Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 23 Nov 1949

Vol. 118 No. 9

Land Bill, 1949—Second Stage (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:—

That the Bill be now read a Second Time.

Mr. Sweetman

When the House adjourned last Thursday, I had made a few remarks which candidly I never intended to make but which I was impelled to make by the speech of Deputy Killilea. Deputy Killilea delivered a speech in which there were more inconsistencies, irrelevancies and mistakes in interpretation of the Bill than I thought possible. Since that occasion, I have had an opportunity of reading those speeches by members of the Opposition which I did not hear and I am afraid I did Deputy Killilea an injustice. I thought he was a bird alone in his mistaken interpretation, but I find that every speech delivered from the benches opposite contained the same mistakes, and, I am inclined to think, contained these mistakes quite deliberately.

This Bill deals with four matters. The first is the price of land which is going to be acquired by the Land Commission, and I was interested to see Deputy Moylan, now that he has gone over to the opposite benches, beginning to show a little more sympathy in the matter of the price to be paid to farmers whose land is being acquired than he did when a Bill incorporating precisely the effects of Sections 5 and 7 of this Bill was introduced in the Seanad in 1944 by me and when a similar Bill was introduced in that House in 1946 by Senator Counihan. At that time, when Deputy Moylan had power in the matter of price, he showed himself clearly and unmistakably against it. The effect of these two sections is to make it quite clear that, in future, the man with a better title to his land than the mere tenant, the man who has had the holding vested in him by an earlier Land Act, will get the same price for his land as the tenant whose land was not vested and whose land was being, as it is technically known, resumed, got up to this. It is obviously fair and just, and I congratulate the Minister wholeheartedly on the introduction of that principle into this Bill.

There were objections from time to time in the past to the manner in which the Land Commission—the lay commissioners, the appeal tribunal and the Judicial Commissioner—fixed the price of land. Deputy C. Lehane voiced the opinion that there had not been very many cases of injustice, but I am afraid he cannot know very much about the working of the Land Commission when he voices that opinion. There were many cases of grave injustice due to the fact that the interpretation of this clause in the 1923 Act left those who were fixing the price no option but to fix it in accordance with the provisions of that clause. The Minister has courageously decided to ensure that, in future, where it is necessary to acquire a person's land in the social interests of the community, where it is necessary to acquire land belonging, perhaps, to people not in good circumstances, the community will pay the true market value of the property.

The second matter with which the Bill deals is the reorganisation of the Land Commission. The Minister is entirely right in saying that some reorganisation in the Land Commission is necessary, if only to avoid things happening which I know happened in the past and if only to make certain that we will not in future have cases like those brought up in this House and in the other House when the 1946 Land Act was going through. We had then examples of cases which were picked out deliberately for the purpose of giving benefit to the individuals concerned and picked out in such a way that these individuals, by reason of the land being vested in them before the other holdings were vested in the other allottees on particular estates, were enabled to cash in, to sell these holdings at a time of high prices. There were two appallingly glaring cases brought to the notice of the Minister at that time in County Kildare. They were cases of people who were allotted land and who everybody agreed should never have been allotted holdings. Having been allotted these holdings, within a space of two or three years their holdings were vested before any other holdings were vested in other allottees and they were then allowed to sell and to get enormous prices at the expense of the community and to put the money into their own pockets.

That occurred in the handling of these matters by the Land Commission and there were other instances of exactly the same type. The Minister, I am sure, is aware that these things happened and there are Deputies on all sides of the House who know that they happened. There are Deputies who know the exact circumstances of the two cases to which I refer and how those cases were dealt with. I hope that under this reorganisation we will make quite certain that these things will not happen again and that the matter will be dealt with on a proper basis, that is, that individuals will not be selected and given a better chance than the remainder of the allottees on a particular estate.

The Bill further deals, in relation to this reorganisation of the Land Commission, in Section 10, with a number of excepted matters. It seems to me that every Deputy on the other side has read that section as meaning that the excepted matters specified in paragraphs (a) to (n) in sub-section (1) are things the Minister may do for the future.

Mr. Little

No.

Mr. Sweetman

Deputy Little, I am glad to see, is apparently one of the exceptions. Deputy Killilea and two other Deputies who preceded him were quite clear that they thought that the powers mentioned in these paragraphs were powers which were given to the Minister. Quite the reverse is the case, as a matter of fact. They are powers that are taken away from the Minister, powers that the Minister cannot operate and powers in respect of which the lay commissioners, and the lay commissioners alone, will be the judges.

I entirely agree with the Minister that it would be most irregular, most improper and most unwise for him to interfere with regard to the matters therein set out as being excepted matters. He is perfectly right and he should be congratulated on restating the position as it is restated in these exceptions and that he will have no more power than any other Deputy with regard to the allottees to be selected, the persons from whom land is to be acquired, the price to be paid for the land when acquired or the price to be paid by the allottee when being put on the land. Having read carefully the speech of Deputy Moylan in that regard, I venture to suggest that the speeches on the other side that followed his were made in a deliberate attempt to misrepresent the views of the Minister and the intention of the Bill, because it could not be any more crystal clear than it is in the section.

Mr. Little

What about the rearrangement schemes?

Mr. Sweetman

So far as the rearrangement schemes are concerned, if Deputy Little will refer to the last paragraph of sub-section (1), he will see that a rearrangement scheme is specifically restricted to lands held in rundale or intermixed plots.

Minister for Lands (Mr. Blowick)

Quite right.

Mr. Sweetman

That was not the case made by the Deputies opposite. Deputy Moylan, as leader of the opposition against the Bill, made it quite clear that he did not accept the Minister's view that it dealt only with rundale holdings. Whether Deputy Moylan accepts the Minister's view or not, the law is going to be as it is expressed in that paragraph and the Minister cannot interfere. Anyone cannot interfere, because the exception is quite deliberately defined in a restrictive way so that no Minister, no matter who is there, can possibly deal with allottees, except for the rearrangement of lands held in rundale or intermixed plots. The definition could not be more clear and if anybody had read the Bill—perhaps it was, as I told Deputy Killilea the other night, that he was engaged in another place and had not an opportunity of reading the Bill——

Mr. Killilea

I do not think you read it very clearly either.

Mr. Blowick

Deputy Killilea's interpretation of it was not very brilliant.

Mr. Killilea

Deputy Killilea was not allowed to interpret it, he had so many interruptions from the other side.

Mr. Blowick

The Deputy was going to read the Bill after he stood up to make his speech.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I suggest that we should hear Deputy Sweetman now.

Mr. Sweetman

Deputy Sweetman read this Bill when it was circulated and as a result he appreciated the points of it before it was necessary for the Deputy to go to the northern part of the country. Deputy Killilea had not read it before he went there and he did not feel like reading it when he came back having regard to what occurred there. It was naturally disheartening to anybody who felt like the Deputy, and therefore he did not read it when he came back. To get back to the terms of the Bill itself, may I say that this Bill will ensure that there will be a much fairer approach to the whole question of land division, particularly in Leinster? The effect of the Bill will be that the work of the Land Commission will be speeded up and put through in a more businesslike way. In addition to that, we are going to clear up certain doubts that existed in regard to earlier enactments of the land law.

As I am referring to earlier enactments, may I say a word about the very welcome conversion of DeputyMoylan? The Deputy in his speech referred to the necessity for the codification of the land laws. I am entirely in agreement with the Deputy, but if the Deputy would refer to a speech which he made in the Seanad in 1944, he will see that he denied categorically at that time that there was any necessity to codify the land laws and when an opportunity was given to enact a codification measure without very much difficulty, he was not prepared as a member of the then Government to avail of it. Unfortunately, the present Minister has not the same chance because it is doubtful if the person who was then available to undertake the drafting of the codification measure is now available. If Deputy Moylan then held the views, which I am glad to see he holds to-day, we could have a codification measure put through and it would be now on the Statute Book just as the codification of our fishery laws was carried through.

This is a good Bill and the Minister deserves to be congratulated upon it. I have every hope that it will mean that the work of the Land Commission will be carried out efficiently and in such a way that it will not be so much of an irritant to certain people in the country as previous Acts. I hope that it will enable the Minister to deal with the very great social problem that lies before him and that must inevitably lie before the Land Commission on any question of resettlement, particularly the enlargement of uneconomic holdings, so as to ensure that those who are placed on the land will be in a position to get a living from it.

Mr. Derrig

I think most Deputies who are interested in the question of the relief of congestion will be glad to assure the Minister of their support in taking such further steps as he may consider necessary to try to relieve that problem. I do not think that we can seriously believe that the problem can be entirely solved. If there are people in the country who believe that this or any other Bill can entirely eliminate the problem of congestion in our time, or in our children's time, I think they are making a very great mistake. I remember that when we came into the House more than 20 years ago, it was stated by the then Parliamentary Secretary, the late Deputy Roddy—and I am sure that he was not the first even during the term of office of the Cosgrave Administration to have reached that conclusion—that there was obviously quite an insufficient amount. of land available or likely to be available to provide additions, allotments or new holdings for more than a fraction of the congests. I think the Minister stated fairly recently that there are some 40,000 congests. At one stage he mentioned a figure of 500,000 acres. That is a figure with which those of us who were responsible at some time or other for the administration of the Department of Lands will be familiar. The Minister seems to have doubts whether 500,000 acres will, in fact, be available, although he says that, in his belief, if the problem were to be dealt with, at least that amount would be necessary. On another occasion he referred to 150,000 acres. We have no information from the Minister as to how it is suggested that even 150,000 acres are likely to accrue to the pool, that would not otherwise have accrued, merely because of this new amending legislation. It is noticeable that in some of the speeches we have heard from the Government Benches, stress was laid on the achievement of compelling the Land Commission to pay the market price for land instead of making an effort to show how, if these provisions are exercised, the elimination or the relief of congestion will be speeded up.

When Deputy Sweetman tells us that there have been many grave injustices in connection with the price paid for land, does he want us to base the land policy of the State on these cases? We all have sympathy for these cases of widows and others whose land has been taken and who found themselves in the position, because of the redemption value of the holding, that insufficient was allowed to the vendor. But, as Deputy Little has pointed out, such hard cases do not make good law. They certainly ought to be dealt with in an appropriate way but, in mentioning them, it is forgotten that the State had advanced the money for the purchase of these holdings and, if the vendor is not to refund to the State the unredeemed portion of the advance, then of course the taxpayer will have to pay it.

Not alone are we going to pay the market value of land under this Bill but, as Deputy Moylan pointed out, we are going to add on, in certain cases, for disturbance and incidental loss. There is no definition as to what "market value" in fact is going to be or how the compensation for disturbance or incidental damage or loss is to be assessed. I think, therefore, that we are taking a very big step in a certain direction, the consequences of which we are not in a position to foresee and, like all such steps, it is going to be very difficult to retrace. Once the State has admitted this new principle of paying the market price for land I cannot see how we can ever go back. It is more likely, with the items of compensation for disturbance and incidental loss and the allowances for the unredeemed portion of the purchase money which are now going to be made, that we are going to go forward.

In what circumstances are we going to implement this new basis of compensation for the acquisition of land at a time when land values have increased enormously? The usual market price of land in the pre-war years was about £10 per acre. What is the present price? Is it double or is it treble? What about the improvements, which were very substantial? Will not these improvements cost a great deal more under present circumstances? I should like to know what has been the increased expenditure per acre for improvements to land in the hands of the Land Commission in the past year, say, as compared with 1938? It is assumed that the allottee is not going to be asked to bear any share of this additional price. If the allottee were to have charged to him the addition represented by the increased price now going to be paid for land, of course his annuity would be out of proportion to that paid by his neighbours. We have not had any indication as to whether these new allottees are to be assured that, in fact, they will not have to pay annuities higher than their neighbours.

Under the 1923 Act, the principle laid down was that the Land Commission should have regard to the fair value of land to the Land Commission and to the owner, and an appeal was provided for on the question of price to the Judicial Commission or, subsequently, to the appeal tribunal. I cannot see how it is suggested that that body has not regard to all the interests concerned and all the circumstances of the particular case. So far back as 1894, when the Congested Districts Board was not very long in operation, in the fourth report of that body, a resolution appeared, to which were appended the names of Mr. Gerald Balfour, Mr. Arthur James Balfour and Cardinal Patrick O'Donnell, demanding that the Congested Districts Board should be given compulsory rights of acquisition and that these lands which they were told by their inspectors were available should be taken over at their just value. I take it that "at their just value" meant having regard to their value to the community in general, their value having regard to State policy, their value having regard to the annuity the incoming tenants were expected to pay, as well as, of course, giving fair play and a fair price to the vendor for the land which was being taken from him.

We are now going out on this policy at a time when, owing to circumstances in the world, land is fetching an enormous price. It is not merely that food is scarce, that people are looking for investment in real property and in assets which are not likely to depreciate or to be devalued, that there is a great deal of competition, but that, apart from these, there are special and extraordinary circumstances, and the Land Commission is going to go out and enter into competition with all other potential purchasers. In these circumstances, surely Deputy Moylan is correct when he says that the general effect of that policy must be to increase the price of land. I should have thought that if it were necessary to acquire land and the Minister had to get further powers for land acquisition, he might have considered amending the existing basis of compensation without espousing solely and entirely the principle that the Land Commission must, beyond yea or nay, give the market value and, in addition, forgive the unredeemed portion of the purchase money to the vendor.

The Minister himself, in his opening statement, has, I think, answered Deputy Sweetman when he says: "Indeed, a very small number of cases of serious dissatisfaction with prices fixed by the Land Commission has arisen during the entire period since 1923." Then he goes on to say that, because of the difference between the market value in the case of tenants and the price allowed in other cases, he has considered it necessary to introduce this amending Bill. As the Minister is interested in the problem of congestion and must see all aspects of this question in a way that, perhaps, we may pardon Deputy Sweetman for not seeing, we might be entitled to accept the Minister's view rather than the Deputy's view—that there has been only a very small number of cases in which serious dissatisfaction has been expressed. There is only a limited amount of land available that is suitable, and in order to get that land it seems to me that the Land Commission are going to be placed in the position of having to go into the open market. Consequently, they are going to have to pay very much more than its intrinsic value for that land.

We had the experience, after the first great war, of land being purchased in the open market by committees of applicants for land. It took a great deal of time to clear up these cases, even with the intervention of the Land Bank and the assistance of the Minister for Finance which was not always willingly forthcoming. At any rate, it took considerable time before these cases could be cleared up, for the reason that a decline occurred in the value of land. These lands had been purchased during the peak period, and then a sharp decline, a depression, set in immediately afterwards, and so there was presented an almost insoluble problem. It may be that there will be no such decline in land values, or no decline in the present comparative prosperity in the agricultural industry, for a period of years. In this matter we have to take a very long view. We have to remember that the price which is going to be paid in the initial stages, when this Bill comes into operation, is going to determine the price for a very long time—in fact, perhaps, for the whole future operations of the Irish Land Commission.

I do not think that the Minister is wise in taking over responsibility for rearrangement. I cannot understand why, if the lay commissioners are to be entrusted with the other functions set out in paragraph (d), they could not also be entrusted with the particular function of the rearrangement of holdings. We would all like to have Deputy Moylan's query answered, as to whether, in this paragraph, the expression "rearrangement" may include the acquisition of holdings for migrants outside the actual area, or whether rearrangement means the actual readjustment and consolidation of rundale holdings in a particular area without any reference to the acquisition of land outside for migrants. If land is being acquired outside, and if it is part of this rearrangement, then, of course, the Minister is giving himself powers which were not thought of previously.

Mr. Blowick

Where is that in the Bill?

Mr. Derrig

I am asking for information about this matter, for the information of the House generally, as to what exactly rearrangement connotes. I should like to know whether it is confined to the narrower aspect of actual rearrangement of a townland, we will say, in the Swinford area, or whether it means taking people out of that area and putting them in an adjoining parish or in an adjoining county.

Mr. Blowick

It does not mean any such thing.

Mr. Derrig

But whether it means a limited function, or whether it means the inclusion of migration to another holding—I gather from the Minister that is not the case—the fact, at any rate, is that the determinations "(other than any determination arising in or being part of a rearrangement scheme)" are being taken out of the hands of the lay commissioners. If the Minister feels that, in taking this power to himself, or in asking that such power should be entrusted by him to the administrative officers of his Department, he is going to get better results, then I suggest that he ought to give us some proof that that will be the case. He has, I think, rather given the impression that the commissioners were in some way to blame for the fact that rearrangement had not made more progress.

Mr. Blowick

I conveyed no such impression.

Mr. Derrig

Well, I think some persons seem to have got that impression. I think the position is simply this, that when the Land Commission took over the functions of the Congested Districts Board they had, of course, a staff who were fully acquainted with this rearrangement problem. But, in the course of time, that staff were pensioned off and the new officers were not trained on this particular work of rundale. It was considered, and perhaps there was some justification for it, that the general work of acquisition was more important. The inspection of land, and the determination as to whether it should be acquired for the relief of congestion in other places, was considered to be more important—if you were concentrating on acquisition and to that extent neglecting the rearrangement side.

I think the Minister will agree that if one is to deal satisfactorily with congestion by way of migration, and particularly migration outside the congested areas, it is obvious that a large staff will have to devote their attention to the question of inspecting lands, reporting upon them and attending to all the necessary work before schemes for division are prepared.

I should like if the Minister would give the House some information as to what the position is going to be under Section 32 of the 1933 Land Act which deals with compulsory acquisition where land is not being utilised satisfactorily for the production of food or is not giving proper employment. The Minister has admitted that, owing to the operations of compulsory tillage, it is extremely difficult to take over land, in spite of the great need there is to secure a big pool for the relief of congestion, if it has to be shown, before doing so, that the land is not being worked satisfactorily or that proper employment is not being given upon it.

Mr. Blowick

When did the Minister say that?

Mr. Derrig

I think the Minister mentioned somewhere the effect of compulsory tillage having been dropped. I do not want to misquote him in any way, but I think it is quite obvious that there has been a change. That may work out to the Minister's advantage in other ways, but so long as there is the present drive for increased food production, the drive towards mechanisation, the high prices for live stock, apart from the other considerations which I have mentioned which lead to the high price that land is fetching at the present time, it is going to make the problem of acquiring land, even for the urgent needs of congests, very difficult.

With regard to the commissioners, the Minister has suggested that the commissioners on the appeal tribunal had really not enough work to do during the emergency so far as the hearing of appeals was concerned. I think that is so, but with a resumption of its normal activities and the restoration of its full staff of inspectors to the Land Commission establishment, that position should not obtain in the future.

I think it would be an argument in favour of the retention of the present tribunal of three instead of the single Judicial Commissioner when the Minister is embarking upon a new policy and is guaranteeing to pay the market value for land to be acquired in the future. Surely, when a new policy like that is in operation, in the very difficult circumstances of the present time, it would be to the advantage of the Minister and the Land Commission to have a tribunal of experienced men who, over a long period of time, have acquainted themselves thoroughly with all the difficulties that arise in the acquisition of land? Is it not very likely that serious anomalies will arise, that serious blunders may result, if this policy is undertaken on a large scale? Again, unless it is undertaken on a large scale, I cannot see how it will affect the solution of congestion to any appreciable extent.

The advantage we saw in the appeal tribunal was that you had, in addition to the Judicial Commissioner who, by his training and position, was specially qualified to deal with the problem from the legal point of view, others who would have in mind the general policy of land resettlement and the need for carrying out that policy as expeditiously and as economically as possible. It had the advantage also that the appeal from the lay commissioner lay, as Deputy Moylan pointed out, to a tribunal of three members instead of to a single individual. In the past there were very serious complaints that the price fixed by the Judicial Commissioner was hampering land acquisition and it was with a sincere desire to enable that to be done without doing any injustice to those from whom land was being taken that the authorities concerned acted. Every effort was made in that direction and it was in order to try to have land acquired more efficiently and economically that the tribunal was set up.

I think it would mean a serious hampering of the policy of the land resettlement if technicalites or legal questions which, up to the present, have been a great obstacle indeed in the pursuance of Land Commission work, were allowed to remain. Every possible advantage that could be taken of points in the land code to hold up the operations of the Land Commission has been utilised. In view of the fact that this judicial position, this special position of independence which the Land Commission has obtained, is now generally recognised, I think we ought to strengthen that body as much as possible because of its experience and actual knowledge of the problem and the necessity for avoiding difficulties and unnecessary costs.

The Constitution lays down that in the utilisation of our national resources we must have regard to the welfare of the people as a whole. It is for the Oireachtas to determine from time to time how that general result is to be achieved, how the distribution of these assets can best be secured so as to serve the common good. In any event, in the Constitution we have definitely laid it down as a directive of social policy that we shall settle upon the land as many families as practicable, and that we shall settle them in economic security. As regards the size of holdings, it has always been recognised that, in the West of Ireland, if all the holdings could be brought within the range of £10 valuation, the vast majority of them being very much below that, a considerable result would have been achieved. Since there is not sufficient land to go around to enable more than a fraction of the congests to be provided with holdings that experts might consider economic, the question is whether we are to sacrifice the great majority in order that we should give the minority what are called fully economic holdings.

I wonder what is going to be an economic holding in the future? Statistics seem to indicate that the small holdings are gradually disappearing and there is an increase in the number of medium size holdings—30 acres to 50 acres or 50 acres to 100 acres. As regards holdings in the over 100 or 150 acres category, we have to rely on the operations of the Land Commission to see that the basic principles laid down in the Constitution are observed—that essential commodities and the essential resources of the country should not be concentrated among a small number of people. It could be argued that, in the future, if mechanisation is to go ahead the unit of land which, having regard to the labour expended upon it and the capital required, will produce the largest possible surplus, may be, of course, very much higher than even the figure of 35 acres that has been mentioned so far, which many people would consider to be merely the limit of a small holding and not the normal farm for agricultural operations carried on according to the most modern technique.

The point I particularly wish to stress is that it has been definitely demonstrated that there are numbers of large holdings in certain of the most fertile areas in the country which, particularly before the war years, were not giving full value to the community. It has to be remembered that the basis of all social and economic policy in regard to both land and other national resources is their proper utilisation for the ultimate well-being of the community. We have to ask ourselves, then, in the words of the Minister for Agriculture whether we can afford at the present time to carry lands that are not giving the best value they could to the community in terms of food production and whether the position is to obtain in the future that those who, in the words of an English expert, are merely graziers or cow-keepers, are persons who are operating their lands according to proper methods of husbandry and are giving the maximum return in food production plus a proper ratio of employment. It has been well said that the plough, whether it be the old-fashioned horse plough or the modern tractor, is the true symbol of the farm. It is only by the operation of the plough that food can be produced in increasing quantities and at prices that the consumers will be able to pay.

In certain counties, as I have said, we have these large tracts of land which are not contributing their full share to the general national wealth. It is a fundamental principle that land is of prime importance because it is the greatest asset a country has. Our land is of prime importance, therefore, not alone for our prosperity but for our actual subsistence or existence, particularly in times of crises. For that reason, our land must be utilised to the fullest possible extent in accordance with modern husbandry. Despite all that has been said as to the tremendous powers wielded by the Land Commission, these lands were scarcely touched in the past because of legal obstacles and the various devices that were resorted to to prevent their acquisition. Whatever efforts might have been made to subserve the regulations during the emergency, I am convinced that these lands did not contribute their due quota to the national pool.

In the non-congested areas we have the problem of landless young men who would be glad to remain on the land. I think it would be in the national interest that we should keep them on the land. From the point of view of the economic well-being of the country, the policy of planting the maximum number of families on the land should be carried out. Those young men have in the past taken conacre at very high prices. If, at times, they lend themselves to agitation, we can scarcely blame them for that, when we see the public Press daily filled with advertisements of lands for sale. Every Deputy is overwhelmed with correspondence complaining that land is being sold in a particular area and asking why the Land Commission is not taking it over. I think the Minister is letting himself in for a spot of bother in that connection under this particular measure. Nevertheless, it would be to the greatest possible advantage of the country as a whole if these young men were given their proper place in the land resettlement programme.

It was suggested to me when I was in the Land Commission that there should be some kind of test where these landless men are concerned. The difficulty is to know what kind of test to apply. The test the Land Commission inspectors are expected to apply is that the applicants for land have the capital and equipment to enable them to work the land. Although there may be some stock, equipment or capital available, that is not always sufficient except in times like the present when there is very little excuse for a man not making good. In normal times it is recognised that for the first two or three years the position is not an easy one. Income is not sufficient to pay for outgoings and the capital expenditure in the initial stages may be fairly substantial. It was the object of the Land Commission at all times to help unvested tenants by way of improvement schemes. In view of the fact that so many of our farm-houses and buildings are in such a backward condition at the present time, I think that if the Minister considers it beyond the scope of the Land Commission to undertake that work he ought to use his good offices to ensure that some other authority will undertake it.

Mr. McQuillan

We are all agreed that congestion must be ended, but I am afraid that a good many speakers here merely pay lip service to that problem. It is generally agreed, also, that the policy of the Land Commission should be to have as many economic holdings as possible. At no time have I expressed any great love for the operations of the Land Commission, and I do not propose to throw any bouquets to-night at that Department. I congratulate the Minister on his successful efforts to awaken the Land Commission from its Rip Van Winkle sleep. He has opened their eyes at any rate. It is an astounding fact that although the main function of the Land Commission is the relief of congestion, yet it cannot be denied that under an alien Government more work was done to relieve congestion than has been done since our native Government took office. I do not think that can be denied. I think it can be established that more money was spent on the relief of congestion during the British régime than was spent by our own native Governments. That is a terrible position to have and it looks very bad for the Land Commission from my point of view. It is evident that the Land Commission have a reactionary outlook —that, as far as the commissioners are concerned, they are more concerned with the welfare of the old ascendancy class in this country than with the relief of congestion or the holding out of any hope of prosperity to the unfortunate smallholders west of the River Shannon.

I do not like to make attacks on the Land Commission without producing evidence. I propose to give that evidence without going outside my own constituency. Recently I asked the Minister how much land, approximately, he had available in Roscommon for distribution and how long that land was in Land Commission hands. He informed me that there were approximately 12,000 acres of land in Land Commission hands and that some of this land had been in Land Commission hands for 20 years. Remember, that is in a constituency where congestion still exists. I will give the Minister one example. Perhaps it is not right to bring it into this debate, but I am doing so to force home my point. In my constituency, where the Land Commission have land on hands for 20 years, there is one village which comprises 17 families—the Minister can accept my word on this—and each family has an average of three acres of arable land. One individual has a holding of 26 acres, but it is in 16 different lots. This village is on the bank of the River Suck. There is a bog on the other side of it. The road going into it has sometimes two feet or three feet of water during the winter time. Funerals have to come out through the bog, yet the Land Commission have land on hands in that county for 20 years and then say that they are trying to relieve congestion.

Apart from that particular state of affairs, I understand that there is a chief inspector and at least four other senior inspectors working in that area. They are scattered in various parts of the country and they have plenty of work to do. I also happen to know that in five counties in Leinster, across the Shannon, and in one Ulster county, there is only one chief inspector and two inspectors functioning in those six counties. It takes a chief inspector and four, at least, senior inspectors in the County Roscommon to handle one county, whereas it takes only one chief inspector—I am informed of this—and one or two inspectors to handle the counties where the land is available for distribution. Surely that proves that the Land Commission were never serious about relieving congestion in the West and that they never had any intention, if they got away with it, of taking the land from those big ranchers in the Midlands.

I welcome sections of the present Bill. I have already said, in reference to the village that I mentioned, that there is one holding there in 16 different lots. Under Section 10 of this Bill that type of problem can be solved. The rearrangement of a rundale holding can be hurried up and decisions will be left in the hands of the chief inspector. Under the 1933 Act—I think under Section 6 of that Act—it was found that the law as it stood was cumbersome in this respect and that it was very difficult and very slow work to get rearrangement schemes through. My criticism is that it took from the Land Act of 1933 until 1949 to remedy that position. I congratulate the Minister on being the first to do it.

I should explain that I am only trying to prove, in part of these sections, that the Land Commission during the term of office of the previous Government did not get down to their jobs seriously. I shall quote now from Volume 118 of the Official Report, column 900. The Minister, in his opening statement said:—

"Experience has also shown up another defect in the provisions of the Land Act, 1933, governing the relationship between the Minister and lay commissioners."

A little further on in the same speech he said:—

"While the Act obviously was intended to give the Minister such responsibility and control as he wished to have and to exercise in all non-excepted matters, it omitted to give him the power of direct action. This strange position appears to have resulted through inadvertence."

It took from 1933 until 1949 to right a wrong that should have been righted at the following year at the latest. It proves that the previous Government were never serious in regard to the resettlement of the land.

Minister for Lands (Mr. Blowick)

Might I point out to the Deputy that the Land Commission is the servant of the Government and that perhaps——

Mr. McQuillan

Perhaps I should not blame the Land Commission. Perhaps I should blame the Government. At any rate I want to lay the blame on somebody here and I should like to know who is responsible. To my mind Section 5 is the principal section of this Bill. That section deals with the payment of market value for acquired land. I feel very hesitant about supporting this section, especially when I see and hear the people who are praising it because they are the very people who have no interest whatever, to my mind at any rate, in the relief of congestion. Some of them have spoken—from both sides of the House—and their big cry was to the effect that certain injustices were done in the past; that certain people suffered as a result of the commission's taking over of their land and that it was a shocking state of affairs to say that the Land Commission could walk in and take over so and so's land in Meath or in Westmeath without giving the full market value for it. I do not subscribe to that view and I think the Minister, to a great extent, agrees with me, because he is reported in Volume 118, column 897, as having said:—

"This existing statutory basis for fixing the price of land acquired from owners has been operated by the Land Commission with the fullest possible sympathy towards owners. Indeed, only a very small number of cases of serious dissatisfaction with prices fixed by the Land Commission has arisen during the entire period since 1923."

Only a small number of cases has arisen since 1923 and I think it is necessary to interpret Section 5 as being the most important section in the Bill. I know perfectly well that it is not the smallholders in Mayo or anywhere else who will benefit by this section. The position as it stood, and as I hope it still stands, is that regard shall be had to the fair value of the land to the owner and to the Land Commission respectively. Instead of that the Minister proposes to pay market value to the owner and, as well as that, he proposes in Section 7 to remove another cause of dissatisfaction which is that, up to the present, people from whom land is taken are obliged to redeem any purchase annuities on the acquired land. There are quite a lot of lands that must be taken over for the relief of congestion and, on top of that, you read every day in the week of foreigners coming in and buying land. The Minister may say that that incoming rush of foreigners has not reached serious proportions yet and I hope we will hear him say something about that, but it would be terrible to have Section 5 in this Bill for the purpose of paying market value to foreigners and others in this country who are not entitled to it. I would like the Minister to be very careful about this section. The Land Commission should be alert and ready to step in to purchase for the relief of congestion whatever big holdings come on the market. I think it is a scandalous state of affairs for years back that some men are allowed to keep 500 or 600 acres and get away on the plea that they are running a stud farm while everybody in the area knew perfectly well that that was not the case, but through certain technicalities in the land law, those men beat the commission. I think that is deplorable and I know that the Minister himself will not stand for that type of work being allowed to continue.

The relief of congestion should be the principal thing sought after in this Bill and to my mind the Bill will help towards that, but it is not the solution to congestion, or anything like it. Deputy Derrig and other Deputies said that the pool of land available for the relief of congestion was not sufficient. I do not say that it is, and I do not think any other Deputy in the House will maintain that there is enough land in the country to finish congestion, in other words, to give an economic holding to everybody who has an uneconomic holding at present. In the West all suitable agricultural land must be made into economic holdings and the land which is not suitable for agriculture must be used for afforestation, so any plan for the relief of congestion in the West must go hand-in-hand with the reafforestation scheme. I do not propose to enlarge here upon afforestation, but it is definitely bound up with the solution for congestion and unemployment in the West of Ireland. People who cannot be fixed up in the West with economic holdings must be served elsewhere to a great extent, and I do not think that you could get a finer type of tenant than a tenant from the West of Ireland. Any man who has existed and reared a family on three or four arable acres of land is an asset to the nation, and there is no question that if he is given a good holding he will increase the wealth of the country considerably.

Section 23 gives power to the Land Commission to bid in the open market for what I would describe as economic holdings of 40 or 50 acres. I believe that a good number of these holdings go on the market every year, and if 100 were acquired each year there is no doubt that it would help to relieve considerably the problem of congestion. The people who come into this House and whine and whinge that there is going to be trouble are not really thinking of the trouble that exists at the moment in the congested areas. You are not replacing one evil by another, because the greatest evil in this country at present is the congested holding. I am glad that a Minister from the West of Ireland has the opportunity—and he will be helped from these benches—to put into operation a law to help to relieve the problem of congestion.

Mr. Commons

Whenever a Land Bill is introduced into this House it receives every encouragement from every Party in the Dáil and on very few occasions are there amendments or opposition to delay or discourage in any way the efforts to carry on land legislation. But we have reached the stage now when any sane thinking Deputy must begin to wonder whether this voluminous land legislation will continue for all time and whether we will be faced with masses of land laws which cannot be interpreted satisfactorily by layman or lawyer. Will we here watch these masses of legislation piling up while, at the same time, the problem of congestion remains practicaly as it is? I must say in fairness to this Bill that it is one of the simplest Land Bills introduced for a considerable time. Maybe it will not succeed, but it makes an honest effort to bring some security to the people living along the congested western seaboard and in the scheduled congested areas. Because of that the Minister must have and will have the co-operation of every Deputy who is anxious to bring about that security. When things are not going at a proper speed or going ahead as we would like, the Minister for Lands gets whatever abuse is coming from the Deputies, so when he is introducing legislation which will help to bring this problem to a conclusion he should be given credit, as he is entitled to it.

The main purpose of the Bill is to straighten out one or two things that have delayed the working of the Land Commission somewhat over the years. The first question is the price which is to be paid to people from whom land is acquired. The price heretofore, as we know, in the case of vested holdings has not been a satisfactory one and in the case of unvested holdings the market value. I think it is only right when we have decided to pay a good price to one type of individual from whom land is taken over that we should pay an equally good price to the other type of individual who is the owner of his land or in whom the land is vested.

I want to make it clear that I will never give any encouragement to the paying of an excessive market price. The land from which our forefathers were evicted by Cromwellian plantations in times gone by is justly and truly ours and we of the West should be sent back on to those lands without any overload or burden being placed on the taxpayers or on the finances of this State. For that reason, I have always opposed the paying of market value, but in this case, in order to speed up the relief of congestion and now that we are assured that the burden will not fall directly on to the individuals to whom the land will be allocated, I think we must agree that the payment of market value is a good idea and one which should bring into the land pool much more land for the settlement of the congestion problem.

Section 5 deals with this problem, but I am afraid that the Minister's good intentions and ideas can be and will be abused when it comes to paying the market price. His idea seems to be to purchase suitable holdings for migrants and also to purchase any land offered for sale in congested areas or in areas where the rundale system still exists, and so bring about a final settlement. That is all very well, but we know perfectly well that, when any such holding is put on the market after this legislation has been passed and the word gets around, an individual who puts up a small or medium size holding can easily say that he has a good bidder at once in the Land Commission and that the Land Commission must be made pay through the nose, directly or indirectly. I warn the Minister and his officials that they must be very careful of the type of individual they send to the sale to purchase such land. The valuers already attached to the Land Commission have very little idea of the real value of land. The Minister himself is a farmer and I am a farmer myself, and up to this age of our lives we have had plenty of experience of land values; but I doubt if either of us could give a proper idea of the value of a particular holding. We know that a valuer of the Land Commission can on one occasion value a holding at a certain price and, on appeal to the commissioner, that price may be increased by £300 or £400 in the case of a 25 or 30 acre holding. Therefore, we must realise that either the valuer or the commissioner is definitely wrong. When it comes to the commissioner and he has to ask the valuer for a revaluation, we find the valuer can be a few hundred pounds out in the case of a small holding. Such a man is not competent to go to an auction to bid for the Land Commission or anyone else.

However, this is a system definitely worthy of encouragement. It may prove an absolute and total failure and in a year's time the Minister and those Deputies who have favoured it may be forced to admit that it has been a failure. Nevertheless, it is worth the gamble and trial to see if we can carry it out. On that account, it is a bit early to criticise the system. It would be better to encourage it, while at the same time sounding a note of warning as to the difficulties that may arise when purchasing. There is a point which I would like clarified. In Section 23, the Bill deals with cases where land is offered for sale and the Land Commission goes in as a buyer, be he layman, solicitor or Land Commission official. There are many areas, particularly in congested districts, where the congestion problem has been slowly but surely solving itself. Many families have, over the past 40 or 50 years, been fed up with the slow progress of the Land Commission. Tired of trying to rear families on five, six or ten-acre holdings, they have moved out and gone to England or America. Those holdings have been derelict, non-residential and unworked for many years. In every single congested village west of the Shannon, you will find plenty of those. They have been let in grazing to neighbours. They are of value to the congested smallholder who has the grazing and they bring in a tidy grazing rent to the owner across the water. That individual will not at any time wish to put up for sale something which is a steady source of yearly income to him.

Does the Minister intend to step in and purchase such holdings, irrespective of whether they are put up for sale or not? If he does not go into the congested village and make a clean sweep of all the derelict and non-residential holdings there, he will be going only part of the way in solving the congestion problem. There is no use in rearranging a village where a ten-acre holding might be in ten different divisions, and there is no use in trying to solve problems like that without taking over the derelict holdings. That is not clarified in the Bill. I hope that before the Bill finally goes through the Minister will take to himself or to the Land Commission power to purchase any holding of land, big or small, inside or outside the congested area which has been non-residential for over ten years in order to migrate tenants into it for the relief of congestion or for the rearrangement of rundale areas. If he does not do that the good intentions and good ideas in this Bill will not come to a successful fruition.

Another thing I realise as useful and good in the Bill is the idea of not asking the person from whom the land is to be acquired to redeem the purchase annuity. That reform is long overdue. There is no reason in the world why the individual from whom the land is taken over should be asked to redeem his annuity while at the same time when the new allottees are settled on the land another annuity is put on to them. The man who has been deprived of the land has redeemed the annuity, but a new one is fixed on the incoming tenants. There is a wastage of money somewhere there. After all, it is unfair to both parties concerned. We should have it either one way or the other. Let the Land Commission cease to ask the individual to redeem the annuity and let the incoming people redeem it over the number of years specified.

The unfortunate thing about this country is that there is not enough land for everyone who wishes to get land. If the Government decided they would give ear to all the people applying, they would have a very difficult job. Therefore, the Minister must grade them into special categories, showing the type of people most deserving. That has not been defined in any Land Act up to date. In the Land Acts and in the rules laid down after each Land Act became law, there was no definition as to the individuals who would get first, second or third preference. It has been the common practice to give congested landholders the first preference on any land in the locality, but it has also been known that landless men have been given parcels of holdings and, unfortunately, the last Government had to introduce a Bill in 1946 to deprive some of those people of the land given to them, as they were not capable, fit or willing to make any use of it and it was only going to waste.

A section should be inserted in the Bill setting out those most entitled to land. It is admitted that the man most entitled to land is the congested holder, the man whose valuation is under £10. The Minister should also take into consideration the fact that large families, families in which there are a large number of boys, should have preference over small families.

No matter how much the country is combed and recombed for available land, there will not be sufficient to satisfy the needs of everyone who wants land. It is unfortunate that somebody must be disturbed. A land pool must be created and, in order to do that, land must be taken from the large farmers in order to make it available for redistribution amongst small holders. Naturally, with the present value of land and the present price of live stock, no farmer wants to part with an acre. It is difficult to blame anyone for holding on to his broad acres. But, in view of the fact that there is a social evil, a rural slum, these people must be made suffer and made to part with some of the land that they have held on to in the last number of years so that we may bring about the resettlement that we all desire.

The problem of the slowness of the Land Commission in the past couple of years was the result of too much centralisation of the Land Commission in Dublin. In 1933, the Government introduced a Land Act in which powers were given to six commissioners and it was a gamble as to whether those powers would achieve success or fail. Any Deputy who has followed the progress of land division under those commissioners will have no doubt that they proved to be the greatest failure ever experienced in any Government Department. Those men sitting in Dublin and occasionally going around the country and sitting on land tribunals have no idea whatsoever and do not seem to profess to have any idea or intention of ever settling the land problem. I have made it a practice over the past few years to attend as many land courts as possible. It is most interesting and amusing to a layman or lawyer to watch the decisions that have been given in some of the cases that have been brought on appeal.

While I congratulate the Minister on removing from office two of the commissioners, if I can possibly help it by amendment, the remaining commissioners will go because there are plenty of civil servants who will do the work better, who will do it much faster and who will do it in a fairer way than the commissioners of the present time are doing it. The Government is responsible to the people who elected it. It is the Minister's duty, in whatever Department he rules, to carry out the work of that Department as efficiently as possible. When there are men entirely independent of the Minister who can snap their fingers at anything the Minister tells them to do, democracy has reached a pretty bad stage. Democracy is in a bad way when men with judicial appointments can hold up the work of any Government body in the manner in which the commissioners have done it. Most of the appeals that come before the Land Court are not against the price fixed but against acquisition or resumption. I have heard many Deputies talking about appeals against the price fixed but, so far, no one has mentioned appeals against acquisition or resumption. These are the most important of all, because the resumption and acquisition of land are the first things that must be considered. The price is the second thing. Once the Land Commission has decided to take over land then the price can be fixed.

If the tribunal is to judge from whom land is to be taken over, the Minister should make sure that the tribunals in future will be very different from the tribunals that have sat in the past 15 to 20 years. We have had the experience of a land court taking over five, ten or 15 acres of land and, in the same village or locality, all the circumstances being the same, deciding that another five, ten or 15 acres will not be taken over, no reason being given and only one side of the case being listened to. The commissioners consult a file. No commissioner can find all the exact information that he wants in a Departmental file. That is particularly the case when there are 30 or 40 cases to be heard. In the land courts the opinion of the local land inspector should be considered. He should be examined as to what his opinion is, as to whether land should be taken over in a particular locality, as to whether a particular farm is suitable for rearrangement. Until that system is adopted, no matter who may judge appeals or anything else, there will not be a satisfactory method and fast progress will not be made.

Unlike many members of the Opposition. I welcome the Minister's proposal to remove from the remaining commissioners the matter referred to at (d) and (e) of Section 10. Paragraph (d) is:—

"the determination (other than the determination arising in or being part of a rearrangement scheme) of the persons to be selected as allottees of any land."

I only wish he had introduced that principle in sub-sections (a) and (b) of Section 10. He would thereby place in the hands of the local inspectors who are civil servants the power to decide what land should be taken. He would, in other words, be giving that power to men on the spot, to men who have spent years in a locality, who have mapped and remapped, arranged and rearranged particular areas of a constituency or parish and who know what land should be taken over. As I say, I intend to move an amendment to take from the commissioners the powers they have and to give them solely and entirely to civil servants who are responsible to the Minister and will do a much better job than any commissioner sitting on the bench could do.

"Proper methods of husbandry" are another very interesting feature of land division and the work of the Land Commission. What are proper methods of husbandry? Those of us who have interested ourselves in land agitation know that, in the case of a man who has a stud farm, none of his farm will be taken over, irrespective of whether his neighbours about him are in poverty or not. In the other case, a man may have 500 or 600 acres and he may put up the plea that he is entitled to hold his land so that he may divide it up amongst his three or four sons. There is no thought for the man on the holding of £5, £6 or £7 valuation who may have five sons who are equally entitled to live as the sons of the rancher or big farmer.

When determining the matter of proper methods of husbandry, the amount of labour given on the land should be taken into consideration and we all know that it takes approximately 25 to 30 statute acres of land to employ an agricultural labourer at £3 10s. 0d. per week. That is supposed to be a fairly genuine figure. The man with 300 acres who employs six or seven agricultural labourers and pays them a decent wage should be one of the very last to be disturbed, particularly when we have such an immensity of work being carried on in the matter of setting and letting of land on the 11 months' grazing system. I was very glad last year when the Minister for Agriculture rather vowed vengeance on that system, because the 11 months' grazier is no good to the country, so far as productivity is concerned. He gives no employment and pays no wages. One man with a dog, we are told, can herd 200 or 300 acres and the grazier will do no tillage and give no work. These are the people who should be got after first, especially in areas where the larger farms are. The rancher who takes what is described as an out-farm for grazing purposes should be exterminated immediately, so far as his taking of land on the 11 months' system is concerned.

With regard to adding to the land pool, derelict, non-residential holdings which have been left in that condition for years, even though they vary in size from 500 acres down, should all be taken over and made available for the Land Commission, so that they may get ahead with the speed at which we would like to see them working.

Another feature of the Bill which I like is the provision that, where farms are to be acquired, instead of giving those employed a holding of land the Minister has decided to give gratuities and payments in cash. I should prefer, I admit, to see each man employed on a farm given a holding when that farm is taken over, but unfortunately we have not got sufficient land and I regard the cash payment as a provision to be admired. In coming to that decision, the Minister, I feel, is doing something useful and beneficial, something which will pay dividends later on, because it will leave a lesser number for the land available and do justice to those who have been deprived of their employment.

Deputies have talked from time to time about the need for codifying the land laws and have pointed out that they would like to see many of the present statutes repealed and one compact measure introduced to cover in a simpler way the many sections and clauses in the various Land Acts. I believe it will be very hard to do this until the problem of congestion has been almost finally settled. I should like to have seen this Bill introduced with six additional pages, each with a schedule of repeals which would make the whole code simpler and more easily operated, but, as I say, while we have congestion, there are many things which we will find it difficult to do and the Government must have a certain amount of legislation to play about with to enable them to deal with land congestion.

Another point on which I would like some information in relation to this system of purchasing land at its market value is whether, when that system comes into operation, the alien or foreigner who has purchased vast tracts of land in this country over the past number of years will benefit as well as the Irishman whose land has been in his possession for 50, 60 or 100 years. It is most unfair to ask the State to pay market value to an alien who came in here five or seven years ago with his pocket full of money, which is not so valuable in any other country but this, and bought up land which should long ago have been given to the Irish people. These people should not get market value, and the Minister should try to evolve some scheme to ensure that no foreigner or alien, irrespective of his nationality, will get the market value for land which he grabbed from the Irish people within the past few years. It is most unfair to put these people on the same footing as Irishmen who have held their land for upwards of 100 years and to give them the same price per acre as will be given to the small congested landholder who was forced to leave this country 15 or 20 years ago because he could not rear his family on the small holding. I do not know what the Minister intends to do in this regard, but I should like to get some idea of his intentions before the Bill becomes law.

Another very complicated matter—I do not know if it will ever be possible to solve it, but I am glad to see the Minister is making an effort to solve it —is the matter of farms the title of which is unsound or bad. The Land Commission is very cautious in taking over land, and I know individuals who have held the Land Commission in the palm of their hands for over 20 years because of unsound title in their land. The Land Commission are slow to move in, and when they decide to acquire, they may decide to acquire from one man only. When the necessary formalities are being completed, they find that he is not the proper owner and eventually a third person intervenes, with the result that the Land Commission is held up.

I suggest that trustees be appointed, so that when the Land Commission decide to take over land, they can go ahead and take over the land, irrespective of who the owner is, and pay the money to this board of trustees, leaying these supposed owners to fight between themselves for the money, and so that the work of the Land Commission will not be held up as it has been held up in past years. That is one difficulty which can be, and which will be, exploited to the full to delay the exercise of the powers of the Land Commission. Unless that is remedied, the Bill cannot achieve what it is intended to achieve.

In the Minister's opening statement we had an announcement that it may be necessary at a future date to introduce further legislation. If that should be necessary, I hope an effort will be made to codify the existing Land Acts and to remove from the Statute Book many of the Acts which are no longer needed. We would then have a simpler and more easily interpreted form of land legislation. I should also like to bring to the Minister's notice the great trouble which sometimes arises under the present system, in establishing a proper title to land. We know that in many cases, particularly in the West where the farms are small and not very valuable, occupiers of land cannot show sound title for generations. I think that the present is a suitable occasion for the Minister to consult his legal advisers with a view to introducing a section which would establish in plain, simple language that a man who had been in undisputed possession of his land for, say, 20 years, and who could furnish affidavits to that effect, should be made immediately the registered owner. That would save an immensity of labour in the Land Registry and in the Minister's office because this country is unfortunate in the fact that farms of land have been handed down over a long period of years without any proper efforts to take out administration or to clear up the title. The registered owner of a holding in many cases may be the great grandfather of the present occupier. If a simple section could be introduced now to deal with this matter, it would provide a most effective way of proving to the Land Commission who is the person with proper title to the land.

On the last occasion the subject of land was being debated in this House the Minister knows that I was by no means complimentary to his administration over the past two years. This Bill is long overdue, but in fairness to the Minister, seeing that we gave him so many kicks when we thought he was not carrying out the work that we should have liked him to do, we now give him the credit which is his due on the introduction of this measure. If this Bill is to be operated as we should like it operated, there are some suggestions to which the Minister will have to give his attention, particularly those with regard to the Land Commissioners. The Minister should disabuse his mind of any idea that his good intentions will have any result while he has a group of gentlemen sitting down there who will really decide what the Land Commission should do and who have no idea of the proper way to tackle this problem. I know that this is a very difficult problem, but if the Minister does not wish to take into his own hands these excepted matters, which are at present left in the hands of the commissioners, judicial and lay, there are in his Department civil servants with a long record of faithful service who are directly responsible to the Government and to the people for the work they do. The Minister will find amongst these civil servants men who can do this work much more quickly, much more efficiently and much more satisfactorily than the present judicial and lay commissioners. I intend to introduce, and if necessary to force a vote on, a section removing these gentlemen from office because to my mind, and to the mind of anybody who knows what has happened in years past, much more work would have been done in regard to the land question were it not for the delaying tactics of these individuals who are carrying on the red tape tactics which they inherited from British legislation. While these gentlemen are retained in office no Deputy can look forward to any lasting settlement of the land question. That is a job I should like to see the Minister tackle—to remove these gentlemen totally and completely.

Éamon Ó Cíosáin

Ba mhaith liom cúpla focal a rá ar an mBille seo. Nuair a bhíonn aon bhaint ag Bille le ceist na talún bionn an-chaint faoi. Sé an talamh an rud is luachmhaire atá againn agus ní haon ionadh go mbeadh a lán cainte faoi.

I should like to say a few words on this Bill. First of all, I should say that, on this side of the House, there is no objection to the proposal to pay market value for land that will be resumed by the Land Commission for the purposes of division amongst congests or uneconomic holders. The only thing that would cause us any misgiving in connection with the proposal to pay the market price is the annuity that would be fixed on land so acquired, when the land was afterwards divided, because, as I understand it, the price paid for the land must have some connection with the annuity to be fixed on a holding afterwards. Does the Minister say that is not the case?

Mr. Blowick

There would not be very much tillage carried out in that case.

Mr. Kissane

Does the Minister hold then that the price paid for land has no connection with the annuity to be fixed?

Mr. Blowick

No.

Mr. Kissane

If that is the case, everything is all right but if the market price is to be paid for the land I should like to ask the Minister where is the money to come from? How will the money that will be advanced for the purchase of the land be recovered?

Mr. Blowick

If the Deputy were allotting land, he would find that he would have to fix an annuity regardless of the price that was paid for the land and to ensure that, taking a good year with a bad year, it would be within the tenant's capacity to meet the annuity. Otherwise you would have a flight from the land if you had a spot of bad years.

Mr. Kissane

Would it depend on the security value of the land?

Mr. Blowick

Yes, to a great extent but security is not the remedy either.

Mr. Kissane

However that is a matter that can be discussed afterwards, perhaps in Committee. Reference has been made to the danger that the Minister will be taking powers under this measure that he should not have at all. I noticed that when some Deputy on this side of the House made reference to the fact that the Minister was taking power under this measure that was not given to the Minister for Lands under the 1933 Act the Minister shook his head as if to say that he was taking no such power. If the Minister is taking no such power, I wonder what is the meaning of paragraph (d) of Section 10. We have here a list of the excepted matters, which were also excepted matters under the Land Act of 1933, but there is a qualification here in brackets. If the Minister does not intend taking power which is not there already, what is the meaning of this bit in brackets here in paragraph (d) of Section 10?

Mr. Blowick

In case there should be any question or doubt about it, I am taking power that the Minister for Lands had not up to this, but should have had. Is that clear?

Mr. Kissane

In my opinion, that is a dangerous power for any Minister to have.

Mr. Blowick

It is, if he is a ruffian.

Mr. Kissane

I believe that the position as it has been is a far safer and sounder one than is envisaged in this Bill, because I for one would not be prepared to give any Minister the power to intervene in the question of the acquisition and division of land or to determine who are to be the allottees to whom the land is to be given.

Mr. Blowick

The Minister is taking no power with regard to acquisition.

Mr. Kissane

He is taking power as regards the rearrangement of holdings.

Mr. Blowick

Yes.

Mr. Kissane

So far as I can make out, a whole lot of things can be brought under the term "rearrangement of holdings".

Mr. Blowick

No.

Mr. Kissane

A very wide interpretation can be given to that.

Mr. Blowick

"Rearrangement" is defined in this Bill.

Mr. Kissane

The Minister has stated that it is designed to grapple with the question of congestion in the West. The Minister comes from the West.

Mr. Blowick

And is proud of it.

Mr. Kissane

The fact that the Minister represents a western constituency makes this provision all the more dangerous.

Mr. Blowick

I am a bad boy then?

Mr. Kissane

I am not suggesting that the Minister is a bad boy or a good boy. I am referring to what might happen under the qualification inserted in brackets to the excepted powers. When we are dealing with the question of land division, we should not entirely confine ourselves to the West. There are problems in other parts of the country also which have to be tackled by the Land Commission under the general directions of the Minister. I should like to refer, for instance, to the question of migration. I wonder does the Minister intend to continue the policy of migrating people from the Gaeltacht to, say, County Meath or County Kildare, as the case may be? That policy was carried out by his predecessor and I think it was a good policy.

The other night I listened to Deputy Ben Maguire who said that the Minister's predecessors did nothing towards the relief of congestion. Does he not know of the Gibbstown Gaeltacht Colony? I hold that the bringing of migrants from the Gaeltacht, no matter what Gaeltacht it was, was a contribution towards the solution of congestion. I am glad to be able to say that the migration policy has worked well. Those migrants who settled down in County Meath seem to be making a good job of their holdings despite adverse and, sometimes, uninformed criticism. I am also glad to know that these migrants are preserving the Irish language amongst themselves. There were many who thought that when people were migrated from the Gaeltacht to an eastern county it would weaken instead of strengthening the revival of the Irish language. So far as I have ascertained, however, it has worked well as regards the revival of the Irish language which is being preserved as the spoken language of the people there.

Captain Giles

We cannot form an Irish class in the colony.

Mr. Kissane

I am talking about the ordinary conversation of the people themselves. My information is that their conversation is entirely in Irish. I would advise the Minister to consider the question of migration; I think it is advisable to continue it. I understand these migrants have been brought from every Gaeltacht to County Meath. There is a Gaeltacht in Kerry, the county I represent, and some people have been brought from there to County Meath. I hope that others will follow. Apropos of that, my information is that during the course of last year only one migrant was brought from the Gaeltacht to County Meath.

Mr. Blowick

What other way could it be?

Mr. Kissane

Why should it not be otherwise?

Mr. Blowick

Why?

Mr. Kissane

Does the Minister believe in this policy?

Mr. Blowick

Is not the Deputy very innocent? Was not the Deputy a party to the closing down of the operations of the Land Commission in County Meath and elsewhere in 1941 as a result of which there was not a perch of land in hands to put migrants on?

Mr. Kissane

During the emergency the activities of the Land Commission had to be held up. But the emergency is long since over.

Mr. Blowick

That is a nice term, "held up".

Mr. Kissane

Indeed, I should have thought something would be done in the line of migrating people from the Gaeltacht during the Minister's term of office.

Mr. Blowick

To bring them up and put them to camp on the roadside?

Mr. Kissane

The only thing that has been done is to move one migrant from the Gaeltacht to County Meath.

Mr. Blowick

Due to Fianna Fáil policy.

Mr. Kissane

Do not try to blame Fianna Fáil for this.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It seems to me that this has to do with administration more than anything else.

Mr. Kissane

The Minister has been in office for nearly two years now and only one migrant has been brought into County Meath from the Gaeltacht during that time.

Mr. Blowick

Thanks to Fianna Fáil.

Mr. Kissane

Nonsense. To get away from the question of migration——

Mr. Blowick

It is not a nice question for Deputies on that side of the House.

Mr. Kissane

I do not know what the Minister is talking about. As I said, there are other problems affecting the country which should be the concern of the Minister and the Land Commission as well as the relief of congestion in the West. For instance, in the county that I represent there is the problem of turbary. There is very little land, I am afraid, to be resumed in my county, but there is any amount of turbary to be acquired and divided. I know, of course, that a certain amount of turbary has been acquired and divided by the Land Commission, not within very recent times, indeed. I would ask the Minister to consider that problem because, in my county, we have people paying rent for land to the Land Commission, and a high rent in some cases, who have got no turbary, while at the same time, within a mile or two of them, there are broad acres of turbary lying idle. I think that is an aspect of the question to which the Minister should turn his attention.

As I have said, there is not very much land in my county to be divided, and if there are congested places there —I know there is a certain amount of congestion in Kerry, as well as in Mayo and Galway—I think the only remedy for that is to try and get holdings for the people in those congested places in some other part of the country. I say that because I am afraid there is no land in County Kerry within a short distance of them which could be acquired and divided amongst them.

As I am referring to the congested places in the County Kerry, I should like to refer to the Blasket Island. The people living on that island expect that something will be done for them. They are a diminishing number, and I think the time has come when, perhaps, some provision should be made for them on the mainland. They expect something like that. The people living on the Great Blasket are situated differently from the people on other islands, because they have no church or school on the island now, and so they have to travel by boat, a distance of three miles, to the mainland to attend Mass on Sunday. Sometimes, of course, the weather is not very good and the tide is not very safe for a journey of that kind. I think the Land Commission have already given some consideration to this question of making provision for the inhabitants of the Blasket Island.

Mr. Blowick

Is not the Kerry County Council doing something for them?

Mr. Kissane

That is a different scheme. What I am advocating is that they be taken from the island and given a small holding on the mainland, if there is land there that can be acquired on their behalf. Of course, I know it is difficult to get the necessary land anywhere near.

Mr. Blowick

Is it not the desire of the islanders not to be put away from the sea?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I think the Deputy might pass from that. He could not expect a section in this Bill to deal with the Blasket islanders.

Mr. Kissane

I think that under this Bill I am entitled to deal with the question of migration.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

But not to deal with the question of migration from particular places.

Mr. Kissane

When I am dealing with the question of migration under this Bill, my thoughts must naturally go to places in my own county where such a policy is very necessary.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I think that once the principle of migration is accepted, anything after that is administration: whether they would be taken, when and how.

Mr. Kissane

Very good. I do not propose to pursue the matter of migration further. Like other Deputies I am entirely opposed to the delegation of authority to the Minister's agents, whoever they may be. They may be civil servants—I suppose they will be— but whether they are civil servants or not, or whoever they may be, I think it is a very dangerous principle for the Minister to propose to delegate what should be the responsibility of the Land Commission and the commissioners. After all, everybody knows who the commissioners are, and if they have to do certain things they will have to take responsibility for them.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

To whom?

Mr. Kissane

I am going to make my own speech.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

I only intended to be of assistance to the Deputy.

Mr. Kissane

If the Deputy thinks he can succeed by interrupting me he will not get any satisfaction.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

I was only helping.

Mr. Kissane

I do not want any help from the Deputy.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

You will get it.

Mr. Kissane

I will. Again, the Minister proposes to do away with the appeal tribunal.

Mr. Blowick

No.

Mr. Kissane

I mean to change the construction of the appeal tribunal.

Mr. Blowick

That is better.

Mr. Kissane

Perhaps that is more acceptable to the Minister.

Mr. Blowick

That is what I am doing.

Mr. Kissane

Well, I think that is a very bad and retrograde step for the Minister to take. I certainly am not in favour of taking away the two lay commissioners from the appeal tribunal. They were put there some years ago and not without very good reason. Of course, I know people might say that the judicial commissioner should be good enough to consider appeals, but remember he is only one man. The cases that will go before the judicial commissioner will, in my opinion, be just as important as the cases that, say, go from the High Court to the Supreme Court, which consists of five judges, because, after all, the taking away of land from a landowner is a very serious matter for him.

Mr. Blowick

Hear, hear!

Mr. Kissane

I think that this idea of making it easier——

Mr. Blowick

There is no appeal on the taking of land. Once the lay commissioners decide to acquire land there is no appeal, but there is an appeal on the question of price.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

I told the Deputy he would want help.

Mr. Kissane

There would also be an appeal on a point of law.

Mr. Blowick

Yes, in the case of acquisition or resumption.

Mr. Kissane

These are very important things for the person who is being compelled to part with his land.

Mr. Blowick

I agree—very important.

Mr. Kissane

If I were the landowner and if I were trying to make use of the land as best I could, in accordance with good methods of husbandry, as the term goes, I would like to know that every safeguard would be given to me before I would be compelled to part with that land— every safeguard as to the price that would be paid and everything else. It appears to me that some of those safeguards are being weakened. While I agree that the Judicial Commissioner would have all the legal aspects of the case before him and would understand them quite well, still there may be certain facts connected with the case that the two lay commissioners would have more insight into than the Judicial Commissioner.

Mr. Blowick

No, they dare not look at a file if the case is of an appealable nature; otherwise there would be no court, because they may be prejudiced. They cannot see anything in regard to cases likely to be appealed; otherwise the whole court would be a sham and an atrocity.

Mr. Kissane

I cannot understand why the Minister is bringing about this reorganisation of the appeal tribunal.

Mr. Blowick

If the Deputy were in my place he would be doing the same thing.

Mr. Kissane

If it is on the grounds of economy, I do not see where the economy comes in. Not one penny will be saved as a result of this.

Mr. Blowick

That is correct.

Mr. Kissane

If he is doing it on the ground of expedition, if he says that this so-called reorganisation will lead to a more expeditious handling of cases, I cannot see it. There is nothing apparent to anybody that could be argued as a justification for a reorganisation of the appeal tribunal and the Minister gave us no clear indication in relation to it when he was making his introductory statement.

Mr. Blowick

I think the Deputy is not as innocent as he pretends.

Mr. Kissane

I know a good lot about this matter, more than the Minister thinks. Reference has been made to the proposal under which the Minister's agents will be able to go into the open market to purchase land. I do not intend to go into that very much, because it has been dealt with elaborately already. It appears to me to be somewhat of an interference with one of the three F's—free sale.

Mr. Blowick

Elaborate that for my benefit.

Mr. Kissane

The Minister should know, just as well as I know, that if a sale is taking place and if there is somebody there representing the Minister or the Land Commission, is not that in itself an interference with free sale?

Mr. Blowick

Does the Deputy suggest that an extra genuine bidder at an auction is an interference with free sale?

Mr. Kissane

He is more than an extra bidder and he would be regarded as more than an ordinary bidder. His presence will have the effect of putting up the price of land unduly—or may be the reverse might be the case.

Mr. Blowick

Or maybe the sky would fall.

Mr. Kissane

When would-be purchasers discover there is an agent of the Land Commission present, some of them may leave and have nothing to do with the auction—that is quite possible. In this case the land would be sold cheaply; on the other hand, the presence of this agent may have the same effect as that of a puffer; it would have the effect of inflating the price of land in a locality where such an agent is present or it might have the opposite effect, turning people away from the auction.

I would like to refer once more to the acquisition of turbary. In County Kerry—and of course the same problem exists in other counties—there is not very much land to be acquired and divided, but I hope the Land Commission will direct their attention to the division of the turbary that remains idle in a good many parts of the county.

Captain Cowan

I have heard quite a number of the contributions that have been made to this debate. After reading the Bill I felt I had a somewhat clear conception of it, but I find now that my views in regard to it have been confused and I must endeavour to get the Minister to clarify some points for me.

The land problem is a very serious one. Land division has been the serious concern of our people for many generations. It is still a matter of serious concern in a great many parts of the country. Quite a number of Deputies are interested in land division. Every day on the Order Paper questions are addressed to the Minister —does he propose to take over a certain farm or does he propose to acquire land in such an area.

Since this debate started, shortly after 4 o'clock to-day, not more than a dozen Deputies have been in the House, and I think that is a matter of grave concern also.

There are serious implications in this measure and I am somewhat disappointed that the Minister did not avail of the opportunity he had to give us a picture, in so far as he could paint it, of the countryside he intends to establish under this legislation. Does he intend to establish a community of small farms of 25 or 30 acres? Is that the ultimate objective? Since the 1923 Act was passed 26 years ago other Land Acts have appeared and there has been quite a lot of land divided into this type—as I understand it—of average farm. Is it the Minister's intention to bring all the land in this country into that category?

Mr. Blowick

I think it would be very undesirable to have all holdings of that uniform size.

Captain Cowan

I would imagine that to be so myself. There must be some policy behind this question of land division. I speak now from a purely national point of view. Is the 100-acre farm, the 150-acre farm or the 200-acre farm bad from the national point of view? Must such farms be broken up? I think that is the problem with which the Minister must concern himself. Mention has been made of the economic farm. Undoubtedly, the economic farm of to-day is a different farm from the economic farm of 50 years ago. With the introduction of new methods of husbandry a farm that was sufficient to support a family 50 years ago will not support a family now.

I am concerned with this problem mainly because the question arises as to whether it is good national policy to break up large farms. Is it likely that by breaking up these farms we shall have a contented community? Is it necessary for our economy that there should be small, medium and large farms? Should these interlock, as it were, and work together? The landless man admittedly is quite satisfied to get 30 or 40 statute acres. He might even be satisfied with less than that. If the landless man's hunger is appeased, will the policy of the present Minister and his successors result in the establishment of patterned small farms all over the country? Will that policy be in the national interest? I pose these questions because they are questions that must be considered.

In Counties Meath and Westmeath, two counties with which I have considerable contact, there are some very large farms. I know that there are thousands of acres of land in these counties that are not being worked as they should be worked. I know that these farms should be divided and the land made available for men who will work it. On the other hand, are we thereby likely to create a new form of congestion 20 or 30 years hence? That is the problem.

Mr. Blowick

That is the real, live danger.

Captain Cowan

That is a problem we must face. I do not intend to be critical of the Land Commission. The Land Commission was set up by statute. It was given statutory powers, functions and responsibilities. Before it were placed many statutory obstacles. It is quite possible that with more energy and determination the Land Commission might have divided more land. But there were many restrictions placed upon them. If we criticise them at all, we can criticise them only because they did not carry out the duties that were specifically placed upon them by statute and in respect of which there were no obstacles in the way. The fact that the Minister is introducing this Bill in the hope, as he said, of speeding up land acquisition and division shows that there were statutory difficulties in the way of the Land Commission. I do not think this Bill will remove those difficulties. I do not think Section 5 will help the Minister in the way he thinks it will. I am satisfied that the Minister genuinely believes that Section 5 and Section 7 will give the Land Commission greater freedom and will help in the speedier acquisition and division of land. I think the old section, which it is now proposed to amend, gave sufficiently wide powers because it stated that:—

"Regard shall be had to the fair value of the land to the Land Commission and to the owner respectively."

The fair interpretation of that clause is that the owner should get the market value. If that clause had been interpreted with a proper appreciation of the principles relating to private property the market value should have been paid in all cases.

Will the change that is now being made help? I foresee great difficulty. I foresee the State having to pay more than the market value. If I were a farmer with 500 acres of land there is nothing to prevent me putting that land up to auction. I could bring in a number of friends to bid that farm up to a sum considerably beyond its real market value. I could then withdraw it from sale. There is positive evidence then, should the Land Commission come along subsequently, that a certain sum of money was refused for that farm. But that sum of money would be almost irrefutable evidence of the market value of that farm. That would be very strong evidence in regard to the market value of that farm. That is one of the difficulties that I can see arising in regard to that problem of market value—that the price that would have to be paid for the land will not be the market value at all but that it will be something much more than the market value. If that is so, the Minister is not helped. Every person who has a farm and wants to get rid of it knows now that there is an extra competitor in the market—the Department of Lands or the Land Commission. He knows that and, naturally, that is going to enhance the value of his land. I do not agree with Deputy Kissane that it might reduce the value and interfere with free sale. It is the other danger that I see there. If that is so, the Minister and the Government will be faced with the problem of whether land division and land acquisition is going to cost us more than we are prepared to pay.

I am sorry the Minister has had to leave, because I wanted to follow one point mentioned in this connection by Deputy Kissane. I must admit that I am not familiar with it myself but the point relates to the Land Commission annuity. If a farm is acquired and there is a Land Commission annuity on that farm, and the owner has not to redeem it, does that Land Commission annuity go on to the allottees? Will they have to pay it? I would ask the Minister to answer that when he is concluding, because I am not clear in regard to the matter. If, in addition to the land annuity, a sum of money, say £100 or £200, or whatever the case may be per acre— perhaps £50, I do not know; it depends on the locality—but whether it is £25, £50, £75 or £100 per acre, if that is paid for the farm, has that to be paid by the allottee or, if the allottee has only to pay what is considered a reasonable annuity, is the balance of the money put up by the Government and paid by the ordinary taxpayer? I should like the Minister to clarify that point for me.

You may have, for example, in an area where you have two farms, one farm subject to a Land Commission annuity and the other not so subject. One would expect that the land subject to a Land Commission annuity would sell at a lesser price than the land on which there is no Land Commission annuity at all. That would be the reasonable thing to expect but, in practice, it does not so work out. Then you may have the position of two farms, approximately equal in acreage, one subject to a Land Commission annuity, the other not so subject, and yet both of them are bought at substantially the same price. The person with the Land Commission annuity on his farm is getting, in addition to the price in cash which he gets, the equivalent of the redemption value of the annuity. I think that there is a dangerous principle involved there but, while I can understand the Minister's desire to protect private property and to guarantee to the owner of private property a just price for his land, it seems to me that in a case such as that more than the just value will be paid to some people. However, that is something that the Minister can explain and, perhaps, when he has explained it there may be no point in the difficulty that confronts me in regard to it.

The problem of acquisition of land is one thing—the problem of land division is another. Certainly, people living in the Gaeltacht and in the coastal areas, the western coastal areas in particular, who have been working very hard on uneconomic holdings, endeavouring to eke out a livelihood, have a great claim on the fertile lands of the Midlands. I do not think anyone disputes that. But, in addition to that, there are residing in the Midlands the sons of farmers and agricultural workers who have also a great claim on that fertile land that is available for them in their own county or in their own area.

Further, in the two counties I have already mentioned, Meath and Westmeath, there are hundreds of excellent types of young farmers' sons and agricultural and other workers who would be prepared to take over land and make a great success of it. I have spoken to quite a number of them. They are not selfish. They do not say: "We want all the land for ourselves". All they say is: "We want a fair proportion of the land for ourselves". I think that is a very fair attitude. They realise that the huge problem of congestion in the West must be dealt with. But I do not think it is unreasonable—it is not unreasonable—that they should ask for some of the land that is divided for themselves. I would press the Minister for a reasonable balance, paying, as must be paid, proper attention to the demands of the congested areas on the western coast.

Grave mistakes have been made in the past in the selection of allottees for land. I am aware of one instance where a farm of 500 acres was divided amongst three people. It was acquired and divided by the Land Commission amongst three people. None of these three people bothered about that land. Periodically they are up in the courts for failure to cut thistles on it and they find that it is much cheaper to pay the fine than to——

Acting Chairman (Mr. Sweetman)

I am loath to interrupt the Deputy but is that not a matter of administration rather than of legislation?

Captain Cowan

I am not altogether clear on that. I am satisfied that it has been dealt with by other Deputies and I think myself that it comes within the scope of this particular debate.

Mr. Davin

Reorganisation.

Acting Chairman

As long as the Deputy relates it to the reorganisation of the Land Commission——

Captain Cowan

I am just mentioning that point to the Minister because nobody understands better than he that there have been grave mistakes in that matter and that it is too serious a matter to have land allocated to people who do not know how to work it or have no intention of working it or who do not work it.

I have been asked to draw the Minister's attention to a matter which I think would be helpful. The Chairman may say it is administration but I do not think that it is. In parts of the country there are local organisations which are dealing with the problem of land division and which are organised for the purpose of seeing that land in the area is divided. Some of these organisations are very responsible and they feel that in the matter of land acquisition and division the inspectors and agents of the Land Commission could by co-operating with them receive quite a lot of valuable information that would help in the solution of the problem of placing the right people on the divided lands. I realise that there are difficulties in the way, but I think the Minister will admit that some of these organisations in the representations they have made to him since his appointment have been very helpful. I would ask when there is that desire locally to co-operate with the Minister that that co-operation should be availed of.

There is very little more I want to say on the Bill at this stage, but there are quite a number of matters that may be raised on the next stage. In a general way I feel that the whole problem of our economic future is tied up with the problem of land division and that consequently the Minister and his Department ought, at the earliest opportunity, to prepare a policy in regard to the matter. I think it is probably more than just a Department of Lands problem but one that must be concerned with other Government Departments. I think that that policy should indicate how far we can go in this matter of land division if we are not to create uneconomic holdings by modern standards. If, by the policy enshrined in this Bill or in the Bills it amends, we proceed to the creation of a new type of uneconomic holding, the community will be faced in the future with the problem of endeavouring to bring those holdings together again in order to create sound economy. That certainly is going to be a very serious headache for the Minister's successor if he has to face it. Generally, this Bill is welcomed as an indication of the Minister's desire to speed up land acquisition, but if that speeding up is to be done at too high a cost to the community, very grave results may follow. If the operation of this Bill will mean increased annuities for the allottees of lands acquired under its provisions it may result in the placing of a millstone around the necks of those people. That is the point I was making when the Minister was out, whether in the case of lands acquired under this Land Bill which are at present subject to a Land Commission annuity, it will be transferred to the allottees?

Mr. Blowick

Oh, no. It would be as good not to give them the land at all if we did that.

Captain Cowan

That is why I wanted to have that clarified. If they were to take over the imposition it was the end of the struggle for land.

Mr. Blowick

The Land Commission will carry it.

Captain Cowan

That is what I felt. The problem in so far as the redemption of these annuities is concerned then, is that somebody has to carry it.

Mr. Blowick

I am afraid that it is one more burden for this thing we know as the State.

Captain Cowan

In effect the State means the taxpayer. However, I do not think there would be any serious objection to the taxpayer contributing to the solution of the land problem.

Mr. Blowick

I do not think so.

Captain Cowan

All I wanted was to be clear so that if some person says that under this Bill he may be expected to pay higher annuities than if the land were acquired without it, each and every one of us can assure him that the annuities will not be affected by the higher price that may be paid under the Bill to people from whom land is acquired. The Bill is welcomed as an indication of the determination of the Minister and the Government to speed up the acquisition of land, and I wish him every success in its operation.

Mr. Hilliard

According to the Minister, this Bill is designed to give to the Land Commission a further impetus and to put it in a better position to proceed with the acquisition and division of land for its statutory purposes. Time, of course, will tell whether the Bill will achieve that end or not, but, however, as far as we on these benches are concerned, if the Bill succeeds in doing that we will be quite satisfied. The Bill, taken in conjunction with the Minister's introductory statement, has made perfectly plain to everybody the method by which land is acquired and allottees selected. Land legislation has reserved to the Land Commission the determination of the land to be acquired, the price to be paid, the annuities to be fixed and the allottees to be selected. It has taken altogether from this debate all allegations regarding political acquisition and division of land and has clearly demonstrated that allottees did not get land because they were members of a political organisation and that no land was so acquired from certain persons because political organisations demanded that that land should be acquired; but that the Land Commission proceeded on its job of acquiring land for its statutory purposes according to the law of this country. It appears to me that when this Bill becomes law the Land Commission will proceed to do the very same thing and that membership of any political organisation or any other organisation will not be a criterion for the allotment of land to any particular person.

This Bill and the discussion on it has centred around two or three main points. One is Section 5, which deals with price. The section compels the Land Commission to pay the market value to owners. At the same time, it is pointed out in the White Paper and in Section 5 that that was the procedure in relation to land acquired from persons who were not owners but tenants. If my recollection serves me rightly, the burden of the complaint was that in nearly all cases the Land Commission did not pay a sufficient amount to the land owner, be he owner or tenant. Anyone who wants to make up his mind on a question like this would need to have the full facts before him—and I have not got them before me—as to whether or not landholders heretofore obtained a fair price. Therefore, it follows that, when this Bill is law, the Land Commission shall continue to pay what is known as the market value. I am not in a position to know how that market value is arrived at by the commissioners. Is it a varying value, does it vary from year to year; or is this a legal term under which the commissioners arrive at a price for the land; or must they take into consideration what the land is worth on the open market in arriving at the price they offer? Not alone does this Bill compel the commissioners to pay an amount equal to the market value, but the landholder can claim for disturbance and for any damage affecting the use of any other land he may hold. The terms of Section 5 certainly give to the landholder substantial protection under the law, in the endeavour of the Land Commission to see that, whatever misgivings there were in the past in relation to price, in the future the holder will get a fair price.

Section 10 deals with the reserved matters—the determination of the persons from whom land is to be acquired or resumed, the determination of the actual lands to be acquired or resumed, and so forth, down to the naming of the allottees by the Land Commission. In this section, the Minister is taking power, in any rearrangement scheme, to allot the lands, or name the allottees or be satisfied as to who the allottees are. He is taking over certain functions that were reserved to the Land Commission or to the lay commissioners previously.

Mr. Blowick

Under a rearrangement scheme.

Mr. Hilliard

Yes, under a rearrangement scheme only—"(other than any determination arising in or being part of a rearrangement scheme)". Is not that the position?

Mr. Blowick

In a rearrangement scheme—does the Deputy call those allottees?

Mr. Hilliard

Yes, I would call them allottees.

Mr. Blowick

What? Giving them back their own land?

Mr. Hilliard

For the want of a better term, I would use it.

Mr. Blowick

The Deputy is very fortunate that he does not understand what rearrangement really means. He comes from a county which is not cursed with the need for rearrangement.

Mr. Hilliard

That is true, I do not come from such a county and I am not as familiar with the operations of it as other Deputies would be. It appears from the reading of this section that the Minister can take and use these powers more extensively than they appear to be in the section. Section 23 gives power to the Land Commission to enter the open market to buy farms for migrants, at an auction or by private treaty. The White Paper states:—

"Present methods of acquisition, resumption and purchase for land bonds, rarely produce residential holdings which would be readily suitable for migrants. Acute congestion can only be solved by migration and it is considered that the purchase powers in Section 23 should be available for occasional use."

The Bill itself gives power to the Land Commission to have an agent at a public auction, or by private treaty to purchase farms as a going concern. The White Paper says that this purchase power "should be available for occasional use." I take it from that that it is the intention not to go into the open market on every occasion they considered that a suitable farm was for sale.

Mr. Blowick

That would be subcontract.

Mr. Hilliard

At the same time, this statement in the White Paper says that acute congestion can only be solved by migration. If it is the intention of the Minister or the Land Commission to solve the question of congestion, I wonder how much of it will be solved by the powers contained in this section if they are used only occasionally.

As regards the farms that may be purchased under this section, some Deputies have said that they will be of a certain size. I would like the Minister to give the House an indication of the type and size of farm that will be purchased under the section. Some Deputies seem to think that they will be farms of 40 or 50 acres with a house and farm buildings and farms that were being used as workable farms. Others seem to think that the Land Commission would purchase in the open market much larger farms and leave the powers which they have for acquiring land in the ordinary way in abeyance for the time being. For the benefit of the constituency which I represent, I would like to have from the Minister some indication of the type and size of farm that the Land Commission would consider purchasing in the open market.

I assume that before such farms are purchased, they will be inspected by the Land Commission and valued for their purposes and that, if the bidding at the auction exceeds the price they have in mind, the matter will go at that and they will not continue to bid to a price which would be ridiculously high. I do not think the Land Commission would indulge in that kind of business.

I want now to deal with compensation of displaced employees. It appears to me that the relevant section is applicable to all farms acquired by the Land Commission, whether acquired in the ordinary way adopted heretofore or purchased in the open market. Is that so?

Mr. Blowick

The farms purchased in the open market will have to be dealt with differently, I think.

Mr. Hilliard

I shall not deal with that section now as I am dealing with the Bill on Second Reading, but there is nothing in the section which would indicate that. Section 25 says:—

"Where a person is displaced from employment on land by reason of the acquisition, resumption or purchase of that land by the Land Commission, the Land Commission may, if in their discretion they so think proper, pay to him such gratuity as they consider reasonable in respect of his displacement from employment."

These are the words—"such gratuity as they consider reasonable in respect of his displacement."

Mr. Blowick

"May, if in their discretion they so think proper."

Mr. Hilliard

I know that is in it too. It follows, from my reading of this section, that every employee that is displaced from his employment need not necessarily get a gratuity or a holding. I would like if the Minister would give some indication to the House as to what would be considered by the Land Commission a fair gratuity for persons displaced from their employment in the circumstances named in this section. There is nothing in the Bill to indicate the amount they would assess for loss of employment.

It naturally follows that, when this section becomes law, wherever land is acquired in the Midlands in future not many of the employees on estates will obtain Land Commission holdings.

Mr. Blowick

Why do you think that, Deputy?

Mr. Hilliard

Because of the general complaint that has been made by the Minister and various other persons that many of the employees on estates that were acquired and divided had not used the land according to their terms of contract.

Mr. Blowick

Some only.

Mr. Hilliard

"Many" is the adjective that has been used. I intended to point out to the Minister several cases where employees had made good on holdings even under adverse circumstances.

There is a type of farmer not provided for in this Bill. I do not know whether there are many such people or not. Reference was made to the persons I have in mind by, I think, Deputy Moylan. I refer to men who rent farms and live on the houses thereon and use the farms as workable holdings. A person would have to have all the facts and details before he could arrive at a decision as to what is the best thing to do for such people. I do not know whether the Minister has considered that question or not but I do not see anything in this Bill to cover such people. I am not advocating at the moment that they should be included in it but it is a question that should be considered by the Minister.

I do not want to delay the House unduly. With regard to the relief of congestion on land, I have expressed my viewpoint previously. I regard the matter as a galling social evil, an evil as great as that which has existed and which still exists to a lesser extent in relation to slums in our towns and cities. Anyone who has given careful thought and study to this question must realise that it should be and must be Government policy to give relief to persons who are living in congested districts by transferring them to other parts of the country where land is acquired and in this way also to create larger holdings for those who are not transferred.

I was often surprised to hear Deputies, who, I thought, had a wider outlook on such matters, complaining about the activities of the Land Commission in that regard. There are in the Midlands, as other Deputies have pointed out, large numbers of men who expect to get land from the Land Commission—farmers' sons or others who think that, because they were born and reared, as were their fathers' families before them, in areas where land is about to be acquired, they should have a prior claim. It is a difficult question to decide, but the policy of the State apparently is, and land legislation is designed, to acquire land mainly for the relief of congestion. It is a fact that the Land Commission in deciding on allottees in the Midland areas interview all the local applicants, and, in some cases, give them farms. In many cases, these people, many of them, have made good use of these farms, while others, I am sorry to say, have not; but the Land Commission inspector, when selecting his allottees, was convinced, I presume, that the allottees he was selecting were the very best he could get.

In moving the Second Reading of this measure, the Minister said, at column 898 of the Official Debates of 16th November, 1949:

"The next important matter in the Bill is the reorganisation of the Land Commission. As Deputies are well aware, the commission is charged with difficult and contentious responsibilities. It cannot avoid disturbing the interests of certain land owners. Then it is faced with so many applications for allotments and improvements, etc. that only a small percentage can be satisfied. In fulfilling its responsibilities, the commission must inevitably reject or fail to satisfy many applicants; and it is no wonder that its operations give rise to so many criticisms and complaints."

It is just as well that large numbers of people who are regarded as landless men and who expect to get land from the Land Commission should be made fully aware of their position in this matter. I have here a letter from such an organisation, the Land Division League, asking me to press their claims here and pointing out that, in so far as they can understand, the Land Commission proposes to supply the needs of uneconomic holders before considering landless men. They go on to say:

"Migration to this area would be disastrous in view of the relative density of the population and of the fact that mass unemployment is imminent as a result of the failure of the fruit crop."

If the Land Commission could satisfy the demands of everybody in relation to their applications for holdings of land, it would be a very good thing, but unfortunately the position is as the Minister has stated it, and, in my opinion, deputations to the Minister's office or the Land Commission will not secure holdings of land for the large numbers of people looking for land.

Mr. Ruttledge

There are one or two matters which I should like to get cleared up. One matter on which I am not clear is this question of market value and I should like the Minister to give us some indication of what exactly he means by "market value". Two Deputies who spoke within the last hour or two appeared to take different views on this matter. Deputy Kissane took one view and Deputy Cowan another. I am inclined to take Deputy Cowan's view, because I believe it opens up a whole lot of difficulties in relation to the raising of the price by people who want to "puff up" their holdings, to use a crude phrase. A person who wants to sell land which the Land Commission propose to acquire will probably make use of a number of "puffers". The Minister knows that we are not living in a country of angels, and, where land is concerned, a man who is selling, if he is so disposed, can get a number of people to put up the price. Will that be taken as market value? If people deliberately put up the price, are the people who get this land later to be fleeced to a certain degree, or will the State bear the difference? This question of market value is a very serious matter and I should like to see the Minister providing some safeguard against the puffing up of the price where the vendor knows that the Land Commission will eventually acquire the land.

Another point I should like to get cleared up is the matter of the delegation of powers. The Minister is doing it only to a limited extent, but it is a mistake to provide for the delegating of powers which are vested in the Land Commission to the Minister or to people nominated by him. It is a bad principle, and I suggest that the Minister should consider it before proceeding further on that line.

Section 23 deals with the purchase of land offered for sale and provides that the Land Commission may buy such land where the land is required for providing for migrants. I know that the Minister has had the experience that I have had, that numbers of people, when a farm is put up for sale, want the Land Commission to bid for it and to acquire it. What they always wanted was that the land should be acquired and divided amongst uneconomic holders adjoining. I know, as the Minister knows, cases where farms were acquired by the Land Commission and divided amongst the uneconomic holders. Their valuations were raised from £3 10s. and £4 to £11 and these land holders who got these additions are amongst the best land holders under the Land Commission. The section, as I say, provides that the land can be acquired only if it is proposed to put migrants into it. Why does the Minister not include the purpose of relieving congestion? I do not say that he should exclude migrants by any means, but why not include also the purpose of relief of congestion? If that were done I think a good deal could be said for it.

Reverting to the question of the market price and of buying at auctions, the Land Commission may have its organisation and it may have its own sleuths in various places who may be able to counteract any attempts at "puffing" but I think it would take more than the efforts of the sleuths of the Land Commission to deal effectively with this matter. I should also like to remind the Minister that there was an Act passed here some time which provided for automatic vesting. In other words people could be automatically vested in their holdings and they could qualify for all the advantages of grants and loans for housing. So far as I know, quite a number of people have not been vested yet even under the automatic vesting machinery. I have been informed—I am not in a position to give the Minister full details because it was only in the last day or so the matter was brought to my notice—that county council solicitors have advised against grants for the erection of houses in cases where the land was not vested in the persons applying for the grant.

Mr. Blowick

The county council solicitor?

Mr. Ruttledge

Yes, where application was made under the various Acts providing for these grants. They have advised that until the land is vested, such applications should not be entertained. The Minister might look into that. In my constituency, there is quite a number of rundale holdings and I am sure many of them exist in the Minister's constituency too. Nothing has been done, or nothing can be done, about getting these holdings rearranged and vested. As the Minister is aware in his own area in South Mayo there are lands which have been in the hands of the Land Commission for over 20 years. The same condition of affairs exists in North Mayo. It is certainly over 20 years since the Palmer estate was acquired and there are other lands which have been in the hands of the Land Commission for over 15 years. Some delay might be excusable in cases where you have to migrate the tenants so that their lands could be divided amongst those who are left behind but certainly in most cases the delay is altogether abnormal and much more than could be justified by the circumstances.

What is happening in my area, and I suppose in other areas as well, for a number of years past since the last Bill was introduced by Deputy Moylan, is that the Land Commission are spending their time and devoting their energies trying to take a few acres off some unfortunate individual who has to migrate to England in an effort to supplement the small income from his farm. They spend their time in trying to deprive these poor men of their holdings on the ground that they are not properly utilising them. While that is happening in my part of the country I know that there are big farms, over 600 acres in one case and 300 acres in another case, to which no attention is paid. I refer to the Massey farm and the McCormack farm, in the immediate vicinity of which there are people with valuations as low as £2, £2 10s. and £3. These big farms have been there for years and no effort has been made to deal with them. If the Land Commission want to operate migration schemes successfully, is the obvious remedy not to migrate the man with the big farm and so relieve the congestion in the immediate neighbourhood? If the Land Commission would attend to matters of that kind I believe their effort would be much more fruitful and it does not require this Bill to do that either.

The Minister proposes in this Bill to reduce the number of lay and appeal commissioners. In future it is proposed that the appeal tribunal shall consist of the Judicial Commissioner only. I think that is a mistake also because on questions of fact the appeal commissioners' word was final. There was no appeal from them whatever.

Mr. Blowick

If I might interrupt the Deputy, on a question of law the appeal commissioners had no say at all. That was reserved to the Judicial Commissioner.

Mr. Ruttledge

That is so. It was only on a question of law that there could be an appeal to the Supreme Court. As the House is aware there have been five judges in the Supreme Court since the right of appeal to the Privy Council was abolished. That strengthens the Supreme Court. Similarly in questions affecting land, I think that three heads would be wiser than one. If there were three members of the Appeal Tribunal they would have a more intimate experience of conditions in one part of the country than one member alone would have. Speaking generally on the Bill, I would say that we do not want Bills every other day from the Land Commission unless our aim is to try to put the blame on somebody else for the delays which have occurred over the years. I do not say that these delays originated in the Minister's time. They have been there for long years before the Minister came to the Department. It is not a question of bringing in a Land Bill every other day. What we require very urgently is reorganisation inside the Land Commission and outside the Land Commission.

Mr. Fagan

I should like, first of all, to congratulate the Minister on his decision to pay the market value for land. Heretofore, land owners felt very insecure, particularly during the last nine or ten years, but since this Bill was introduced a new feeling of security has taken possession of them because they know that if land is taken off them they will get the market value. I congratulate the Minister on behalf of the land owners on creating that new feeling of security amongst them. There is another part of the Bill about which I am not quite so happy, namely, that which gives the Minister the right to buy land at auctions or privately. The Minister has assured us that no fraud will arise in that connection but, nevertheless, I can see a lot of snags arising in certain instances. The chief snag I see is this: I can see local agitation springing up for the acquisition of certain farms even though they may be only small farms. Several Deputies pointed out that when a small farm is put up for sale it is generally bought by a farmer's son where there are two or three sons in a family. I can foresee that that day is gone. Even if a farmer's son buys such a farm, he will not have a happy time in it. The Minister assures us that this will work out all right. I hope it does, but I have my doubts.

Deputy Ruttledge mentioned a most important matter with regard to obtaining loans from county councils for the building of houses and I think the Minister should take note of it. I came across a case recently where a man who intended to build a house applied to the county council for a loan along with the grant. He found that the land on which he intended to build the house was not vested, with the result that the county council refused to lend him the money. I took up the matter with the Land Commission and I was assured that it might take a year or even years before that land would be vested. Luckily, that man had another small farm which was vested, but he had to go a half a mile in from the road to build his house on the land that was vested. In another case which I know of a man bought a plot of land in order to build a house. When he had the house half completed he applied to the county council for a loan under the Small Dwellings Act and then discovered that this piece of land was not vested. The result was that he could not get the loan from the county council. I think the Minister should insert a provision in this Bill to enable county council to lend the money to such people as these for the building of houses.

The Minister made a speech six or nine months ago, and I think the Taoiseach also made a speech, stating that for any land which would be acquired by the Land Commission the full market value would be given. A case recently came to my notice in which the price of a farm of land was actually fixed at £2,400, but the man has to redeem an annuity of £600 out of that. I understand that it is not in order for a Deputy to bring in an amendment to this Bill covering cases such as that, but that the Minister can do so. The number of estates which have been taken over recently cannot be very large as the Land Commission have only been getting into their stride. It is most unfair in cases such as that that the people from whom the land is taken must redeem their annuity because they do not come under this Bill. I believe there would be only ten or 15 estates concerned. I hope the Minister will insert a provision in the Bill to put these people in the same position as those whose land will be acquired after the Bill becomes law.

I should also like to direct the Minister's attention to the case of the Connolly farm at Flathouse, Dunboyne, where 200 acres of land were taken over. The husband died and the widow only got £5 for that 200 acres of land. That woman has a big family and they are very badly off since. When Mr. W.T. Cosgrave was Leader of the Opposition here he promised that if he ever got into power again he would see that proper compensation was paid to that woman. I ask the Minister to look up Mr. Cosgrave's speech on that occasion. The matter has been brought to my attention by the widow's sons and daughters and they are in a bad way. Some compensation should be given to a person like that.

I am very much afraid of this new power which the Minister is taking. He may think that it will work all right. I hope it will, but I can foresee a lot of trouble in connection with it. I ask the Minister to consider the question of those estates which have been taken over within the last few months. The land in those cases may not be divided for many months to come and it is most unfair to the owners that they should not be put in the same position as those from whom land may be acquired under this Bill.

Mr. Bartley

The division in the House on the question of land legislation does not usually run along Party lines and I think we shall have the same experience with regard to this Bill. I find myself in complete agreement with a number of speeches made by Deputies on the Government Benches and I take it that our views are formed from our knowledge of the conditions in our areas. At first blush, this Bill gives the impression that all agricultural land is going to become a freely negotiable commodity. I am not concerned with that as an abstract principle, but only in so far as it impinges on the question of the relief of congestion.

I want to congratulate the Minister on his intention, which I believe is sound, to deal as quickly as possible with this terrible question of congestion. Like some Deputies sitting behind him, however, I have my doubts as to the efficacy of the powers he is taking. I think the Bill in certain respects conflicts with the policy heretofore operated and that it requires some further explanation. I should like the Minister to tell us whether matters dealing with the relief of congestion are henceforth to be a monopoly of the Minister, or whether his activities in that respect will be merely complementary to the ordinary activities of the Land Commission. Will there not be in future two notions of market value, one in respect to land affected by the Minister's power to buy in the open market, and therefore artificially higher than the normal market value? That, of course, will affect the Minister's activities for the relief of congestion. The Land Commission fixes the price of all land, including the land which the Minister will buy.

Mr. Blowick

The Minister is not buying any land whatever.

Mr. Bartley

For migrants?

Mr. Blowick

Even for migrants.

Mr. Bartley

Will the Minister then explain the meaning of Section 23?

Mr. Blowick

Section 23 gives power to the Land Commission to fix the price of holdings which they intend to purchase.

Mr. Bartley

Is that land going to be used for the relief of congestion, and for dealing with surplus congests on an estate?

Mr. Blowick

Yes.

Mr. Bartley

That is one of the things that the Minister is taking to himself for the first time.

Mr. Blowick

It is not. You are making a pig's foot of the Bill.

Mr. Bartley

I can read the excepted matters. I did not intend to deal with these, but the following are some of the excepted matters: "(a) the determination of the persons from whom land is to be acquired or resumed; (b) the determination of the actual lands to be acquired or resumed; (c) the determination of the price to be paid for land so acquired or resumed; (d) the determination (other than any determination arising in or being part of a rearrangement scheme) of the persons to be selected as allottees of any land." Now does not the Minister come in there?

Mr. Blowick

He does. Connect that with Section 23 if you are able.

Mr. Bartley

Paragraph (e) "the determination (other than any determination arising in or being part of a rearrangement scheme) of the price at which land is to be sold to any such allottee." Does not the Minister come in there?

Mr. Blowick

Somewhat. Is it not quite obvious to the Deputy that, if the Minister wanted to purchase land that he himself would have the determination of the price of such land?

Mr. Bartley

The Minister would have it?

Mr. Blowick

Yes. Is it not obvious that, if I wanted to purchase land, I would have the fixing of the price of it? I have made the fixing of the price of land in the open market one of the excepted matters for the commissioners.

Mr. Bartley

That is what I want the Minister to explain.

Mr. Blowick

Now you have got it.

Mr. Bartley

What is fairly obvious is that these powers are to be used by the Minister in his activities for the relief of congestion—to meet the needs of migrants. What I want to know—I think the same consideration was running through the minds of most Deputies who spoke—is whether the price of land bought for this purpose is not being artificially inflated when it is bought on the open market.

Mr. S. Collins

Some of your people say that it is being artificially deflated.

Mr. Bartley

I do not think there is any danger of that taking place. The Minister assures me that he will fix the price of land. He says that he will fix the price that he is going to pay for land that is to be used for the purpose of accommodating migrants.

Mr. Blowick

I said no such thing.

Mr. Bartley

Well, the Minister contradicted me when I said that the Land Commission was going to fix the price of land.

Mr. Blowick

Take a day off and read the Bill.

Mr. Bartley

The Minister made two contradictory statements. Which one is he sticking to?

Mr. Blowick

I went to great pains to explain that the commissioners fix the price of land. Therefore, I am not buying land.

Mr. Bartley

The Minister can go into the open market and buy land for the purposes of migration and in pursuance of his activities for the relief of congestion. The Minister knows very well that I have the same problems in my area as he has in his. I wish him well in his activities. This is a new departure, and I hope it will be successful. I am only expressing the fears of the ordinary Deputy that these powers may be side-tracked by the activities of people who would become interested in land when they know the Minister is interested in it. You will have a new standard of values created for land in which the Minister will be interested for this specific purpose, the relief of congestion.

I was very interested in Deputy Commons' speech. The views that he expressed were very largely my own because his difficulties are similar to mine. He criticised effectively the operations of the Land Court. I think that the strictures to which he gave expression have been amply justified by experience. We all know of cases in which the Land Commission had a good claim to get land, but they did not pursue it effectively. I do not blame the Land Commission entirely for that. I know they were handicapped by the regulations. Take, for instance, the question of acquisition, which was one of the matters that Deputy Commons referred to, where a decision of the Land Court hinged on the user of the land. It seems to me that the Land Commission have been badly handicapped in cases where they were unable to prove matters which were public knowledge in the locality, and where decisions were given on evidence which, if it were examined properly, would not be accepted by any impartial tribunal. I wonder would the Minister examine cases of that sort and take steps to alter the regulations so that the fullest possible evidence, with knowledge of the local circumstances, will be made available at these Land Commission sittings?

I think the Bill will be most interesting in respect to its operation for the relief of congestion. Now, we have two types of congested estates. We have the estate which, in the opinion of the Land Commission, cannot be rearranged until migration takes place. There are other estates which, I understand, can be arranged without migration. I hope that the Minister, even if he cannot go ahead immediately with the estates that require migration, will apply his new powers to those estates that can be rearranged without the necessity of removing any of the tenants. The Land Commission have been greatly blamed for their dilatoriness in respect to this question of rearrangement. If the Minister is able to make any substantial success in regard to those estates that do not require migration, well, the degree of success that he achieves will show up to what extent the Land Commission have been neglectful.

There is one matter, however, in regard to this question of rearrangement which, I think, the Minister has overlooked. I think the greatest handicap which the Land Commission have suffered from in the matter of rearrangement has been in regard to the lack of compulsory powers. I do not see the Minister taking any compulsory powers in this Bill. I know it is a very serious matter. I imagine that, if compulsory powers were taken by the Minister, in conjunction with the right to compensate in obvious cases of hardship, he would get agreement much more readily than has been the experience of the Land Commission in the past. I recommend that to the Minister.

Houses have been mentioned. I am aware that people have been unable to get loans from county councils under the Small Dwellings (Acquisition) Acts because their holdings were not vested. I want to support the views expressed by other speakers in that connection.

I would like to bring a very special problem in relation to housing and rearrangement to the notice of the Land Commission. It seems to me that in recent times the Land Commission, in the limited amount of rearrangement which they have been carrying out, have been affected in their decisions by the cost of providing a new house. If a tenant had to shift his residence to another part of a rearranged holding, he was entitled to get a full cost house. I do not think that regulation has been changed, but apparently the inspectors are acting on instructions to carry out the rearrangement in such a way that there will not be a necessity to build a new house for any of the persons whose holdings are being arranged; in other words, as good a job of rearrangement is not being carried out because of the necessity to economise in the building of houses. If that is the case, I ask that that type of economy should be dropped. Rearrangement is very important in the congested areas and a person should be given a house on the part of his holding which will best suit the rearrangement of that holding.

There is another point, which has reference to the redemption of a reclamation annuity under the 1949 Act. It seems to me from Section 8 that the redemption of the reclamation annuity is not required where land is purchased for migrants. I should like to point out to the Minister that if, as is assumed, the value of the land is enhanced by reclamation, then the person who sells it to the Land Commission gets the increased price. That increased price is the basis for the determination of the annuity. If the person has got the increased price he should be compelled to redeem the reclamation annuity the same as is provided in respect of other land acquired.

With regard to the redemption of the land annuities, I would like the Minister to give us some explanation of the section when he is replying. Land is now being bought at market value and there is no requirement to purchase the annuity. I take it, therefore, the new tenant will have to pay an annuity based on the market value paid for the holding, added to the annuity fixed on the land in respect of the previous dealing by the Land Commission.

Mr. Blowick

You understand that?

Mr. Bartley

I want the Minister to explain that when he is replying. With regard to commonages, we have had a great many squatters on these commonages in recent times and it would be quite unfair in the partitioning of these commonages that these squatters should be dispossessed. I take it the Minister and the Land Commission will be as sympathetic as possible in the partitioning of these commonages, and that they will try to see that these people, who have gone to a great deal of trouble to build small houses, who have settled down and married and reclaimed a good deal of the land with the consent of the commonage owners, will get a fair deal. They have done a good job of work and some consideration ought to be given to them. There will be one class who will be badly affected by the partitioning of the commonages, but I do not think they can claim much sympathy from the Minister. I refer to the poteen makers. They do not claim any consideration under a Land Bill and I am not asking the Minister to put in any special regulations for their benefit.

Cé gur cheap an tAire go rabhas ag fáil loicht air nuair a d'iarras tuilleadh eolais, creidim go bhfuil sé daríre i dtaobh deireadh a chur leis an ainneise agus leis an anshó a bhaineas le mí-shocrú agus cúngacht san Iarthair. Chomh fada is a ghabhfas an Bille leis an méid sin a réiteach molaim é.

Mr. Carter

I would like to say a few words with reference to land division, particularly in the area from which I come. There is not very much land to be divided in the County Longford. I live on the borders of Westmeath and I represent Westmeath as well. I observe that we have a good deal of foreigners coming in there—British majors and captains. They come in and buy up any places that are for sale. In these circumstances I do not know where we are going to provide for our uneconomic people.

The Minister knows his job very well, I am sure. He understands his own particular circumstances and the circumstances of the county from which he comes. In that particular county, or in any other county, if we could get the bigger farmer transferred, say, to another part of the country, we might be better off.

There is a certain danger arising from small farms. The 20 acre farms that we tried out in the early stages are not going so very well. There was a time in portion of County Westmeath, on the border where I live, when it was very hard to get the annuities from the people and they were not making their land pay. Now they are doing all right.

Any Minister who brings a Bill in here has, no doubt, good intentions. He has expert knowledge and advice behind him. I will not criticise in any particular way the work of any Department here. I am not going to say that the Land Commission has not done its work efficiently. From my own experience over a good many years I have always found the officials very nice, and the same applies to other Departments.

We hear people talking a lot about landless men. I suggest to the Minister that if these men are not married he should not give them land. I hope he will not entertain any applications from men who are not married. This idea may not be very popular but I do not think it is fair to see a man with a family of six or 10 children without any bit of land in his possession.

There are a few small farms of 300 acres or so about which I may have something to say in the future. They are not being worked but there is someone actually in occupation of them. I think these lands should be acquired later. We are all land hungry. I do not mind where the migrants come from provided they are Irishmen. I do not like to see our land being bought up by people who are merely coming here in an effort to evade income-tax. I think the Land Commission has a clause under which they do not give full title. That is a safeguard.

I congratulate the Minister on this measure. I hope that he will be successful in what he has set himself to do. I shall freely give him all the help I can in the task he has before him.

Mr. Beegan

A number of Land Acts have been passed in this House since I came here. A number of Land Acts were passed by a previous Government. The first Act dealing with the distribution of land was passed by an alien Government in 1903. I presume that Act was passed under pressure from our representatives in an alien Parliament. This Bill tonight sets out with the same object as did all the others. That object is to settle the land question. Let us hope it will achieve its object once and for all. There is one thing it will not do and I do not think the Minister makes any claim in this respect. It will not solve the congestion problem completely. It will go a good way, perhaps, towards relieving it, but it will not solve it.

Most of the discussion has centred round Section 5, the question of the market value of land versus the clause in the 1923 Act which specified the fair value both to the Land Commission and to the owner. The Minister has said the number of cases in which there was dissatisfaction was very small. Perhaps they will be just as many under the new system. I believe it will be very difficult to fix a market value satisfactory to every vendor.

Under Section 7 owners are no longer required to redeem the unpaid portion of their annuities. I am sure that will be a popular section with a number of people. Nevertheless, I think the principle contained in the Land Acts up to this was a fairly sound one from the point of view of the general taxpayer. Where the State made an advance for the purchase of land, it was only fair and reasonable that, in justice to the taxpayer, a second advance should not be made. I do not object to the proposal in this measure other than to say that, instead of relieving the purchasers of the necessity for redeeming the unpaid portion of the annuity, it would be better if that were left as compensation for disturbance. I think that was taken into account under the 1923 Act when the fair market value was being assessed.

So many divergent viewpoints have been expressed on Section 10 that I do not propose to say very much on it. Clauses (d) and (e) of sub-section (1) of Section 10 and sub-sections (5), (6), (7), (8) and (9) almost completely repeal in my opinion Section 6 of the Land Act of 1933. The Minister may be justified in taking the powers he has taken. I think the less power a Minister takes in a matter of this kind the better it will be for himself in the long run. I heard it mentioned on one occasion that the Minister was a very fine man in a tug-o'-war team; he was the anchor man of the team. I fear that if he takes on so many powers he will no longer find himself in the end of the rope; he will be the rope itself. Everybody else will be pulling on each side of him. That is one of the difficulties into which he is putting himself. I suppose it is a matter for himself.

Under Section 12, it is perhaps sufficient to have a Judicial Commissioner acting alone. I think it would give a greater sense of security, however, to all concerned if the two lay commissioners were continued, whoever they might be. We all know that legal men are very sound on law, but they are not as conversant with ordinary everyday matters as is the experienced layman. For that reason, I would like the Minister to reconsider this section.

Section 23 gives power to the Land Commission to purchase land by public auction or by private treaty. I have a good deal of sympathy with the Minister in taking the power that he has taken here. But he must put in certain reservations. One of the reservations is that a holding should not be altogether confined to what would suit one migrant. Where, however, the Land Commission is precluded under existing legislation from going in on a holding in a congested area, I think it is only right and proper that the Land Commission should be given power to go in there. The entering in and buying by public auction is quite a different matter. They should not go to the public auction. They should offer the price and have it fixed by the appeal tribunal without going into the auction field at all.

I am worried about another matter. The Minister says that the section will be applied with very great reserve and very great caution, but there is nothing in the Bill to show that there is any such reservation. If a holding is purchased by the Land Commission for the relief of congestion, say, for a migrant, that holding is for the relief of congestion in an immediate or in a remote area. The individual who is allotted that holding, if he is vested, say, within one, four, five or ten years, may not be a failure. He may be a very progressive type of man. Will it be possible for him, again, to put up that holding and then possibly again for the Land Commission to come along and make a further advance on that holding—to purchase it from him and to bring in another migrant to that holding? If that were the case, Land Commission activity, as far as land resettlement is concerned, would go on indefinitely. I think it would be most unfair and I think the Minister, on the Committee Stage, should bring in a reservation clause somewhat on the lines I have suggested in addition to the question of the size of a holding to be purchased.

The Minister, I am sure, is quite sincere in asking for powers, and very wide powers, if you like. Powers were given before by this House to Ministers—to Ministers of the Fianna Fáil Government and to Ministers of the previous Government. It was never the intention of the House, when giving these powers of acquisition and so forth, that they would be applied in a certain way and in a general manner. I have a few cases here. I do not believe that that was ever the intention unless, perhaps, that in the particular cases there is justification for them. I see that in a particular county there is a holding of 11 acres 12 perches. It is in the provisional list of lands which, together with the sporting rights including such sporting rights as may be superior interests, will, if not excluded in consequence of a valid objection, become vested in the Land Commission on the appointed day. There is another case of a holding of 20 acres, statute measure, of course, in another western county. There is a third case of 22 acres in another western county and the fourth is a case of 17 acres. As I said, perhaps the Land Commission are fully justified in acquiring or resuming these holdings and that there exists some particular set of circumstances in these instances. However, if there is not some particular set of circumstances and if this was to apply generally, then every tenant farmer in the country would be worrying to know when he had reached that irreducible minimum which would render him immune from the activities of the Land Commission. So, I say, in any Bill of this kind, we should like matters to be specifically and clearly stated. If the Minister has been taken to task, even by some of those on his own benches, it is no wonder.

After all, you see a thing like that —I have instanced four cases. I am sure that I could quote 100 cases if I were to look over the files for the past year or two where eight acres and even six acres have been taken over. It may be, as a Deputy has pointed out, that the owners are in England. I wonder if they have any relatives to whom they would be inclined to pass on this land. I think they should have the right to make over that asset. If not, the big question arises of whether anybody with assets of another kind has the right to utilise them. Has not the State a right to interfere in that case too?

I should like a reservation in regard to Section 25, which refers to gratuities to employees on estates. I know the Minister will say that the Land Commission will have discretionary powers and will use discretion but I should like something more than the discretion of the Land Commission to be mentioned. The Minister, I am sure, is quite well aware of cases where employees on estates do not get a cash wage for their services. They get what is known as "a freedom." They have so many live stock, the right of a horse, tillage and hay. In fact, they can be termed farmers, if you like. That is their sole livelihood. In my opinion, in that case, the Land Commission should have no discretion whatsoever other than providing them with a holding of land.

I talked about the wide powers. The size of holdings was mentioned. I think that is almost as difficult a matter as the fixing of a market value. A great deal depends on the location of the holding and its worth. The matter of improvement of estates is one of the things on which I should like to talk at length but I do not propose to hold up the Minister now. Undoubtedly, improvements were carried out by the Land Commission. Nevertheless, they left a lot to be desired in the past.

I should like the Minister to take a note of this—I think it is not one of the excepted matters—that is that as far as the design or construction of the dwelling house, out-offices and yard would be concerned, he should have a big say in the matter. He would understand just as well as any Land Comsion inspector or any member of the Land Commission what would be a suitable dwelling, out-offices and yard. As far as the planting of hedges is concerned, I think there should be an obligation on the incoming tenant to preserve the whitethorn hedges that are planted. In the past, from the passing of the first Land Act to the present time, I am sure thousands of pounds were expended on hedges— good whitethorn hedges and in some cases furze. They were allowed to be eaten by animals and so forth and the fences went into a state of decay. If these fences had been preserved for a term of five years, they would have reached a good healthy state and would have become very useful fences.

Deputy Burke referred to the question of water supply. If a holding of land on which there is no water supply is given to an allottee, in my opinion it is the duty of the Land Commission in the first place to try and prepare their scheme in such a way as to bring in every allottee to a supply source. After all, when an auctioneer inserts an advertisement for the sale of a holding, one of the things that is held out as an advantage is that the holding has a clear running supply of water. Where that is not possible, I think it is up to the Land Commission to make provision by sinking a pump.

There is a difficulty, as regards the question of roads, and perhaps the Minister has come up against it. I have known in the past where both the Congested Districts Board, the Estates Commissioners and, subsequently, the Land Commission, have divided estates. They designed the scheme in such a way that they brought a road from an existing road in a particular distance. They started that road again at another road and brought it in a particular distance — to about the breadth of one holding—and did not run it through. Later, when asked why they did not run it through, they said that they built the road to suit Land Commission purposes and that if the county council wanted to continue the work they could go and take over the land from the owner. You know how difficult that is for a county council and how very difficult it is for them to take a road over the land, even by paying compensation, and the length of time it takes. Where it is a question of linking up two important roads, the road that is running through the estate should be run right through and then give an opportunity to the county council at a later stage to take it over and maintain it.

Another thing that I mention—the last—is that under every Act regulations are made by the Minister in consultation with the Minister for Finance and perhaps the Government and the senior members of the Land Commission. I hold that when regulations are made under an Act they should be placed on the Table of the House for every Deputy to see and to read.

Mr. Blowick

Is not that always the case?

Mr. Beegan

I only say that I hope it will be continued. If this Bill helps to speed up land division and finish the land question for once and for all within the shortest possible period, I wish the Minister the greatest success, but I think that when he was introducing the Bill he did himself an injustice in so far as he did not mention the approximate amount of land available for division nor did he give us the number of those, excluding labourers' cottages tenants, with valuations under £5, between £5 and £10 and between £10 and £15. If he did, people who are not so conversant as the Minister and others of us from the West with the congestion problem would get a great eye-opener and a better understanding of the complexities of this problem which must be dealt with.

Mr. Blowick

If this Bill has served no useful purpose but the one it has amply justified its entry into this House. I am speaking of the fact that without a single exception all Deputies —Fianna Fáil and those belonging to each of the Parties supporting the Government — are unanimous in the desire that the relief of congestion should be the first and principal problem tackled by the Land Commission. I am exceedingly glad of that because, let me say here and now, while the relief of congestion was the first and foremost aim of the Land Commission since I took charge of it I had certain misgivings. I am glad that the Opposition Deputies, who had long experience in the Government and who must have known as much about the problem as I do, are backing me in this so that I can make it clear—I think it was Deputy Hilliard of Meath who raised the matter—to all concerned that the relief of congestion will be the first problem dealt with and that until that problem is settled no other project will be embarked upon by the Land Commission.

Any Land Bill, naturally enough, raises quite an amount of controversy in this House and rightly so because any Land Bill could very easily undermine and perhaps destroy the very foundation of our national wealth. Agriculture is our basic industry and the output from that industry depends on the security the farmers of the country feel in the ownership of their land. If any measure or even an inflammatory speech by any person in public life tended to undermine the security that nearly every farmer feels he holds it would be instantly reflected in a drop in agricultural output. That is the reason I am very glad that with very few exceptions most of the Deputies were careful and guarded in their statements and desired to see the Land Commission going ahead.

There have been a very few suggestions that the Land Commissioners should be abolished and that the Minister, the civil servants or inspectorial staff of the Department of Lands should take over the powers and functions that the commissioners now hold. I am referring to the excepted matters which are in Section 6 of the 1933 Act and are restated in Section 10 of the present Bill. The security of tenure of every farmer in this country depends on the fact that lay commissioners hold these powers. Being a farmer myself, not a very big farmer, I want to make it clear that I would be the very first to oppose strenuously any attempt to take away these excepted matters from the commissioners because it would undermine the security of tenure of every farmer in the Twenty-Six Counties. Realising the seriousness of such a step as that I hope that Deputies will reflect seriously before they tamper with the present system that has obtained all through the years since the 1923 Act and which was repeated in the 1933 Act. For the sake of tidying up and keeping land legislation as neat as possible I find it necessary to repeal Section 6 of the 1933 Act, but I have re-embodied the principal portion of it with only a very slight change in Section 10 of this Bill.

Thirty-three Deputies all told have spoken on the Bill and I am sorry to say that a good many of them did not seem to have read the Bill at all. It was more like a debate on the Estimate than a discussion on the Bill and there are many points in the Bill which have been dealt with only by very few Deputies. I should say that Deputies Ben Maguire, Commons, McQuillan, Captain Cowan and Ruttledge, together with Deputy Moylan, came closest to the points in the Bill. Other Deputies, I am sorry to say, wandered completely away from it. I must say that Opposition Deputies pulled quite a formidable number of ghosts out of the cupboard and galloped them round the House for the last three days, and the poor ghosts must be out of breath. They complained that the Minister was taking powers that no Minister had before. I certainly am taking powers that no Minister had before and I am glad to do it. The power referred to is that a senior inspector of the Land Commission will now have the authority to sanction a rearrangement scheme, but most of the Deputies who seemed afraid of that power were not from the West or from the congested areas.

While it would be most undesirable that the Minister should have the power to acquire or allot land—I would be the very first to oppose it—a rearrangement scheme is entirely different. A rearrangement scheme in the congested areas is the putting together and enlargement of holdings on which the tenant already resides. From the legal point of view perhaps it is really allotting land; it is getting the tenants to give up their rights for a split second and then go back into the new enlarged holding. There have been many delays and useful rearrangment schemes have fallen through during the Fianna Fáil period and since because there is no need for a rearrangement scheme to come up to the commissioners. A rearrangement scheme is not Land Commission at all. It is a scheme of the tenants who are being rearranged and a scheme cannot be put through until every single one of the tenants in an area which is being rearranged agree. It is not a scheme of the Land Commission or the Minister or the inspectors on the job down the country. It is the tenants' own scheme. As soon as the tenants have sanctioned that scheme amongst themselves and have agreed to take something from the inspector, it does not matter who sanctions it. That is the big difference between sanctioning a rearrangement scheme and the actual allotting of a person to a holding, whether he has surrendered a holding in a congested area or whether it is a new holding to a landless man. I do not propose to touch those. I would not touch them. If I were in Opposition or were a Deputy on this side, I would oppose any Minister touching them, for the reasons I set out at the beginning.

It has been suggested that the Minister now can favour some of his own supporters, if he wishes, in his own constituency and can favour the supporters of other Government members if they come to him. First, let me say that that is a very foul reflection on the inspectoral staff down the country. Short as my experience of the Land Commission staff has been, whatever else I have found, I have found them scrupulously honest and correct and I can say they can hold their own with the staff of any other Government Department in this country or in any other country. I suppose that Deputies have approached them from time to time to do things. Perhaps the Deputy did not know those things were wrong. Everyone has asked Land Commission inspectors to do things and in each case the inspector says: "No, I will not do it; first, it may not lie within my power, that is a job for the commissioners; and secondly, if it were within my power, I do not propose to do it, for certain reasons"—and he will give very sound reasons. For that reason, I say it is a foul reflection on the inspectoral staff to say they would give way even now. Suppose I did ask them to interfere in a rearrangement scheme and give John X more land, or at a cheaper rent or annuity than any of his neighbours, that scheme would be gone like a snap, because other people in the townland or area that was to be rearranged would instantly refuse to agree to the rearrangement scheme.

As a matter of fact, the best rearrangement schemes are now going through at a rapid rate, in the case of rundale townlands and intermixed holdings, because the inspector is now adopting the attitude of asking the tenants themselves to point out to him what they would like, what kind of rearrangement and how they would like a particular land striped. Many have gone through that it has failed inspectors for 30 years to rearrange. There is no foundation for any fear. I am not taking any extra power to myself. Let it be clearly understood that the power of a senior inspector to sanction a rearrangement scheme is really not worth anything, for the reason that the success of a rearrangement scheme depends on the tenants themselves.

Another point about Section 23 is the power to purchase land in the open market. Some Deputies have said that abuses will arise. First of all, many did not seem to be clear as to the intention of the Land Commission in purchasing land in the open market. In order to relieve congestion, it is desirable to have a certain type of standard holding. The present method of compulsory acquisition and resumption is a very slow process. I am quite safe in saying that, even with the best intentions and the greatest speed possible, because of the statutory safeguards and because also the lay commissioners in dealing with the people from whom they are acquiring land, have a little touch of humanity. They know they are taking land from a farmer—it does not matter whether he is a big, a middle-sized or a small farmer—and they know they are causing him serious disturbance and a certain amount of fear also. From the time that the proceedings are first instituted until a migrant can be moved in to a holding on that farm, when it is allotted, divided, fenced, and house and outoffices erected on it, a period roughly of two-and-a-half to three years elapses. I have examined the problem from every possible angle and, without endangering the whole structure of fixity of tenure in this country, it would be dangerous to introduce any legislation which would narrow that gap and reduce it to a shorter period than three years.

That has forced me to turn my attention elsewhere for land. I found that, each year in this country, approximately 200,000 acres to 250,000 acres is offered for sale. Whilst the vast bulk of that land does not interest the Land Commission for many reasons, through that stream of land are holdings— readymade holdings on which there are nice slated houses, with valuations ranging from £12 to £20 or £25, holdings which are much nicer and more desirable from the migrants' point of view than any holdings in a new farm. Let it be remembered that the holding which the Land Commission provides is a very raw, bald, cold holding, very often just one block of land, surrounded by a fence on the outside, with no internal fences. Before the farmer can work it, he must divide it into fields and erect fences. There is a nice dwelling house and nice outoffices, but not sufficient outoffice accommodation to include all the things which the most successful type of farmer likes to have. I am referring to the farmer who indulges in mixed farming—a little tillage, a little grazing and some meadow. There is no outoffice accommodation for fowl, pigs, or anything else. The usual concrete walks around the house, that one associates with a neat house and a well-kept house, are not there, nor is the spring well, or perhaps a few fruit trees in the garden.

The truth of the matter is that, even with the present high price of land, we can buy such holdings in the open market to-day from £400 to £700 cheaper than the much poorer class of holding that we supply. That is the reason I introduced Section 23. It does not mean that the Land Commission is going into the open market to buy every holding that comes up for sale. We might not buy one out of 30. Nevertheless, I hope to pick up from 50 to 100 extra migrants' holdings each year by means of Section 23, to supplement the holdings provided under the usual powers that the Land Commission have and will have, of compulsory acquisition and so on, that we are familiar with all over the country.

Many Deputies have asked about the size of the question still remaining. Deputy Cowan asked what kind of a countryside the Land Commission would leave behind it. These are very reasonable questions. The type of countryside I would like to see behind me is a countryside with an eye to the future. Deputy Cowan is the only member, out of 33 who spoke, who dealt with that. He asked whether the economic holdings provided to-day by the Land Commission would be economic or would be only regarded as dens of congestion, in 50 years' time. He was the only one with the foresight to look that far ahead and ask whether what we do now, while it may look nice and very good now and for the next ten years, might prove to be an evil in 40 or 50 years' time. We must try to establish holdings of such a size that, no matter how the wind blows, they will be fairly comfortable and secure. That is the first thing. The size that was the rule during the last Government's period of office has been increased now. I am not satisfied with the increase, however. I have set my cap at around about 20 Irish acres, that is 33 to 35 statute acres. I would much rather see around the 40 mark, if land were more plentiful or more available, as we have no business easing congestion in one place by creating almost as bad a type of congestion in another place. I am sorry to say that that is what happened in the past—to a certain extent, at least. A good deal of blame has been put on the head of the Land Commission.

Deputy Moylan, my predecessor, is in the House now. Let me say quite clearly that the Land Commission have been blamed many times when they should not have been blamed because, while it is true that the Land Commission are free to act within the scope of Section 6 of the 1933 Act and will be free to act within the scope of Section 10 of this Bill, nevertheless, the Government decides what policy the Land Commission shall put into operation. The Land Commission, being good civil servants, are the instrument by which the Government implements its policy. If the Government says "give land to every man with a red head", they must seek out the redheaded men and give them land. If the Government says "give holdings of 10 acres in size with such a dwelling-house and such outoffices", they must do that.

They have always obeyed whatever Government was in office. They obeyed the Cumann na nGaedheal Government when they were in power. They obeyed Fianna Fáil during the 16 years that they were in office and they are only too anxious and willing to implement the policy of this Government. If this Government went out and a new Government were to adopt some new policy that has not yet been thought of or heard of, the Land Commission, being good civil servants, would be the obedient servant of that new Government.

It is all very well to say that the Land Commission did this and that. It is all very well for members of the Opposition now to disclaim all responsibility for what the Land Commission did and to say that they were sheltered by Section 6 of the 1933 Act. No such thing at all. The fact remains that Fianna Fáil, when they came into power, gave, not a vast acreage, but a fairly good acreage of land to people who in some cases did not appreciate it. In some cases holdings were allotted and I am very doubtful as to whether it was not more cruelty than kindness to the allottees to expect them to live on them and work them. To make a successful farmer on a standard holding one needs to be reared on a small holding. Next, one must have had some experience in balancing the budget. If a person is accustomed to wage earning, he is sure of his wage every week and can trim his sails according to that wind. Balancing the budget on the land is quite a different thing because in every year there are perhaps two or three or four lean months and one will not get into the swing of housekeeping in respect of a holding of land in a year or two or three. For that reason it represented a complete change of life for most of these allottees, to throw up their old way of living, whether it was wage earning or anything else, and to go in and live as farmers on standard holdings. I dare say it was intended as a kindness but in many cases it was a cruelty. It should not have been done. The 1946 Act had to be brought in to dispossess many of them. That should not have arisen.

I am very glad that all sides of the House are now keen on one thing, that is, that the relief of congestion must take precedence over every other Land Commission activity. The truth of the matter is that about 5,600 Congested Districts Board holdings and the remainder of the 1933 estates holdings have yet to be rearranged, enlarged, improved and perhaps new dwelling houses, new outoffices, roads, drainage and other improvements have to be provided. In all, 35,000 to 40,000 holdings have yet to be combed out.

I think it was Deputy Beegan who spoke about the Land Commission being slow in vesting. We do not want to shirk our responsibility in vesting these holdings but we do not want to vest these holdings until the holdings are left in fairly right condition. That means getting land, either by compulsory acquisition and resumption on the one hand or through the open market on the other.

Personally, I do not see why we should not make the experiment to see if we can purchase the land that comes on the open market day after day, year after year. It has been said that if we go into the open market we can produce one or other of two evils, possibly a little of both, namely, inflation and deflation of the price of land. Section 23 empowers the Land Commission to purchase in the open market if they so desire. It does not compel them to purchase in the open market. Let me say here, so that it will go on the records of the House, if at any time any serious evil arises from the fact that the Land Commission are bidding or competing in the open market for land I will prevent them at once from continuing to purchase in the open market, and have this faith in the elected representatives of the people to believe that the Minister for Lands who will come after me and the Minister who will succeed him will be open and honest and have an eye to the interest of the people to such an extent that if he finds any evil arising from Section 23 he will not hesitate to come to the House and have it repealed, and to stop the Land Commission from purchasing land in the open market. There is no need to be afraid of it.

It has been said that there will be puffers at these auctions, and so on. I have no experience of it, but I am informed that that sort of thing is very serious at auctions all over the country to-day, so much so, I am told, that many auctions have to be abandoned and the matter fixed by private treaty. I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that the Land Commission are not bereft of brains. They will find a way to overcome that difficulty. Secondly, they cannot be stampeded into giving a price greater than they think is right.

What I anticipate will happen is that an inspector in charge of any particular area, if he finds that there is a holding for sale in the open market will notify the commissioners and will probably get permission to furnish a report on the suitability and market value of the holding. The commissioners will fix a price on the information furnished to them and the inspector will either attend the auction or make arrangements to have a bidder at the auction. I cannot see any evil arising out of that. I know that the Department of Agriculture buy land whenever they want it at public auctions. I know that that Department sends inspectors to purchase purebred stock and premium stock at the Spring Show and the shows at Carrick-on-Shannon, Tralee, Limerick, Cork and other places. I have not heard of any evils arising from their presence at these auctions. They are open auctions. Deputies know that the Department of Agriculture will pay 1,000 guineas or 1,200 or 1,500 guineas for a bull. They buy other stock as well. The Department of Industry and Commerce purchase land when they want it. They also have compulsory powers of acquisition and there are no complaints when they acquire land for aerodromes or any other purpose. The Department of Local Government and county managers have similar powers of compulsory acquisition of land or of purchase. We hear of no evils there.

The whole debate centred around the fact that there were six honest men in the Land Commission, namely, the commissioners and all the rest, including the Minister, were a parcel of rogues who could not be trusted one inch. I do not hold with that at all. By this time, I think, I know both the indoor and outdoor staff of the Land Commission and I have yet to meet the first dishonest man amongst them. The number of ordinary little petty mistakes that do occur, perhaps some of them wilfully, is very slight and since I took office, has never merited dismissal in a single case. I do not see why, when we give them a bit of power, they should turn overnight into a very dangerous crowd of men.

The market value of land has raised a good deal of discussion. Deputy Moylan started off and said that at one time he was under the impression that a penalty should attach to a man who owned land and did not use it. He said that in later years he had a little bit more respect for the rights of private ownership. I agree with him fully that, even although a man does not work his land properly, it is his own property and he is entitled to a fair price just as his next door neighbour who works his land is entitled to a fair price.

The fact remains that the Land Commission want land for the relief of congestion. I do not see why the State should shirk the responsibility of facing this problem. Congestion is an evil with which we find ourselves. The Cumann na nGaedheal Government, when they came in, found it there. No living Irishman is responsible for having created it. But just as the Minister for Health had to tackle the problem of tuberculosis, we must face this problem and we will be failing in our duty if we do not eradicate the evil of congestion.

Deputy Ruttledge pointed out that we should establish the greatest number of people on the land in a fair measure of security. That should be the glorious ideal for which we should all work. While there are pockets of congestion and poverty in the congested areas, the first thing is to clear up these pockets. It is from there that there is the flight from the land. It is there that the evils of unemployment, bad housing conditions and so on, are worst.

A strange system obtained for a good while past that, in the case of unvested land resumed by the Land Commission, the amount given for it was equal to the market value. The price given for vested land was determined on the basis that it should be a price which was fair to the Land Commission and to the seller. I could never understand the wording of that clause, because I often fancied myself at a fair with a bullock or a cow and wondering how, if a buyer came to me and said he wanted to buy the beast I had at a price which was fair to me and was, at the same time, fair to him, if I expected a price of £40 and the buyer expected to get it at £30, we would find a means of bridging the gulf or dividing the difference, so to speak.

From the point of view of justice, the man who is vested and who owns his land should get the market value for it, just the same as the man who does not own it. I am referring now to the unvested tenant who does not own his land. He has only a tenancy to sell—the land is the property of the Land Commission, and hence the term "resumption." Why that man should get the market value for what he does not possess while his neighbour on the other side of the road should get a reduced price for what he does possess is beyond me. I have been reading Deputy Moylan's remarks in the Seanad when opposing a private Land Bill introduced by Senator Counihan and the then Senator Sweetman in relation to market value and I find that he very carefully avoided replying to the Bill at all. We are taking the step now and the motive impelling us to do so is the motive of giving justice to those from whom we are taking over.

The second point is that the fear caused by the knowledge up and down the country that the Land Commission were taking land at a lesser price than it was realising in the open market, or at least what was a fair market value, created endless difficulty for the Land Commission and prevented people who would otherwise have offered their land to the Land Commission from doing so. It caused them, in some cases, to take secret methods of disposing of their land, to the irritation of themselves, their neighbours, the Land Commission and all concerned. I have not the slightest doubt that the giving of market value will result in land being offered to us freely.

I hope that will take place, because, to relieve congestion we want land on a big scale and we want it badly. I am very hopeful that the giving of market value will result in land being offered to us by many people for the first time and I want it to go out from this House that, if we do acquire land, we are prepared to give a fair price. We are not prepared to give a price which is unfair to ourselves for land and for that reason I took very good care not to say in the Bill that we were giving market price but that we were giving market value, because I realise that the money of the taxpayers will be used for this purpose and I am the very last who would allow that money to be used wrongfully or badly.

When an estate, a townland or group of townlands, is about to be rearranged, when the inspector goes in, he is bound to find, as well as occupied holdings, a number of derelict or non-residential holdings, holdings from which the people have fled, as Deputy Commons said. I think it was he who said that the congestion problem was slowly but surely settling itself, because of the flight from the land. That is perfectly true. He knows it and I know it. I know that the Galway Deputies know it, as does every Deputy from an overcrowded constituency. It is slowly but surely settling itself.

I told the House earlier that there were 35,000 to 40,000 holdings in need of enlargement, rearrangement, improvement, etc. I do not want the House by any means to misunderstand me and think that all these 35,000 to 40,000 holdings are residential holdings. If a survey were taken in the morning of these holdings which we have not vested yet and which we are deliberately refraining from vesting until we can improve and enlarge them, I think I would not be far wrong in saying that the truth of the matter would be that from 15,000 to 17,000 of them only would be found to be residential. In other words, holdings have become non-residential at a terrifically rapid rate in the congested areas. Moving around the country, one sees tumbledown houses and signs that families have left, leaving some neighbour to use the holding or to purchase it and double up a number of holdings. When I say that 35,000 to 40,000 have yet to be enlarged and improved, I want it to be clearly understood that, while I have no figures to go on—it is only a suspicion—I think that only about half that number would be found to be residential, and the problem is not as great as we might think.

Deputy Derrig said that we will not see the end of congestion and that neither would those who will come after us. I do not believe that at all. I am very careful not to be overoptimistic. I want to take a hard, cold, businesslike view of the problem. I believe congestion can be settled. It will not be in three, four, five or ten years' time, but I believe that, in about 12 years' time, if the proper effort is made—and, now that I have the backing of the House, it will give me great encouragement to go ahead—and if the effort is kept up, the end of the congestion problem should be in sight. I do not at all hold the gloomy view that it is going to stretch on for the next 50 or 70 years, because if it does, there will not be any need to settle the problem—it will have settled itself. That is the truth of the matter.

The market value of land will go a long way towards easing the problem. It is going, first, to obviate the long legal tangles in which owners of land have involved the Land Commission, because of the fear that the Land Commission were taking their land for less than its market value, and it was very hard to blame them. Some Deputies might go so far as to suggest that the land should be taken from the big men anyway. If we are to have respect for the rights of private ownership, it does not matter whether a man has 1,000 acres or a 1,000 square yards— we must respect his right.

This question of price raised another ghost which was trotted around the House pretty well—the fear that the annuity fixed on the land for which an increased price would be given would be clapped on to the allottee. Let me assure the House that, while the price of land enters into the fixation of the annuity to a certain extent, or in a certain way, the cardinal principle in the matter of fixing the annuity is that the annuity should be determined on the basis of what the land would be able to pay in the bad as well as the good year. While the agricultural community are at present experiencing a wave of prosperity which they never experienced before, we would not be justified in fixing now an annuity which the farmers could bear, but which, if a depression in agricultural produce came in two, three or five years' time, they would not be able to pay, because such a procedure would be nothing short of madness from the Land Commission point of view and from the national point of view as well.

It would have one of two results— either the farmers could not pay their annuities, thereby creating a first-class problem for the Land Commission, or the Land Commission would use its full powers and come down and dispossess the annuitants, and the trouble then would be that, before you could re-allot that land, the annuity would have to be altered. There is a loss on resale, in certain cases—there is no getting away from that. It is not, I must say, serious and will not be serious, even with the increased price which will be paid for land. Nevertheless, my view is that I do not see why— and the present Government does not see why—the State should not sink a certain amount of money in the relief of congestion so that that problem can be brought to an end once and for all and will not be a recurring problem.

Deputy Moylan has spoken of the purchase of land in the open market as likely to make the Land Commission a permanent body. I think I have dealt with that already by saying that I hoped that within 12 years the problem of congestion will have been solved. If Deputy Burke had his way, the Land Commission would not alone be a permanent body but would become a Colossus which would eat up every other Government Department. He wanted us to make roads, to sink wells and to do many other things which are really the function of local authorities. There should be some finality in the work of the Land Commission. The Land Commission was established to buy out the landlords of this country and to make every tenant farmer the owner of his own land. The relief of congestion, the enlargement and improvement of holdings was a secondary matter. From the time the Land Commission was first formed down through the years a vast number of farmers were made the owners of these farms. In recent years we have had in addition the rearrangement and improvements of holdings in the congested areas. Let me say that there are over 50,000 holdings yet to be vested on 1923 Act estates. The Land Commission will be tied down for some years to the work of revesting these holdings and secondly to the work of the relief of congestion.

Mr. Davin

How long will the revesting take?

Mr. Blowick

We are revesting at a rate of from 12,000 to 14,000 holdings per year and in recent years a big number of our staff has been turned over to do work of revesting. I am pleased to report that revesting is proceeding at a much more rapid rate than formerly and we hope that, in four or five years' time when revesting is completed, a big number of our staff can be diverted to other activities and thus speed up the work of the Land Commission.

Deputy Hilliard referred to the question of the amount of the gratuity to be paid under Section 25. The amount of the gratuity will be determined by the commissioners, with all the fair play they can command. It is quite obvious, if we take over a farm on which there are three, four or five employees and one of these employees is, say, a herd who has spent his lifetime in the employment of the previous owner, perhaps succeeding his father in the same position, that that man is entitled to a holding of land because we are taking away his livelihood. The next man may also be an old employee, a cowman or a ploughman who has spent his life in the employment of the previous owner and he too is entitled to a holding if he wants it or alternatively, is entitled to a payment in cash for his services. May I say that we are the only people in the State at present who compensate displaced employees? There is no statutory obligation on us to do so; it is just a practice which has grown up, a right practice, and one that we should like to see carried on.

We come then to the employee who has been working on that farm for one, two or three years. It is right that he also should get reasonable compensation but surely Deputy Hilliard would not ask me to give a man who had been working on that farm for only one or two years, perhaps a young man, the same size of holding or the same type of compensation as we would give to an old herd or a ploughman who had spent his lifetime in the employment of the previous owner? The gratuity in the case of some of these employees who have been a short time on the farm must of necessity be small. In all probability they are young men, unmarried and with the wide world open before them. The fact that they have lost their employment will no doubt entitle them to some gratuity but they cannot be regarded as having the same claim as those who were working all their life on the same farm. The position up to this was that we gave some of these employees a holding on the farm. Some of them did not want holdings but we bad no power or authority to give them a cash compensation as we shall have under this Bill. Some of them did not want holdings but they took them. Some of them did not make a success of these holdings because it meant a complete change in their means of livelihood.

Mr. Davin

They had no capital.

Mr. Blowick

That is so, but apart from that I believe that the lack of success in these cases was due to the change over from being wage-earning employees, getting a fair wage of which they were quite sure on every Saturday night. It was a big change over when they had to try to balance their own budget and might have to wait a couple of months to sell cattle particularly if the fairs were not too good. It is quite different in the case of a successful farmer who knows how to make a few shillings go a long way in a lean period, while he can be very open-handed when money is flush.

There is one question with which I should like to deal and I hope that it will not cause offence to any Deputy. I want to put it forward more by way of instructing Deputies or at least letting them into some inside knowledge of Land Commission affairs. When the Land Commission comes to take over a farm first there is probably a little local whisper that such a farm should be taken over for the relief of congestion. One thing that all Deputies should realise is that the Land Commission is a statutory body charged with the responsibility of relieving congestion provided the Government does not hamstring them by lack of funds. Congestion can never be settled by simply taking over land and reallotting it. The local people would be wrong in determining themselves what land should be taken over for the relief of congestion because if that practice were allowed to gain a foothold, it would mean that any group could surround a neighbour's land and say: "We will take over that land or we will force the Land Commission to do it." Apart from the fact that no local body could do that successfully, there would be no need for the Land Commission if that practice were allowed. Let me make myself clear. I can see ten or 20 neighbours who are congests in a certain area and who require land for the enlargement of their holdings and who think that the Land Commission should come to the rescue. All that is admitted but these people themselves should not determine what land is to be taken over because if that system were allowed to develop, it would mean that land would be taken over at the dictate of a local body and would be divided amongst the people concerned. Each of these people would expect to be left in possession of the land so allotted to them but one glance at the picture will show that if a local body can determine that the land of Mr. X is to be taken over and divided amongst them, then the same number minus one can surround that one next month and ask that his land be taken from him. In other words the system at present in operation is intended really for the protection of those who think that they should have the right to determine what land should be taken over. A great deal of the time of the Land Commission is taken up in answering letters, not that I object to that because the staff is there——

Mr. Davin

Acknowledging letters.

Mr. Blowick

Acknowledging letters. Last year 250,000 letters came into the Land Commission all of which were acknowledged and about 54,000 of these were urgent or important and had to be dealt with off-hand. That will give some idea of the progress made.

I should like to bring home to Deputies how officials' time can be wasted. I am not saying this through peevishness or to deter Deputies from seeking information, because I would like Deputies to have the fullest possible information. It is their privilege and their right. But I would not like to see them abusing the privilege to such an extent that it would hold up matters which they would like to see expedited. It is astonishing the amount of time which is taken up in any 12 months in seeking the necessary information to answer Parliamentary questions. I do not want to be taken as being opposed to supplying information or to the staff seeking out the proper information, because, when a Minister has to give a Parliamentary reply, that reply must be as near the truth as it is possible for the Minister and the staff to give it. For that reason, great pains have to be taken about supplying an answer to a Parliamentary question. If Deputies would have a little patience, particularly about the acquisition of land, when land would be allotted and all that kind of thing, it would really mean a great speeding up of Land Commission activity. Last year alone something like 60 days were taken up in seeking out information for replies to Parliamentary questions. The amount of officials' time taken up in acknowledging letters and supplying information in reply to letters would astonish the House if I revealed it. These are the privileges of Deputies and, if they want to use them, they are entitled to do so. But it is my place to point out that abuse of these privileges has the effect of delaying matters that the people and Deputies would like to see expedited.

This Bill has set out to expedite the relief of congestion and the acquisition of land and, in my belief, it will do far more in that direction than Deputies think. The question of interfering with the lay commissioners has been brought up. There is no interference with the lay commissioners. It is proposed to take two Appeal Tribunal Commissioners off that tribunal and allow them to use their brains and their hands otherwise. The reorganisation of the lay commissioners' work from now on is absolutely necessary, because I anticipate that the Appeal Tribunal work will not reach anything like the volume it did in the years gone by. For that reason, I hold that the Judicial Commissioner who, by the way, is a judge of the High Court and definitely an expert on land prices and valuation and who has the benefit of two very able assessors, will be very well able to deal with any appeals which come before the tribunal in future. I have no doubt that the two commissioners who are now to be put on lay work will contribute very handsomely to the output of the Land Commission.

I do not propose to go over all the points raised by different Deputies because it would take a long time. Some Deputies complained that land was a long time in the hands of the Land Commission. In the case of migrants who have been taken out of congested villages, say, five, ten or 12 years ago, the cause of the trouble is that there has been serious objection to the purchase of holdings without which it would be impossible to rearrange the townland. I want to give these people who deserted their holdings, whether they are in England or America or in Dublin or any local town, in any case where these holdings are needed by the Land Commission, a full and fair price for their holdings and to make a complete job of rearranging the townland. In other words, we want to comb the townland so that there will not be any derelict holdings left behind on which further congests can settle in years to come. I want to give the people holdings which will be convenient and well placed in every way so as to provide comfortable holdings for them. Any other method is useless. As I come from a congested area, I have experience of this matter from having observed the work of the Congested Districts Board before it was abolished in 1923 and the work of the Land Commission down through the years. Any other system would only mean taking a pick here and there and not tackling the problem in a proper way.

I have allotted to each inspector at least an area as big as two or three former landlords' estates. I have asked them to comb these estates out and not to leave any pocket of congestion behind in the form of a holding. I do not want derelict holdings to be left behind which, perhaps, in a few years might be put up for sale with those who settle on them clamouring for neighbours' land. I want to see the small uneconomic holdings wiped out and to give those people who are left as good and as decent a holding as I can, after the Land Commission has finished its work. I want to see these people with decent houses and out-offices and to have the holdings together in one block, if at all possible. I do not want to have the Land Commission going over the same ground again and again, owing to the fact that sometimes public representatives interfere in the Land Commission's work, wanting this done and that done, and perhaps aggravating tenants who have been benefited and urging them not to agree to the Land Commission inspector's proposals. I do not want to see any interference by any public men with the Land Commission inspectors. The Land Commission inspectors have got their instructions to proceed with the work of rearrangement in all these townlands and to deal as fairly as they can with the tenants and not be influenced or turned aside from their work by anybody, good, bad or indifferent.

I am glad that this Bill has made it clear once and for all that the emphasis on the work of the Land Commission in the future shall be the relief of congestion. I believe that the relief of congestion will not stretch out into our children's and grandchildren's time. I am not so pessimistic as Deputy Derrig and other speakers. I believe that the end is in sight. Money will have to be provided for this in a big way. If it is, it will be put into as sound an investment as there is in this State.

I believe that the system that obtained with regard to the value of land was frightfully wrong up to this. There would be just as much justice in the Minister for Health making an order that a chemist should supply a tuberculosis patient who was under treatment with medicine or other things free of charge. If we want land, we must be prepared to pay a price for it. For that reason, we propose to give the market value for it. We are also going into the open market for land. I can assure Deputies that the fears which have been expressed with regard to this are absolutely groundless. If, however, any of these fears are realised, if evil threatens owing to the fact that the Land Commission proposes to go into the open market for land, I give my word that the Land Commission will immediately withdraw from the purchase of land in the open market.

Question put and agreed to.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

When will the Committee Stage be taken?

Mr. Blowick

This day week. I should like to have the Bill passed as soon as possible because, once we have announced our intention to pay the market value for land, the whole question of fixation of prices of acquired land is suspended or held up, at least to a great extent, in the Land Commission. For that reason, I should like to have the Bill expedited as much as possible.

Ordered: "That the Committee Stage be taken on Wednesday, 30th November."

Mr. Kissane

Before what date will amendments have to be put in?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Monday evening.