent to the kind of remedies that commend themselves to men capable of that kind of activity. I for one reject it.

I believe that free sale, fixity of tenure and fair rent are still precious things in this country. I think that everything done to undermine these three things will react disastrously not only on the land and the people who live on it, but on the whole community. I believe that Fianna Fáil does not believe in those things. I believe they think they have discovered something new and that those three things were merely gags that were run by the Land League to embarrass the landlords. I believe that they do not understand the kind of people who led the Land League, who, no matter how advantageous a gag was, if it was dishonest they would have scorned to use it. They campaigned for these three things because they believed they were honestly and genuinely necessary. They did not use them for the purpose of expropriating the landlords and of benefiting themselves and their supporters. They demanded them because, without them, they felt our people could have neither freedom, independence nor dignity. They wanted to put our people in the position that if a landlord or Fianna Fáil T.D., or anybody else who claimed to be their master, threatened to cross their threshold uninvited, they could put him out and have the law on their side. If you pass Section 4 of the Bill, who dare put a Fianna Fáil T.D. out? You remember the old days when the bailiff called. Theoretically, he had no right to enter — only the agent of the landlord could — but who dare put him out? You dare not put him out because he had his agent there and if you did not submit to his most outrageous exactions you were liable summarily to be evicted by the agent, who was always on the bailiff's side. The bailiff's certificate was sufficient. There was no argument against it. It was conclusive evidence that you had to go, and go you did. There was no use pleading with the landlord or the agent that the bailiff was a blackguard, a liar and a fraud, because his certificate was sufficient.

Are we going to create a situation now that if a tenant purchaser in this country is ordered by a member of the Fianna Fáil Party to toe the line, and refuses to do so, that member can go to the Minister and get the agent's warrant for eviction, and that when the tenant seeks the protection of the court he will be told, as his grandfather was told by the landlord: "There is no argument; the bailiff's certificate is conclusive, and you have got to go. There is no court, there is no tribunal, there is no remedy of which you can avail. Your only hope is to go back to the Fianna Fáil T.D. who got that certificate first signed; go down on your knees to him, recant all you said or did, and beg of him in his kindness to go back and undo his dirty work, and, if you prostitute yourself sufficiently you will have a fair chance of getting back your right to live?"

Do Deputies on this side of the House think that is a suitable remedy for the situation created by that Government? Do they want to put every tenant-farmer in this country in that position? Do they want to feel that any day a certificate may be issued, the result of which is going to put them out on the road penniless and that they will have no remedy and that they will stand on the roadside, not an object of universal pity but branded as incompetent, fraudulent, worthless, so much flotsam and jetsam to be thrown upon the tide? Do they think that is right, or what has come over the Deputies on this side of the House? Do they think they ought to approve that plan? Do they think they ought to dirty themselves with the consequences of the situation which that Party admits they are responsible for? How often have we told them on this side of the House that they were corruptly misusing the powers conferred upon the Land Commission, that they were interfering with the Land Commission, that the allocation of land was in many cases unjust and improper? How often have I heard Deputy Hughes get up and quote cases where he said the allocations were unjust? Now, when these birds have come home to roost, now, when they stand convicted before the country of the consequence of what they did — and remember when we charged them with doing it they denounced us; they said we were saboteurs; they said we were trying to denounce Fianna Fáil regardless of the justification of the allegations we made against them — are we going to say that they were right, that all our allegations during that period were unfounded and were false, or are we going to say: "For 15 years we warned you that if you went on with your corrupt and rotten administration, this Bill would become an urgent necessity"?

Is this the hour to fall upon their necks and tell them we do not blame them, that they are in a sad mess and that, God help them, it is as much our fault as theirs and that any steps they think necessary, any abrogation of the most fundamental principles that they recommended to the House, meets with our entire approval? If that be so then I do not know the purpose of debate. It is hard to bring home to the people the truth when the truth is bitter and when the truth is utterly amazing. We have warned the people time and time again of the very abuses that have begot this Act. Are we now going to renege what we ourselves have been doing or are we going to say to the people: "Here is the consequence of the abuses we have warned you of but, foreseeing these consequences, we are not going to be stampeded into standing over, "Where an agreement or undertaking to purchase a holding or parcel of land from the Land Commission whether entered into before, on or after the operative date, contains a condition whereby the purchaser agrees to work the holding or parcel in accordance with proper methods of husbandry to the satisfaction of the Land Commission, a certificate under the common seal of the Land Commission certifying that the purchaser has not so worked the holding or parcel shall be conclusive evidence for all purposes of the fact so certified'?" Is the Fine Gael Party going to vote for that? Is the Clann na Talmhan Party going to vote for that? I will wait and see.

Mr. Harris

I listened to Deputy Dillon's speech and I think it will not deceive anybody in the country, not even those who are opposed to the Government. He talks about the corruption of the Fianna Fáil Party. According to his speech one would think that Fianna Fáil had got complete control of the Land Commission. If Fianna Fáil has been able to have that influence in the Land Commission there must be something wrong with the officials in the Land Commission. The Opposition Party would try to have it that the officials of the Land Commission are all right, but if it has been possible for Fianna Fáil Deputies to have such influence in respect of the allotment of land as Opposition speakers suggest, the Land Commission officials must not be doing their duty.

If we look back, Section 6 of the 1933 Land Act indicates clearly that it is impossible that there should be any political influence in the Land Commission. I have always understood that even the Minister for Lands had no power to suggest to the Land Commission what land should be acquired, Where land should be acquired, or how land should be allotted. On many occasions when estates were divided in my constituency I had to stand up against the attack of my own supporters and their criticism of the manner in which estates were divided.

It was shown to me in many cases that men who supported the national movement in the past, who suffered in the old Sinn Féin days, were not considered and their applications for land were turned down while others who never made any sacrifices in the national movement but who looked after their own private interests usually got first consideration. That was natural because those who did not give attention to national affairs in the past but who looked after their own interest were usually the best people from the point of view of the Land Commission and usually got first consideration.

Listening to Opposition speeches one might be led to believe that in regard to land acquired and allotted previous to the Fianna Fáil Government the Land Commission did not make any mistakes and that land was allotted only to very efficient people who could work it properly. Anyone who knows the country must realise that previous to Fianna Fáil taking power and previous to 1931 the Land Commission made mistakes in their allotment of land also. I do not deny that there may have been abuses in the Land Commission — they have not my approval — but we had abuses in the Land Commission previous to Fianna Fáil coming into power. I know estates in my own constituency that were acquired by the Land Commission as far back as 1923, the allottees on which sold their holdings. In some cases they never occupied the houses and, at the first opportunity, they sold them. I know of cases in my constituency in 1931, during the Cumann na nGaedheal period, where the Land Commission made presents of holdings to allottees. I know one particular case where a holding of about 50 Irish acres was vested in a man who sold the holding afterwards. It was a free gift to him. That also happened during the Cumann na nGaedheal period.

It was stated here that 17 per cent. of the allottees were "duds", that they were unsuitable and that they were put there through political corruption. There are allottees in Kildare who should not have got land and who are not working the land. There are not many of them. That is not through any fault of their own. There are certain parts of Kildare where there is a good tillage tradition, and a tradition of mixed farming. These areas, in a great many cases, are adjacent to the bogs and the holdings are very small. In those areas the land available for acquisition is not very large, but where estates were divided in these areas we will not find any case to which this Bill will apply. In part of North Kildare, where the most land was available for acquisition, the tradition of mixed farming and good husbandry was weakest. It was there that it was most difficult to find suitable allottees. The large farmer in those areas had not a very good knowledge of tillage. Tillage was not practised very much eight or 10 years ago. The tradition of tillage and mixed farming had practically died out in those areas. I often heard Deputy Hughes refer to the difficulty these farmers had when compulsory tillage came in; that they had not the tradition and that they had not the machinery. When the large farmers in the area lost the art of good husbandry, it was very difficult for the small holders to know much about it. The small holder, to some extent, did what he should not do, he followed the example of the larger holder and set his land. That was not the purpose for which the Land Acts were passed.

It may be a hardship on some of these people to be dispossessed from their holdings. But the Land Acts were not passed, and land was not divided solely in the interest of allottees. The Land Acts were passed for the benefit of the community and in order to have the land worked. It was not for his own personal advantage that land was allotted to a man. Public money was expended to acquire this land and to improve it and put it into a condition for the man to work it and a house was provided for him. It was for him to do his part on behalf of the community by cultivating the land and working it in accordance with what is considered a good system of husbandry.

I think is is very mean for Deputies like Deputy Dillon to talk about the corruption of the Fianna Fáil Party. I have often been criticised for not influencing the Land Commission, but I know that it would not be possible. I know I could not do it if I tried. There was one particular case in which I tried to use influence with the Land Commission. It was in connection with an uneconomic holder who was allotted a parcel of land to make his holding economic. That was during the Cumann na nGaedheal régime, and before the annuities were halved. The purchase price of the estate must have been very big, because the annuity was more than he was able to pay. He felt that he would be better off if he could give the holding back to the Land Commission. He had gone into arrears with his annuities, and he asked me to get the Land Commission to take the holding back. He was getting warrants for the arrears of annuities due and demands from the county council for arrears of rates. I tried very hard to do something in the matter, and it was a long time before the Land Commission resumed the holding. That was the only occasion on which I ever brought any pressure to bear on the Land Commission. If an estate is being divided, and if a man asks a Deputy of any Party to make representation, he will submit his representation. Deputy Hughes I know does it. Deputy Hughes' keymen in Kildare will tell the people that he has more influence in the Land Commission than Deputy Harris, that Deputy Harris can do nothing with the Land Commission and that Deputy Hughes has far more influence with them. I suppose the same thing was done in other constituencies where the Fine Gael Party or other Parties were looking for votes. If you want petrol from the Department of Supplies, the Fine Gael Deputy is the man who has the pull there. He is the live wire. The Fianna Fáil Deputies can do nothing.

Mr. Dillon

Seventy-seven little baa lambs.

Mr. Harris

The speech of Deputy Dillon or the speeches of Fine Gael Deputies who say that Fianna Fáil made a mess of land division will not deceive anybody down the country. There is no doubt that a lot of people thought that it was very difficult for the Land Commission to acquire and divide so much land in such a short period; that the pace was a little too fast. That was the complaint that I heard responsible people make. Intelligent and responsible people down the country were really surprised that the Land Commission made such a success of the job in such a short time, and carried out such a volume of work in so short a period.

I hope no hardship will be inflicted under this Bill. I know there are certain types of people — and not so many of them — who would like to get a bit of land and who will neglect it. In the country at present, there are good opportunities of making money in other ways, as we have factories with good wages. There are some people inclined to set the land at a good price and work in factories for big wages. That type of man should not be allowed to carry on. I have no objection to his being active in other directions in connection with agriculture, but if he wants to devote himself to other work than that and if he feels that some occupation other than farming is more profitable, he should leave the land to someone who will work it.

General Mulcahy

Deputy Hughes adopted a reasonable attitude on this Bill and I only intervene in view of what Deputy Dillon thinks we all should think regarding the Bill. I would like that both he and other Deputies would understand exactly how we regard it. In any matter regarding land, I would not undertake to dictate to the mind of any man as to what his opinion should be; and any Deputy on this side of the House is free to vote in any way he wishes regarding this Bill.

My own view of it, and I think the view of the majority of members of this Party, is somewhat like this. Let me speak for myself. I have been for many years of my life struggling to prevent the Fianna Fáil Party doing damage to this country by mistakes. They have been making mistakes for the last 24 years and I have been working very hard against that. My view is that, as long as they are there, they will be making mistakes, working injustice and doing damage to some party in the country. When we find them admitting some of their mistakes and setting out plans to prevent themselves from making any further mistakes, and trying to undo some of those they have made, if we take up the attitude that we are going to stand in their way and try to prevent them from mending their hand, then we are only piling up more difficulty and more trouble for somebody else to clear up.

Mr. Dillon

Might I ask a question? Has the Deputy's experience of the Fianna Fáil Party led him to believe they have suddenly become angels of virtue and are going to use Section 4 exclusively for repairing their own errors?

General Mulcahy

On Section 4, I am not prepared to take Deputy Dillon's interpretation, that it is wiping out free sale, fixity of tenure and fair rent.

Mr. Dillon

They can throw anyone out on the roadside. They are not vested.

General Mulcahy

What I have to say is very simple. Section 4, which Deputy Dillon read out, says that when an agreement is made by a person to purchase a holding from the Land Commission under certain conditions, if those conditions are not carried out, the Land Commission may recover the holding from that person.

Mr. Dillon

Is there an argument to justify the Deputy?

General Mulcahy

That section should provide that there would be an appeal against the Land Commission.

Mr. Dillon

That is another story.

General Mulcahy

I am speaking of my attitude to this Bill on its Second Reading. If we are to take the attitude that the Land Commission, by putting a man into a holding, vests that holding in him completely and gives him complete possession of it, with full security and full tenure, and without any control over him for a period to show he is able to work the land and make use of it, and to do what Parliament intended him to do when it gave him the land, I think we would be making a great mistake. I see nothing unreasonable in there being a period of test, as it were, which might be four, five or six years, before the land were vested.

Mr. Dillon

It is ordinarily ten years.

General Mulcahy

As far as I understand the story, it is very often 20 and 30 years, according to the Land Commission. I understand there are many holdings which have not been vested for very many years. One of the really big disgraces about the Land Commission is that the vesting has not been carried out. Let us not be carried away with exaggerated ideas about what the Bill can do. There is always this difficulty about Fianna Fáil mistakes. When they make them, and then take power to correct them, the hand goes wider and not only do they take control over the people whom they want to correct but they take power over the whole people of the country. In that way, from the first day Fianna Fáil began to make mistakes, the hand and the grip have widened over the country, so that we are rapidly reaching the position of a socialist dictator-controlled State.

There is an element of that in this Bill. Nevertheless, Parliament would make a great mistake if we do not agree that it was reasonable that some Government should correct the mistakes. It is a good job that the Fianna Fáil Government have come to the conclusion that their mistakes are so big that they must turn and remedy them themselves. We ought to feel a certain amount of gratitude to the forces in the country which are bringing them to that state of mind. It would be absurd for us to rub their noses in their mistakes on an occasion like this, when they are trying to rectify some of them.

I appreciate the feelings of Deputy Giles in facing the proposals in this Bill and their widespread possibilities. He is facing up to the question of what would happen even some of the mistakes of Fianna Fáil if they were pushed out under this Bill. However, the fact that it would be possible to do grave injustices in this Bill would not justify anyone, who realised there was a position to be cleared up, in opposing the clearing up of it. If injustices are going to take place under this Bill, then nothing but active public opinion can save this nation from these injustices. One of the reasons why it has been possible for the Fianna Fáil Government over so many years to commit mistake after mistake is that public opinion has been dead, that public opinion has been dormant, that men who ought to be active and outspoken in political life have refrained from stating their opinions and have refrained from endeavouring to be part of the active force forming public opinion.

I think we have reached the day in which public opinion is beginning to assert itself and that, facing the new life which opens out before the world and before this country, after the passing of the great cloud of war, public opinion is going to be more active. We should give the Government a chance to correct some of the mistakes they have made and, even though injustices may be performed under this Bill, we should give public opinion a chance to realise that it has to assert itself, that it must watch in every direction for injustices and mistakes and speak out quickly and readily to prevent them.

That is my attitude to the Bill, and I believe it is the attitude of the greater part of my colleagues here on these benches. I do not feel going down to the mud or degrading myself in any way when I say to the Government: "You can try to mend your mistakes. We are not going to stand in your way if you try to do it. We only say you should try to mend your hand in a number of different directions."

Mr. Cosgrave

I agree entirely with Deputy Dillon in this matter. The Government were told for a number of years — successive Fianna Fáil Ministers for Lands were told — that the method of allocation of land was bound to have bad results, that the entire system on which they based the distribution of holdings — or almost the entire system — was founded on the recommendations of Fianna Fáil T.D.s, or if not Fianna Fáil T.D.s, of Fianna Fáil clubs. Deputy Dillon mentioned that we have had successive Fianna Fáil Ministers for Lands. Why is it that the other Ministers for Lands did not hold an investigation, say a year or two after these allottees had taken possession? Why is it they did not ascertain whether the holdings were being worked or not? Why is it that after ten or 15 years an entirely new Minister for Lands, who has a different outlook to the previous Fianna Fáil holders of the office, adopts the most rigorous methods, methods which give no opportunity whatever to the aggrieved person to appeal against a certificate of a Land Commission official?

Deputy Giles put his finger on a very important point in the whole matter of land distribution, and that is that during a period of ten or 15 years, occupants have been put in, and they have reared families in many cases. Their responsibilities have grown, and the result is that these people, who were put in primarily on the recommendation of Fianna Fáil, are now to be turned out because they have not justified the confidence which Fianna Fáil reposed in them. Surely we should have some better explanation than that there is a different Minister and he is adopting a different policy. It is quite true to say, as Deputy Mulcahy said, that it is a good thing to see him rectifying the mistakes, but why did not previous Ministers do so, and why, if they were so remiss in this matter, do they still hold office? It is just like previous Ministers for Justice. Fianna Fáil now have a Minister for Justice who is ensuring that the law will be upheld, but because of remissness, because of the fact that his predecessors in office failed to do it, police officers were shot in this country. That responsibility is on Fianna Fáil.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is quite outside this measure, surely.

Mr. Cosgrave

It is an analogy, and surely. I am entitled to make an analogy?

An Ceann Comhairle

It has been the practice in this House that when a Minister leaves office his actions, while in that office, are not questioned. He is no longer the holder of the office.

Mr. Cosgrave

Quite so, but surely it is permissible to draw an analogy and show that a Minister has failed in carrying out his duties? Surely that is a sound analogy in demonstrating that another Minister has taken over the faults which his predecessor was responsible for, and in showing that if one Minister fails to carry it out another Minister has to be appointed to rectify these mistakes? I think Deputies should examine their consciences. As Deputy Dillon says, the sins of Fianna Fáil are now coming home to roost and, because that is the case, and because Fianna Fáil Ministers have failed to carry out their duties, they now come here and propose to evict — in Deputy Giles' pungent language, using the same method as Cromwell adopted in this country — the unfortunate people who should never have been put into these holdings.

If the Minister has any reason for evicting these people, if he has any reason for finding as, of course, he has found, that they are not fit to hold the land that has been allotted to them, at least these people should have a right of appeal or, as Deputy Giles suggested, the holdings should be vested in them and they should be given permission to sell. If you take a man in changed circumstances, out of the surroundings he is used to, and put him in a position in which he has neither the training, the qualifications, the knowledge nor the capital, as was done in these cases, surely you cannot, after leaving him for 10 or 15 years, throw him out on the road, as it were? At least we have some sense of proportion and, because mistakes have been made, some fair and equitable system should be adopted to see that they are rectified. We should not just turn these people out as you would drive cattle from a field. I endorse the remarks made by Deputy Dillon and Deputy Giles, and for that reason I will oppose this Bill.

Mr. Flanagan

I look upon any Bill which relates to land as of very great importance. I had no intention of rising to speak on this occasion, but the speeches made by Deputy Mulcahy and Deputy Cosgrave appealed to me and I decided to make a few observations. I am convinced that on this question of land division and distribution by the Land Commission, I can speak with practical knowledge, following my short experience in public life. Since 1939 I have seen several ranches divided in my constituency. In my constituency there are a number of ranches which were dealt with by the Land Commission. At the same time, there are numerous ranches there which are still on the Land Commission list awaiting division. Any time I rose to speak on the Minister's Estimate, I seldom failed to place before him the circumstances of successful applicants. I have had experience since 1939 of various people coming to me for recommendations and asking me to write applications for them to the Land Commission.

I must not forget that very serious allegations were made here by Deputies on the Opposition Benches against the Government for using political influence in the allocation of land and giving it to certain applicants. I can speak with absolute authority, because I was for three years secretary of a Fianna Fáil cumann in my constituency. I was warned by Fianna Fáil headquarters, and by a Fianna Fáil Deputy from the constituency, to send no name to the Land Commission other than that of a Fianna Fáil applicant or a strong member of the Fianna Fáil cumann. As I rose here to place those facts before the Minister for Lands when his Estimate was under discussion, I was faced with the severest of criticism from Government Deputies, simply because they know they are still following the path which I walked off. They have instructions from their organisation, from the Government, to see that the case of no applicant but that of a Fianna Fáil tout in the area is examined. I am speaking with knowledge because I am a man who once acted hand-in-hand with the Fianna Fáil Party in my constituency to keep many a decent man out of a farm, and I ask God's forgiveness for it. I was associated with the Fianna Fáil Party for three long years and no man has more experience of the intrigue and treachery used by that organisation in efforts to deprive deserving applicants of land, simply because their political outlook was Fine Gael, Labour or some other Party not in accordance with the doctrine of Fianna Fáil.

This measure, as Deputy Cosgrave has pointed out, is introduced by the Government for the purpose of rectifying their mistakes. They see now that there would be no need for this legislation if they had been more broadminded in selecting people for land, and if they had given it to those who were most deserving and who were well financed and equipped to work it. I intend to oppose this Bill simply because I think that, if there had been a proper allocation of land by the Land Commission in years past, there would be no necessity for such legislation. There is no need whatever for drastic powers to evict smallholders simply because in a great many cases economic conditions will not allow them to live in decent comfort on their small holdings and will not allow them to marry and rear families.

Small farmers and poor agricultural workers have been put into 25 and 30-acre holdings and probably a house has been erected for them, but they may not have had the price of a horse to work these holdings when going into them, and very little assistance, to my knowledge, was given by the Government to these poor people whom the Government put into these holdings, if you like, against their wishes. I can say from knowledge of my own constituency that under this legislation there are people who got land who are bound to lose it simply because they have portion of it set. They would not have set it if they could possibly have worked it themselves, but they cannot work it because of lack of capital, lack of live stock and lack of farm implements, as well as lack of assistance or co-operation from the Government in putting them in a position to work it and to produce food for man and beast.

I believe that instead of introducing legislation to evict these people from land given to them in return for their loyalty to Fianna Fáil, it would be a much greater recognition of their services if legislation were introduced to enable them to live on the land, to encourage them to live on the land and to assist them by giving them live stock and capital in order that they may be able to live and rear families on the land. The moment the majority of these people acquired their land they sank themselves in debt with the banks and with the Agricultural Credit Corporation. They made applications for loans in order to be able to comply with the obligations attached to their securing of holdings of 30 or 35 acres. I know small farmers in the poorest circumstances who made application for financial accommodation to the Agricultural Credit Corporation. They sent in their applications and got back a form on which the first question was: how much money have you in the bank? That was the question asked of people applying for loans.

I am convinced that this type of legislation will not get the Government anywhere. Some Deputy spoke about activities in Crumlin. The activities which will follow this Bill will be wholesale evictions, to which I have never been and never will be a party. I cannot subscribe to the Bill in any shape or form unless some clause giving the citizen a right of appeal is inserted. There is, as I say, no need whatever for a serious measure such as this and it would bring much greater advantage to the Government if, instead of taking the action they are taking, they helped these people. Deputy Mulcahy has said that when the Government make mistakes, they come in with legislation to rectify those mistakes, and, as he also pointed out, they always stretch their arms a little wider so as to include the innocent as well as the guilty, and this is a Bill which is likely to give more dictatorial powers to the Government, and we have too much dictation at present.

There is no provision in the Bill by which the allottee can appeal for proper consideration of the merits of his case. It is a deplorable state of affairs that a civil servant from the Land Commission should be able to go into a poor man's holding and tell him whether his farm is being worked on a basis of good husbandry or not. Civil servants know nothing about whether land is worked properly or not beyond what they may have got at a university or from their reading. There should be some appeal tribunal set up so that local evidence as to the manner in which an allottee has worked his land and as to his circumstances could be completely gone into.

I want to ask the Minister this question: When he has got all these powers and he comes to exercise them, where will he put all the unfortunate people whom he will evict? What provision does he propose to make for them? Are they to join the tramps and tinkers we have at present? Are they to be compelled to go to Dun Laoghaire or Rosslare and await sailing tickets to emigrate to England or other countries? Where will he put them if the doors of the various poorhouses are not opened to them? I can see no provision for these people who are to be penalised, and, before accepting a Bill of this nature, I, as one Deputy, want to be satisfied as to the conditions which are likely to follow from it.

I may add that when I learned that we were to have a Land Bill, I expected that much greater powers would be sought for, that the Government would seek powers of a helpful and not of a destructive nature. The powers being sought here are powers which are likely to damage the citizen, but no powers are sought for of a kind suitable to deal with individuals in my constituency of the type of Mr. Davy Frame, who is already putting people on the roadside, grabbing any big farm he can get, and turning over oceans of money at the expense of the poor small farmers, Old I.R.A. men, and ex-Army men, who are prepared to work the land if the Government will come to their assistance and give them portions of land.

I move the adjournment of the debate.

Debate adjourned.

Dáil Éireann debate - Thursday, 31 Jan 1946

Land Bill—Second Stage.

Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 31 Jan 1946