In reply to a question that I put to the Minister for Lands to-day, the Minister gave me the following reply:—
"I would refer the Deputy to the very full reply given to his questions last March about the general position at Kiltarshaun. A rearrangement of land was proposed by the Land Commission for Mrs. Conway and other tenants there. The scheme broke down owing to the refusal of a few tenants to agree, but while the negotiations were proceeding, some cases of unauthorised entry into possession took place. The necessary rental adjustments are being made, and any overpayment received from Mrs. Conway will be duly refunded."
The reason I am raising this matter, which, I must admit, is a purely local one, is because the Minister did not seem to grasp the peculiar happenings in this particular case and did not seem to appreciate the injustice meted out to Mrs. Conway. He said: "The necessary rental adjustments are being made, and any overpayment received from Mrs. Conway will be duly refunded."
On the 13th March last I asked the Minister:
"If he is aware of the very congested conditions of the townland of Kiltarshaun, Moore estate, County Mayo; that 20 families are living there on holdings the poor law valuations of which range from £3 7s. 6d. to £1 10s. 0d.; and if he will take immediate steps to rearrange and finally settle this village by migrating five tenants who are willing to leave and by providing new houses and out-offices, repairing roads and field fences, and carrying out drainage works for the remaining 15 tenants."
What happened there was the Land Commission did make an attempt to rearrange this village. The officials in Castlebar visited this particular townland with a view to finally settling the village. The purpose of this question is to bring to the notice of the Minister one grievance that arose out of that. I understand from the local people that an official of the Minister visited the village with a certain rearrangement proposal. That proposal was accepted by nearly all concerned. That meant that the people there had to surrender their holdings, so to speak, for a short period, into the hands of the Land Commission and thereby allow the Land Commission to make the desired rearrangement. At least everyone in the village with the exception of one or two agreed to the rearrangement.
Some time later it appears some official called to the village and said that the proposed rearrangement could not go through and that everybody would have to go back into the old holdings. Everybody in the village did so with the exception of one particular person. Mrs. Conway was amongst those who agreed to surrender her lands to the Land Commission for rearrangement, but when the word came for everybody to go back to his own holding, a man named Kelly, who had got the best portion of Mrs. Conway's land under the proposed rearrangement, refused to surrender it again. Mrs. Conway's holding is so small apart from the portion to which Kelly held on, that I suppose it would not have a valuation of more than 10/-. It was on the portion which Kelly retained that Mrs. Conway grew potatoes, wheat, oats, turnips and also meadow. The grazing was just rough mountain grazing.
The Minister, in his answer, said that the necessary rental adjustments are being made and that any overpayment received from Mrs. Conway will be duly refunded. Does that mean that the Land Commission are so powerless and so helpless that they have no authority to take this land from Kelly and give it to Mrs. Conway, the previous owner, seeing that they abandoned the whole arrangement and decided to leave these tenants as they were?
I want to know why this particular injustice was perpetrated on Mrs. Norah Conway? I intend to ask the Minister to dispossess Kelly pending final arrangements for dealing with the rundale problem there. I intend also to saddle the Minister with the responsibility for full compensation to Mrs. Conway for the loss of a year's crops. It is absolutely incumbent that the Minister should accept that responsibility. The area of which she was deprived was about seven acres of the best tillage and meadow land worth, at the lowest estimate, about £10 an acre. That is a very meagre estimate having regard to the quality of the land. I hold that not alone should the Minister refund whatever his Department has charged Mrs. Conway in the way of rent for this land but that they should compensate her to the extent of at least £60 or £70 for the loss of her crops for the year.
