Land Bill, 1949—Committee (Resumed).

Debate resumed on amendment No. 12.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

Before the debate was adjourned at 6 o'clock I was saying that the particular provision which has been discussed here at some length was one which caused me some apprehension until I had made inquiries regarding it and until I had heard the Minister speak here this afternoon. I would like to say that I have satisfied myself in one particular instance—I am sure there are many others which the Minister can disclose to the House— where seven holdings were involved in a rearrangement scheme, that the original scheme was lodged for sanction in the month of June, 1939, and that the scheme eventually went into operation last month. There is a case where a period of eleven years elapsed and in which only seven holdings were involved. I am certain that it is typical of quite a number of similar cases which have occurred in the Western Province. In that particular case, seven tenants were asked to agree to a scheme whereby their holdings might be rearranged and their conditions bettered. One tenant might say that he objected to a right of way over his land; somebody else might say that he would agree to the scheme if he were given a new hay barn or something else.

In cases of that sort difficulties are bound to arise. Everybody who has any knowledge of rural Ireland must appreciate that. The only way in which such difficulties can be settled is by getting the seven tenants into a room, sitting down with them and discussing with them their individual fears, dislikes and difficulties. Having done so at length, one could say to them: "You are agreed now and we will approve of the scheme here and now." Until you are in a position to do that, it seems to me perfectly clear that you will never solve this particular problem which we are discussing.

Under the present procedure the inspector has no powers except to talk to the tenants. He must meet them and may say to them: "Have you got a scheme in your mind and do you agree on such and such a scheme?" Perhaps, the tenants may say: "Yes." If they do, he puts that in the form of a proposal to the Land Commission. It goes before the commissioners. They will consider it when they have time, and eventually a particular decision is reached. The inspector's scheme will go back to him perhaps two, three or four months later. By that time a number of the tenants, perhaps, have blown hot and cold, so that the scheme, which is eventually agreed to by the commissioners, does not any longer represent the tenants' views.

I suggest, in all seriousness, that a situation of that kind would certainly justify far more powers than are contained in this section. I think that the Minister would be justified in circumstances of that kind, and with the history that there is behind all this, in asking the Dáil for far greater powers than are contained in the Bill. In my opinion, these powers should be given without any question by this House. I say that in view of the fact that we are dealing here with the type of holder whose position is perhaps far worse than that of the farm labourer earning £3 5s. a week—with a man living on a few square yards of land scattered all over the place which has been handed down to him as a legacy through many generations as the direct result of what Cromwell did in this country, we are attempting to-day to solve a problem which goes back 300 or 400 years.

I do not know, as I said earlier, whether Deputy Vivion de Valera's intervention in the debate was perhaps a preprandial prank or whether he had some humorous notion at the back of his mind. I do not know whether he is usually given to playing practical jokes in this House. I would not like to accuse him of that. Therefore I must approach his remarks as if they were intended seriously. In doing that we find that Deputy Vivion de Valera has seen in this simple measure some extraordinary new departure that is going to cause a new threat to the individual liberties of the citizens of this country. He read the section on his feet. I would not like to say he had read it before, but he found that, under this section, the Minister was given all the powers of the Land Commission except the particular reserved powers set out in the section. He went on to say that that was something extremely dangerous, and that the entire residual powers of the Land Commission were being transferred to the Minister—and that some fell political motive was behind that, that it was going to be used presumably against his Party, and certainly against the individual liberties of the people of this country.

I doubt if Deputy Vivion de Valera appreciates that this Land Bill is only one other chapter in the very long story of land purchase in Ireland. We have had countless Land Acts over many years. Each separate Act has merely added another page to the chequered history of land division in this country. If Deputy Vivion de Valera had taken the trouble to consider the matter he would know that the first contribution by his Party to the land purchase code in this country was the Land Act of 1933.

Major de Valera

I referred to it.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

Under Section 6 of the 1933 Land Act seven particular powers are given as reserved powers to the Land Commission and only seven. They have seven particular functions which they can carry out without any interference from the Minister for Lands. Not a single other function or duty can they discharge exclusively on their own authority. Sub-section (2) of Section 6 of the Land Act of 1933 which was introduced by the Party opposite provides clearly that on and after the appointed day the Land Commission, in the exercise and performance of the powers and duties vested in them by law, except the reserved powers, shall carry these out in accordance with the regulations and instructions of the Minister for Lands. Now, that was and is the position to-day. The Land Commission have merely seven exclusive functions which they can perform. Everything else they do they must do in accordance with the policy and the instructions of the Minister.

What does this section propose? This section that Deputy Major de Valera says is some new departure containing terrible consequences for the people proposes to increase from seven to 14 the number of reserved functions to be exercised by the Land Commission. It proposes to give to them all the powers and functions which they now have and adds on to them seven additional powers. If the section is passed into law, the Land Commission, with regard to 14 particular matters set out, matters of considerable importance such as powers to deal with turbary and bogs, are entitled to say to the Minister, "You have no functions here; we shall not listen to you." For that reason, it puzzles me whether Deputy Major de Valera intended to be serious. If he did, it certainly shows that he had not considered the land purchase code even with regard to the enactment of this Bill and the Land Act of 1933. The position is that this section considerably increases the powers of the Land Commission and makes far more clear their present independent position, because these are exclusive functions which they can and will exercise.

The main criticism of the section has been confined to the provision which gives to the Minister the power of selecting the allottees under a rearrangement scheme. I deprecate very much the practice of discussing measures here as if it were a lawyer's day out. I do not think it is helpful. With regard to the particular power now given to the Minister which has been attacked, may I say that there are people who hold from a legal point of view that that power is already in the Minister, that under the Land Act of 1933 he is entitled to exercise that power because, under that Act, with regard to the determination of allottees, the only reserved power given to the Land Commission is the determination of the persons to be selected as allottees of untenanted land? With regard to the particular problem we are dealing with here, it could be argued, and indeed has been suggested, that every tenant being dealt with here is already a tenant on a tenanted holding and that the Minister, even with regard to his present powers, is fully entitled to select particular allottees. I never like having legal quibbles drawn into debates, but by reason of the fact that some Deputies have been tilting at windmills and seeing in this section something which is not in it, it is right to point out that it is possible that that power is already there. It may not be there as clearly as perhaps we should like to see it, but certainly a strong argument can be made that it already exists.

Even if the power is not there already and it is necessary to introduce it now, even if it were a completely new departure and something novel, I think anybody supporting the section is entitled to say that the power which the Minister will now have is limited to a particular small number of cases and to a particular problem. It is limited to holdings held in rundale or intermixed plots, a particular local problem in different parts of the country. It applies to nothing but to that particular problem and is limited in its application to that problem. It merely empowers the Minister with regard to that particular problem to exercise a power of approval, not of selecting, a power to sanction the tenants' own choice of the way in which they want their holdings reorganised.

First of all, this is a limited power; secondly, and this is something that can easily be concealed under the mass of verbiage which we had to-night, from a practical point of view that power can only be exercised with the full approval and consent of the tenants. If even one tenant says: "I do not agree", the particular scheme cannot be carried out. To carry out this, the Minister must have the consent, not of the majority, but of every single person involved in the reorganisation.

That being so, what is the sense of hearing, as we have heard from Deputy Moran, the suggestion that this was some new Clann na Talmhan plot to have the entire western province divided out according to the dictates of political Parties? If this is a serious deliberative Assembly, let us keep it along those lines without introducing red herrings. The power can only be exercised with regard to limited cases and with the consent of the people affected. That is the second point which should be urged by anyone supporting the section. Thirdly, if there were a danger, and it does not exist, of ill consequences flowing from the exercise of this power, there is the undoubted advantage that the Bill gives the Minister power to cut the Gordian knot in order to bring in a reorganisation scheme on the spot and give us, what Deputy Bartley is crying out for in the West of Ireland, speed in the solution of these particular problems.

Mr. Derrig

It is nearly 30 years now since the people of Mayo, which is the county primarily affected by this rundale problem, were assured that there was every prospect under the Land Act of 1923 that this age-old land problem in that county would be solved. With all the energy and enthusiasm of a new Government, the first Irish Government for centuries, a staff was sent down to Mayo composed of the best men the Land Commission could obtain. They fully realised in Dublin that the real problem existed in that county and that the real test as to whether the problem of congestion could be tackled and dealt with arose there. In spite of many years of intense effort and very large expenditure, and in spite also of the exercise—I presume the liberal exercise—of the powers for compulsory acquisition of land and increasing powers for the State to enable them to make provision for congests the problem, of course, was very far from solution. The present Minister has also assured the people of Mayo that this problem of congestion is not very far from solution.

Mr. Blowick

When did I promise that?

Mr. Derrig

In his later and more saner moments when he has come close to the problem and has had an opportunity, like his predecessors, of discussing it in full with his advisers he has rather modified his view and he has given now a figure of 12 years. I presume that that figure of 12 years is the minimum. The fact is that the pool of land which is available for the relief of congestion by exercising the powers the Land Commission has, even in the most stringent manner, become considerably depleted. If we were to take up the attitude that we should concentrate on dividing the whole of the land in whatever part of the country it might be acquired for the purpose of relieving congestion in Mayo and west of the Shannon we have not nearly enough land to provide more than a percentage—I think I might even say a fraction—of the congests of Mayo with reasonable economic holdings. I think the Minister has admitted that there are from 20,000 to 30,000 congests to be dealt with and Deputies can calculate for themselves what amount of land would be required to bring these up even to the comparatively low valuation of £20, or thereabouts, which the Land Commission has fixed as a level for economic holdings and which many experienced Deputies, particularly those who had to make their living on the land, consider to be altogether below the level of what an economic holding should be. In this measure the two contributions that the Minister, with all his boastful statements, all his speeches, all his eloquence and all his oratory in Mayo and elsewhere, has made to this great problem of congestion and of providing these 20,000 or 30,000 people with economic holdings are, firstly, to fix the price for land which is being acquired at the market value.

Mr. Blowick

I guessed that was a sore spot.

Mr. Derrig

That was the first solution. It is a doctrine of despair and defeatism to turn one's back upon the powers of compulsion which are necessary if the State intends to face up to this job that has to be done in so far as this problem can be solved. It cannot be completely solved, but it can be considerably ameliorated. Instead of strengthening his powers the Minister has consigned to himself the rôle of going out into the market trying to get farms of land that will be suitable for potential migrants from these areas; and the State to that extent has shown that under its present administration we are turning our backs on the policy of getting the land by hook or by crook, however we are going to get it, or whatever legislative powers may be necessary to acquire it, to enable us to help to solve congestion. We are turning towards the easy road of pretending that by paying the market price or giving market value and by going into the open market we will get land. Land was not available at the price current before the war, but we are told now, when everybody wants land in order to get into real estate and when the state of the world means that for many years to come land prices must remain at a highly inflated level, we are going out upon that policy.

Side by side with that, the second string to the Minister's bow is this wonderful idea of speeding-up, according to him, the solution of the problem of rundale. One would imagine that no one ever thought of dealing with this problem until the Minister came along.

Mr. Blowick

You certainly did not.

Mr. Derrig

Did the Congested Districts Board, in their long years of service to the people of Mayo and other counties, never stripe land? Why, when we were children, we saw the surveyors of the Congested Districts Board all over Mayo striping land. It went on under the Cumann na nGaedheal Administration. It went on under the Fianna Fáil Administration.

Mr. Blowick

It did not.

Mr. Derrig

With this difference, that under the Cumann na nGaedheal Administration the Congested Districts Board as a separate authority was abolished and its functions were transferred to the Irish Land Commission. The Irish Land Commission was an institution set up for carrying out the necessary processes of transferring the land of this country through the machinery of the various Land Purchase Acts to the Irish tenant farmer. That was its job—it was largely a legal one—and the collection of the annuities. The work of the Congested Districts Board was transferred to the Irish Land Commission. If the problem had been left to the experienced officers and to the old board representative to some extent of the people of the West of Ireland, no doubt that problem would have received more attention. But, on the other hand, it would have suffered from the serious disadvantage, which the Congested Districts Board emphasised on more than one occasion, that while they had ample powers successively granted to them by the British Government and a certain amount of money available, fairly considerable in the times that were, for the carrying out of work in the congested districts they had no power whatever to acquire land outside the congested districts; and it was quite impossible for them to make a substantial inroad upon the problem of congestion so long as the only lands that they could get into the pool for the relief of congestion were in the congested areas themselves. Therefore, the Congested Districts Board itself had it remained, while it could concentrate attention upon the problem, would have had the serious restriction upon its activities that it would be confined to the congested districts counties. The Land Commission was dealing not with the congested districts only but with the country as a whole. It was not alone in the West of Ireland that you had land agitation. You had it, as was stated by a distinguished Irish judge, carried on at the height of the Sinn Féin movement to such an extent that it threatened to engulf the whole national and idealistic side of that movement in agrarian agitation. Were it not that steps were taken to set up land courts and some kind of machinery to deal with the problem, it would have created a very serious obstacle in the pathway of national progress at the time.

The Irish Government had therefore to take over the problem of providing for uneconomic holders in the rest of the country as well as for dealing with congestion in the West. The Land Act of 1923 was designed just as much to increase the holdings of uneconomic holders elsewhere and bring them up to a proper level as to tackle the problem of congestion in the West. But during that period, although the staff of the Congested Districts Board—those who were particularly experienced and who had a particular knowledge of the problem of rundale and the conditions in Mayo and in other such counties generally—gradually began to disappear this problem was not neglected. Large areas of land were acquired. Migration on a large scale was carried out and if there was criticism of the large sums of money that had to be expended in order to enable these migrants from Mayo, Connemara, Donegal, Kerry and wherever they came from to come up and find a living in another part of the country, it was not from the Fianna Fáil Deputies the criticism came.

An Ceann Comhairle

I understood that amendment No. 12 was being discussed.

Mr. Derrig

Yes.

An Ceann Comhairle

But surely it does not entail all this.

Mr. Derrig

We have heard a suggestion from the Minister that nothing was done by his predecessor in office. I want to say that far more was done than the Minister will ever do and that at the end of all the Minister's posturings this problem of congestion in Mayo will not be solved and that it is only deceiving the people of Mayo to pretend that under this ridiculous clause about rearrangement you are going to effect a substantial change in the condition of the people. How can you deal with rundale unless you have additional land to provide for the people? Does this Bill itself not admit that additional land is necessary? Do we not know that the problem of the seven tenants of whom Deputy O'Higgins spoke— whose cases, he said, were held up from 1939 to 1950 because it was impossible to get their consent, presumably, to a rearrangement of their holdings—could probably have been settled had there been sufficient land available to give them the necessary additions that would persuade them to say to the inspector that they were satisfied with the rearrangement scheme and that they were going to have it?

Mr. Blowick

They said that three times before, but by the time the matter came to the ex-Minister's office and went down again half the people in the village were dead.

Mr. Derrig

The Minister suggests to us that in order to get the consent of these seven persons, to get them to sign their names to a document in Castlebar or wherever it may be, it is necessary for him to interfere with the judicial functions of the Land Commission and to take away from them powers that they had under all previous legislation up to this time. If the Minister can find no other way of dealing with this problem, if there is a problem there, of getting a decision on these matters more speedily I think he could not have sought a more awkward or more ridiculous way in which to secure a solution.

Mr. Blowick

The Deputy did not seek any one at all.

Mr. Derrig

We sought a solution when we made it quite clear in the 1933 Act that so far as the judicial or quasijudicial functions of the commissioners were concerned—and particularly any dealings with the allotment of land, the selection of allottees, the fixing of the price of land—the Minister would have nothing to do with the matter and even though in the 1933 Act these clauses reserving these particular functions to the commissioners were included for the first time in legislative form, they were attacked and it was said that the Minister must have had something up his sleeve. What did the Minister gain by putting down these things in black and white? We are not taking up the attitude that the Minister should not have complete authority. He has it under the existing land code, over the officers and servants of the Land Commission, but we have to take cognisance of the fact that these commissioners collectively are a judicial body. The Opposition would be failing in their duty if they allowed the Minister to infringe upon the prerogatives of that body. Apart from that, when the Minister as senior Deputy for one of the most congested constituencies in this State comes along and coolly tells the Dáil that not alone is he going to trespass upon their prerogative and that in one particular matter—the determination of who shall be allottees and the price at which land is going to be sold to such allottees—he is going to take it away from the sphere of action of the commissioners and transfer it into his own hands, it is surely an entirely new precedent.

I wonder what our Taoiseach and the other legal members of the Government would think or what they would say if they were sitting where we are sitting this evening and were discussing a proposal of a Fianna Fáil Minister to take away some of the functions in connection with the selection of allottees and the fixation of the price of land in respect of such allottees from the commissioners and to hand over the determination of these questions to the Minister? The Order Paper to-day has shown and the frequent references in the past to the influence of Fianna Fáil clubs show that whether Deputies believe it or not they were prepared in this House and outside and throughout the country to suggest that the Minister for Lands had power to give land to those whom he considered suitable from a political point of view. There was no foundation whatever for those allegations. Possibly some of those who made these statements did not realise that. But those are the gentlemen who come along now and ask us to swallow this beautiful little provision that, instead of the functions which hitherto were exercised by the Land Commission in respect of the allotment and the price of land—wherever the allotment was to be; whether in connection with a rundale rearrangement or otherwise—a definite hole should be made in the barrier which prevents the Minister from interfering in these particular functions of the commissioners and they should be transferred to his own shoulders. What is very noticeable in the speeches of Deputy O'Higgins and even in the contributions of the Minister himself is that no case whatever has been made to show how this can speed up the question of the settlement of rundale plots.

We know that additional land will be required and there can be only a very limited number of cases where the Minister, no matter what the machinery at his disposal, can go down and have a reasonable chance of securing agreement. I maintain that in the vast majority of cases additional land will have to be provided, either in the place where the rundale exists so that additions will be given to some of the tenants, or that some of them will have to be transferred elsewhere out of the area altogether and the holdings they leave behind them divided amongst their neighbours. One thing or other will have to be done. Is it the position that the question of the provision of additional land does not arise?

We are asked here to recognise that it does because we are told: "the expression ‘rearrangement scheme' means a scheme which is framed or approved by an officer by virtue of sub-section (2) of this section for the rearrangement of lands held in rundale or intermixed plots whether with or without the distribution of other lands to facilitate the said rearrangement."

There is a clear admission that you cannot have, in a great many cases, any prospect of getting the consent of the tenants to a rearrangement plan unless you give them additional land. You are therefore going to acquire land; you are going to fix a price upon it; you are going to decide who is going to get the land and how it is going to be divided amongst different tenants whose lands you want rearranged. Surely, as Deputy Vivion de Valera pointed out, it is quite clear from the way in which clauses (d) and (e) are worded that the determination of these matters in connection with rearrangement schemes has been determined by the legal advisers of the Government to be included in the terms of the 1933 Act dealing with allotment and prices in the corresponding section—I think Section 6 of the Act—and therefore it has been necessary to exclude them in the rather peculiar fashion in which they are excluded here, a matter which we shall discuss later on in another connection.

Instead of taking the responsibility boldly upon himself and telling the House what he proposes to do the Minister seeks, as has been pointed out by Deputy de Valera, by a process of elimination to get back to himself powers that he had handed over to the Land Commission under the existing code. My complaint against the Minister is that he has made no effort to show why this abstraction of some of their functions from the Land Commission is necessary. No effort whatever has been made to show why, in order to secure the speeding up and rearrangement that is necessary, the Minister in this extraordinary way should take this power, hitherto regarded as a judicial power, from the Land Commission into his own hands.

Is it suggested that the Land Commissioners do not know their job? In spite of the fact that we must admit that their attention has been directed mainly to land acquisition in other parts of the country, trying to build up a pool of land for migrants and the many other problems with which the Land Commission deals, is it suggested that the commissioners are not capable of dealing with this problem of rundale? If the commissioners have the capacity to instruct their officers to deal with problems of land acquisition, the inspection of land and the fixing of prices, arrangements for improvements and the building of houses in the rest of the country, is it suggested that the commissioners are not capable of dealing with this problem in County Mayo? If it is the Minister's contention that the staff must be strengthened in County Mayo and must be concentrated on this particular problem, that a special senior inspector must be entrusted with this work, is there any reason why the senior inspector should not carry out this work in Mayo in connection with the rearrangement of rundale holdings, as he may be doing in other parts of the country at present in connection with other branches of the work?

I think I have said enough to establish that no case has been made by the Minister to show that any speeding up is likely to take place. Even if he can prove that to the satisfaction of the House, I suggest that the Dáil ought to make quite sure that there is a case and that the only possible solution for bringing about the speeding up of the rearrangement problem is by the steps the Minister suggests, and that they can only be effected by interfering with the functions of the Land Commission in this very arbitrary and unprecedented way, taking away from them completely the power and the essential basis of dealing with the problem of congestion in Mayo and other such counties.

Mr. Fagan

At the outset I did not understand this section but the discussion has brought home to me the problem as it affects my county. Since 1933, when I became a Deputy, I have written in every year recommending people for one farm in my constituency. I know that it is a Land Commission farm. I know that the Land Commission inspectors went down several times and drafted a scheme to give that house and farm to a certain person. Under that scheme they went to certain smallholders and they rearranged their holdings. In one case a farmer living beside one of the smallholders agreed to give the smallholder a bit of his farm in order to make the holding economic. I have here the records of the Land Commission. There were five or six schemes prepared but that farm is there yet and nobody went into it. It is set every year. It is only now that I see what is the cause of that. On several occasions I made representations to the Land Commission in regard to the rearrangement of five or six holdings in certain districts in my constituency. I know that schemes were made out but I understand from the Land Commission that it takes a year or two to fix up all this. Then when the schemes go back there may be some falling out between the neighbours. When the inspector went back and everything appeared to be ready, the men who were getting land changed their minds. It is time to bring about an improvement in that connection.

The Minister is taking power in this Bill to send down an inspector. When he gets the people together you can imagine what good a scheme like that will do in a congested district like Mayo. In one case in my county there is a Land Commission house with 30 acres attached and there was nobody in it since I became a Deputy, or some time afterwards. If you ask the Land Commission inspectors you will find that there were four, five or six schemes of rearrangement laid out and then the people changed their minds and would not come in.

Mr. Blowick

There were 13 different schemes and all because they had to come up to Dublin they were broken up.

Mr. Fagan

If the Minister takes power to send down an inspector he may be able to get men of commonsense to sit down and be willing to sign. In that way you will do away with a lot of trouble and you will solve a big problem. I cannot understand the attitude of the Leader of the Opposition when he says that you will be giving people a present of a farm. In no case that I know of was there a present of a farm. This is only a scheme of rearrangement. I am sick listening to lawyers inside this House. If the Opposition had any sense at all they would let this section go through because it will do a lot to relieve congestion. Everyone knows that time does a lot of things and changes a lot of minds and when you have an inspector doing things in a commonsense way there is every possibility of a satisfactory solution of the problem because schemes can be sealed there and then.

Mr. Commons

If Deputy Derrig during the time he was Minister for Lands approached the land problem with half the determination he displayed here this evening, and if he used that loud shout of his to more advantage in the Land Commission and awakened some of the officials out of their slumbers there, he would have done a lot more good for the country than he is pretending to do here to-night. Anybody who is a stranger to the House and who is not familiar with the antics of the same Deputy would think that he was quite sincere and genuine, but I happen to know perfectly well, because unfortunately, I was at one time a loyal supporter of that Party, the way the matter of land division was carried out by the Fianna Fáil Party; I know what Deputy Derrig and other Minister of the Fianna Fáil Party allowed to be carried on without as much as batting an eyelid or taking notice; I know the way things were done, particularly in the Department of Lands.

Irrespective of what Deputy Derrig or any of the other ex-Ministers of the Fianna Fáil Government have said, the one thing that concerns this House is the speeding up of land resettlement. If land resettlement were tackled properly in the past, if the Congested District Board's powers were extended in its time so that they could take over land in the congested areas, I believe this problem would have been solved long ago and there would be no need in this Parliament for a Department of Lands. Even if there were such a Department its only duty would be to take charge of the collection of the annuities and look after forestry matters, because land resettlement would definitely be at an end.

Something must be wrong when this terrible delay still exists. The different types of legislation that have been brought in have, to my own knowledge, quite a lot to do with the slowing up to which we have been accustomed for such a long time. We were told that the 1933 Act contained certain provisions and judicial powers were given to safeguard the people from whom land was to be taken and the people to whom it would be given and to safeguard also the Minister, and we were assured that there would be no political interference and no political pull used. We were told one of the main reasons for that Act was the action of the Cumann na nGaedheal Government in giving land to people who were not deserving applicants.

I have been, I am, and I will be, opposed to the giving of judicial status to any group of men outside those who administer the Department of Justice. While I welcome the power the Minister is taking under this altered section as compared with what was done under the 1933 Act, I believe it is not nearly severe enough, because the determination of everything that is carried on within the Land Commission should be vested entirely in the hands of the Minister for Lands, irrespective of what Party he belongs to.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy wants a wider debate now.

Mr. Commons

I am speaking of the powers the Minister is taking over and I feel I should be able to raise this point. We who live in congested areas know that when the resettlement of a district is set about the scheme is prepared by the local Land Commission inspector. There is no better judge of the conditions in the locality than the inspector who lives there and who visits each holding and little parcel of land. He is conversant with the different tenants and landowners. He knows what should be done and how the land should be rearranged. He has sufficient knowledge to have the final say in how that land should be resettled. We know perfectly well, and if the Minister will but admit it, he has had experience in the last month of a scheme that was almost broken up because of the delay in giving sanction to a scheme that was sent up to the Department for sanction.

It is the natural instinct of everybody who is to be resettled to work the Oliver Twist trick of old and ask for more. When a scheme is shown to the people, if they have time to think about it one neighbour may object because the field he is giving over may be of a better quality than the one he is getting in resettlement. Again, a pathway or road may not satisfy the needs of another individual, and in many cases if time is given to the people to consider matters there are quite a number of them who would definitely not put their signatures to the scheme and in that way they would hold up something which has caused endless trouble and expense and wasted a lot of time in an effort to bring about a resettlement.

Therefore, I think this is the most useful amendment to the 1933 Act that could possibly be brought in and this determination is something which should definitely be approved and powers should be given to the divisional inspectors in accordance with the provisions in the Bill.

The Minister may be accused of having the final say in this matter. Of course, the civil servants of the Land Commission are directly responsible to the Minister, but the Minister in turn is directly responsible to the people who put him here and the Government are directly responsible to the people all over Ireland who put them into this Parliament to pass legislation to remedy whatever social evils exist.

The Minister has decided that he is to have a certain say, that he is to have power to upset this old, creaky system. I think what he is claiming is perfectly right and just. I know from my own experience that he is doing something which will be appreciated by the congests in Mayo and along the western seaboard where so much congestion exists.

The most amusing part of this debate was the contribution made by Deputy de Valera, senior, and by Deputy de Valera, junior. Anybody who listened to Deputy de Valera, senior, speaking on this could not but come to the conclusion that he did not know what he was talking about. He told us about some gifts which were going to be given to people for nothing, and of a rearrangement scheme as if it were one for people who had no land to offer in return. His speech reminded me of a statement that he made many years ago when he suggested that every farmer, no matter what the size of his holding was, should build a house on it for his eldest son when he became of age so that he could get married. That definitely shows how much he knows about this problem of land resettlement.

Deputy de Valera, junior, took a different line, but I can forgive him for not being familiar with this problem of congestion. I suppose the Minister and myself and many other members of this House can be forgiven if we are not very familiar with legislation or with the procedure of the courts. I suggest that if lawyers enter into a debate like this and feel that they have not a perfect understanding of the subject, the best thing they could do would be to sit down and leave the discussion to be carried on by those lawyers who do know something about legislation and congestion. We have talked so much on this subject of congestion and passed so much legislation dealing with it that, in my opinion, instead of making it easier to solve the problem, we are creating a sort of paradise for those who wish to punch pot-holes in the different Land Acts and thus delay a speedy ending of the whole business.

Deputy Derrig told us that the land pool was running out. We know that without getting any enlightenment on it from the Opposition. We also know that there is quite a good land pool still left. We know that there is an immense amount of land still being let on the eleven months' system for grazing. We know too that an immense amount of land has been purchased by people who should not be allowed to purchase land in this country. We know that there is a large amount of land in the congested areas. Congestion there is slowly but surely solving itself by reason of the fact that people have got tired of waiting for resettlement and have cleared out. There is all that land, and there is no doubt but that if a genuine effort were made an immense amount of work could be done towards bringing about a solution of this question. I am inclined to agree with those who say that it is doubtful if we will ever see the end of the congestion problem. We can argue all day about bringing those congested holders up to a proper standard of living. It is something that it will be very hard to do.

I think that the Minister is very just and fair in not accepting the amendments moved by Deputy Moylan or Deputy Cogan. I had 20 questions on the Order Paper to-day addressed to the Minister for Lands. My colleague, Deputy McQuillan, had something like the same number down.

Mr. Moylan

Six markers.

Mr. Commons

I could have 20 different ones next week, all pointing to the need for resettlement. The Minister was forced, not through any fault of his but through the fault of that something which is preventing this resettlement, to give the answers to these questions which were given here 20 and 25 years ago to Deputies of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. If something is not done to alter the legislation, the very same questions will be asked here in ten or 15 years' time and the answers will be the same as they have been in the past. Therefore, why should we, who profess to know that that evil is there, object when something is going to be done to overcome the obstacle that is standing in the path of this resettlement?

I think the Minister is doing a very sensible thing in giving to his senior officials the powers which he proposes to give them. For my part, I have more confidence in those senior officials in the Department of Lands, and in the officials through the country who are administering the land code, than I have in the judicial members of the Land Commission. I make no secret of that. If the majority in this House were of the same mind as I am, we would very soon put the judicial gentlemen where they should have been put long ago—that is, out of existence as far as land legislation and the land code are concerned.

Mr. Bartley

If I were satisfied that the Minister was taking the powers which Deputy Fagan and Deputy Commons seem to believe he is taking, I would feel quite happy. I have the same purpose in view that Deputy Commons has, but I think the Deputy will find that the wool is being pulled over his eyes in this matter. As far as I see, the formulation of a rearrangement scheme will continue to be an excepted matter when this Bill is passed.

Mr. Blowick

A while ago you said the opposite.

Mr. Bartley

The naming of the allottees in such schemes will no longer be a reserved matter. Will Deputy Commons tell me what advantage it is going to be to give the Minister the power to name the allottees if he wants to use the powers he has got already?

Mr. Commons

Read paragraphs (d) and (e).

Mr. Bartley

I have read them. When I read them first I took the same view of them as the Deputy, but I have changed.

Mr. Blowick

You are wearing your heels at that kind of work.

Mr. Bartley

I would ask Deputy Commons to read for me the words which give the Minister the power to formulate these rearrangement schemes. It is clear that he has taken power to name the allottees. I would not object to that so much, although I think the principle is unsound, if I thought he was going to use it in connection with the powers which he has under sub-section (2)—that is the formulation of these rearrangement schemes in conjunction "with or without" other lands. If I thought he was going to use these powers in relation to lands, no matter where they are situated in this country, I would go a long way with him, I believe Deputy Commons will in time find out that what I am saying is correct. Does the Minister now state that he is giving himself powers to initiate rearrangement schemes? I think he has sufficient powers and staff to go ahead and get some speed into this job without Section 10 at all. That is all I want him to do.

Mr. Blowick

Why did not your Minister speed it up?

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy must be allowed to speak.

Mr. Bartley

I accepted the implications in toto of the Emergency Powers Acts of 1939 which injured us very much in the West of Ireland in regard to this particular matter. All I want the Minister to do is to allow the machine to operate, to allow the powers to operate as they are capable of operating and to ask the Land Commission to get down to the job. I know they have been at it since the end of the war. They have done some very good work in my constituency since then. There was a long period from the beginning of the war, but they have done very good work since. I do not cavil in any way at the work the Land Commission does. Anything I have seen done by them was quite good. There is no necessity to give the Minister any powers in relation to this because the Powers are quite ample. I am satisfied that, because of what the Minister now proposes to do, there will be a slowing down in regard to this.

I should like Deputy Commons to examine this question in the light of his experience. The Minister referred to rearrangement schemes which do not require migration. He made that remark in reply to a question of mine earlier this evening. Let us take a case in which there are ten tenants and the holding requires to be rearranged. I give the Minister four of these tenants as being adherents of his Party, three to Fine Gael and three to Fianna Fáil.

Heretofore, it has been very difficult to get the adherence of the tenants because nobody knew what particular lot would come out of the hat. Under the power the Minister is now taking, the four Clann na Talmhan adherents amongst the tenants will consent immediately. Whatever about the three Fine Gael men, the three Fianna Fáil men are going to be more hesitant under this new arrangement than they were formerly. The four Clann na Talmhan men will use their local Clann na Talmhan Deputy to see that they get the allotments which they have their eyes upon. They will know how the townland will be divided. Most of these people will divide it themselves. If they find that the Clann na Talmhan Deputy is not able to get them the allotments on which they have their eyes, the fat will be in the fire. You will have problems like that cropping up and the consent will be very difficult to get because of the Minister interfering. The Minister must know of cases in which that is likely to happen. Can he not see that he is queering the pitch rather than helping? Will he not leave the position as it was and let the Land Commission operate? They are quite capable of operating and only require to have the skids put under them to get them moving.

Mr. Blowick

Deputy Bartley has got a poor opinion of the intelligence of the average farmer, whether he wants rearrangement or whether he does not want it. Let me tell him that when I took over office every inspector was warned of what would happen if he allowed himself to be influenced in the slightest by any public man, namely, immediate dismissal. If Deputy Bartley or any other Deputy tries to interfere with an inspector of the Land Commission in the discharge of his duty, particularly in the allocation of land, the only result of such interference will be that he will be the cause of that unfortunate man having to look for another job. I was most interested in the contribution of Deputy Derrig. Three things emerged from his very noisy speech. He was very perturbed about the fact that we are to pay the market value for land. That is strange to me.

An Ceann Comhairle

I thought we had settled that.

Mr. Blowick

Deputy Derrig made a reference to which I should like to reply. I ask him to explain what he meant when he said that once the State admitted this new principle of the market value for land he could not see how we could ever go back on it. I do not think it is too much to ask the State to do what every honest man would like to do, and that is to give a fair price for what he is buying. I hope that no Government will ever attempt to go back on that principle. If any Government wants me as a Minister to purchase land at less than its value and act as a kind of nationally-appointed rogue I will not do it. They will have to get some other man to do it.

The second thing that perturbed Deputy Derrig was the section before the House. Deputy Derrig was Minister for Lands for a period, Deputy Aiken was Acting-Minister for Lands for a period and Deputy Boland was also Minister for Lands. As a matter of fact, Fianna Fáil could fill the whole Front Bench with ex-Ministers for Lands. They did very little with regard to rearrangement of holdings when they were on the Front Bench. I have no business explaining the details of what this departure from the old system means, because Deputy Derrig apparently does not understand it or would not even if I explained it to him. I cannot help that. The system as it obtained up to this did not work. The system that I am trying to put into operation I believe will work. I am certain that it will work and that it will bring relief to people who for many years have been expecting Government after Government to do something for them which these Governments would not do.

Deputy Derrig is more interested in what particular duties the commissioners will have than he is about relieving congestion. I am much more interested in the work of the Land Commission than the particular work that any official is engaged in. The old system did not work and Deputy Derrig knows it. He wants to make out that there was a great amount of migration carried out. What rearrangement was carried out in Galway, Donegal, Mayo, Clare or any of the scheduled congested counties during the Fianna Fáil term of office?

The fact remains that there was nothing done although they had land on hands. In the early years of their Administration they took up land and gave it to those who did not appreciate what they had got. Ten years later, under the 1946 Act, they evicted these people out of the land because they had not worked it, and the Land Commission is still engaged in taking up these holdings from people who did not honour their agreement. Fianna Fáil made a complete mess of the job. The fact is that Fianna Fáil knows now how things should be done and they want to stop me from doing them. They will not stop me. Inside an hour Deputy Bartley said that this section, if left unamended, would be one of the greatest disasters if put on the Statute Book and now he says it is not so bad. Evidently, he got a schooling from somebody who told him that it was all right for Deputy Derrig who represents a constituency that has not much congestion, luckily enough for themselves. He was evidently told that it does not matter much and the Leader of the Opposition was told the same thing. Deputy Major de Valera made an eloquent legal speech and succeeded in talking for 25 minutes without saying anything. Deputy Bartley has apparently realised his position. Deputy Fagan astounded me when he said he was familiar with and had a case in point in Westmeath under this particular section. If the position is as was stated in Westmeath, then it is time to open our eyes and do something about this problem of rearrangement.

The basis of this section is to try to do away with congestion and the overcrowding, which, as Deputy O'Higgins has pointed out, resulted from Cromwell's work 300 or 400 years ago, the results of which still leave their mark upon us. The Land Commission has been blamed for not doing this, that and the other. Because of the statutes passed in this House, within the framework of which the Land Commission has to operate, that body was in the position of being asked to run a race and win with their feet securely tied. Fianna Fáil now wants to put a couple of more ropes on them. I will not have that. I want to get work done. There is nothing sinister in this measure. I made an offer to Deputy Moylan.

Mr. Moylan

The Minister can stop thumping the table. I can hear him quite well.

Mr. Blowick

I made an offer to Deputy Moylan before the Adjournment that I would accept any amendment he might put forward which would set his fears at rest. All he has done is to give a few snorts and take complete fright at the entire section. He wants to destroy the section altogether. I maintain the section is all right as it is. If the Deputy can prove to me that he can make it more watertight along the lines I indicated to him I will accept on the Report Stage any amendment he puts down. But I shall not accept a complete disruption of the Bill. It would be just as effective to abolish the Land Commission altogether as to establish a situation where one would have a Department of lands supposed to carry out certain work but prevented by legislation from the actual carrying out of such work.

Dáil Éireann debate - Thursday, 2 Mar 1950

Land Bill, 1949—Committee (Resumed).

Major de Valera

A Deputy

Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 2 Mar 1950