Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 27 Apr 1950

Vol. 120 No. 9

Committee on Finance. - Vote 47—Lands (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:—

That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration.

Mr. P.D. Lehane

I want to congratulate the Minister on taking the important and courageous step of seeing that those whose land is taken from them get a fair and reasonable price for it. The position which obtained up to now was that, if a person had the misfortune to have a vested holding, he got whatever price it suited the Land Commission to pay him and not the market price or market value of his land. That is something which was very wrong, particularly when, in the case of resumed holdings or unvested land, the market value had to be paid.

I should like to congratulate the Minister also on the amount of work done by his Department during the past year. I understand from the Minister's statement that, during the past year, something like 1,300 uneconomic holdings were brought up to what the Minister and the Land Commission regard as an economic level. That was a considerable achievement. I am also glad to note that, during the past year, something like 17,000 holdings were vested, the highest number ever vested and a figure which compares with 10,000 in the previous year. So far as distribution is concerned, there was a considerable increase in the amount of land distributed last year and it is an evidence that the Department are at least active in some respects, even though they are very inactive in others.

One point I want to put to the Minister is that it is a mistake to take over lands which are adequately and properly worked and which are giving decent employment in a particular area and to divide these up and so create in the area a rural slum where previously there were reasonable conditions for both the proprietor and employees on the land. I know in certain areas that land has been taken over and some of the employees given what I regard as uneconomic holdings, with the result that that farm has been turned into a rural slum in which the unfortunate people are unable to eke out an existence on the few acres they have got. They would have been much better off if the estate had been left at the level it was, with these people getting employment at reasonable, decent remuneration.

I should like also to direct the Minister's attention to the expressed views of his colleague, the Minister for Agriculture. The Minister for Agriculture on several occasions has emphasised that mechanisation in agriculture is of vital importance. Tractors are of great importance if we are to have decent production, and milking machines are also necessary, and the Minister has gone so far in emphasising this point as to refer to the stick tied on to the donkey's tail. If we are to have economic holdings which will be suitable for tractor work and for maintaining milking machines, we cannot break up some of these economic holdings which exist at the moment in County Cork and substitute small holdings for them and hope to employ tractors and milking machines on them.

I believe the Department has done a good deal of necessary work. I believe the Department and the Land Commission have made a great number of mistakes, and I believe the Department and the Land Commission are the slowest bodies in the world to move. There is one scheme in my constituency which is affecting a wide area of land. I refer to the Minane Bridge reclamation scheme with which the Department has been fiddling and tinkering for the past 20 years, but in respect of which nothing has been done. We have been told that Nero fiddled while Rome was burning, but the Land Commission is fiddling while acres and acres of land are being inundated and while bridges, churches and houses are being undermined due to the ineffective work of the Land Commission.

On 18th April, 1948, over 24 months ago, I asked the Minister about this problem and the Minister said it was under consideration. On 25th of May, 1948, I asked the Minister again about this scheme and he told me there were technical difficulties. I asked the Minister in June, 1949, and there were still technical difficulties. I asked the Minister yesterday and there were other difficulties. I asked the Minister on another occasion and he told me there were eight graduates of the National University and I think one graduate of Trinity College working on the scheme.

On that occasion I asked the Minister would he ask the Department of Agriculture to give him one efficient, energetic engineer for a week to enable him to get the scheme completed. I do not know what is happening about that, but I know that years ago the county council, because their bridges and roads were in danger, came to the Department of Lands and offered to make a contribution to the cost of the scheme. I know that the Bishop of Cork, because the parish church in Minane was being undermined, came to the Department of Lands and offered to pay part of the cost. I know that all the farmers in the area came to the Department of Lands and offered to pay part of the cost. But the Land Commission, with their eight or nine engineers, are still finding technical difficulties.

This is something that I think the Minister should exert himself about. He should not be satisfied with the tuppeny-ha'penny excuses passed up to him. If he is Minister and head of the Department he should see that something is done about this matter. This has been going on for years and is causing greater damage every day it is allowed to continue. I accuse the Minister for being responsible for having a number of inefficient people in charge of his Department if they have to take years and years to do something which, if it were to be done under the land reclamation scheme, would have been done, without any of the red tape of any of these eight or nine engineers interfering, in about five or six months at the outside.

I do not blame the Minister altogether. His predecessor had this scheme before him for a number of years. Whether it was his predecessor was at fault or the officials of the Land Commission I do not know. But, whoever is at fault, the Minister is the head of the Department and there is a work which requires to be done immediately, requires to be done with much greater speed even than some of the work which is being done under the land reclamation scheme. If the Minister cannot do it, if the Department of Lands find that their engineers and staff are inefficient and futile, will they pass it over to the Department of Agriculture to include it under the land reclamation scheme? It will cost the people whose lands are affected less than under the other scheme; it will not cost the Diocese of Cork anything and it will not cost the county council anything if it is done under the land reclamation scheme.

I do not want to change the system which has been operating for a number of years, but I want to tell the Minister that the people in my constituency are not satisfied with the answers which he has given. I do not blame the Minister altogether for them, because these answers were handed up to him from his Department. The people do not believe there is any sincerity on the part of the Department of Lands in this connection. They feel that they are being fooled, that they have been fooled too long and that they cannot stand it much longer. Therefore, I ask the Minister to try if he possibly can to put some little bit of energy into the officials of his Department. If he feels that it is something which is being held up by finance, let him tell us in this House that it is being held up by finance. If he feels that it is something which is being held up for want of timber or iron or something like that, let him tell us in this House that it is being held up because of that. He should at least take the people of the constituency into his confidence when he is replying to questions on the matter and not tell us one thing one day and something else the next day. I hope that it will not be necessary for me to refer to this matter again when this Estimate comes before the Dáil next year. It is a scheme which has been before the Land Commission for a long time. I hope that the few words which I feel compelled to say will at least have the effect of waking up some of the people in the Land Commission who are asleep. I hope that the eight or nine engineers whom the Minister referred to in his reply to me and who are having a holiday down in Minane Bridge will have got more useful employment by then.

Having made that criticism of the Minister in connection with one particular scheme in my constituency, I want to say that I am in complete agreement with the Minister's general policy in ensuring that the market value is paid for land taken over and to congratulate him on the amount of work that the Land Commission has succeeded in doing in the last 12 months in certain areas.

Mr. Davin

Several Deputies and Senators were anxious to ascertain, during the last few weeks at any rate, why some of my colleagues and myself have been firing so many questions at the Minister in connection with the activities or lack of activity on the part of the Land Commission. These questions are not prompted by any desire on my part, at any rate, to compete with my colleagues in putting down questions of this kind.

Mr. G. Boland

Question.

Mr. Davin

They are prompted altogether, I can assure Deputy Boland and others, by a spontaneous local agitation which has no reference to Party affiliations locally. They are prompted by fathers of families who are uneconomic holders, smallholders, cottage tenants and landless men in areas where there are large tracts of land—estates, not farms, with great respect to Deputy Cogan—which are not being worked in accordance with what I understand to be national or public policy. When speaking on this matter the other day Deputy Cogan seemed to suggest that my colleagues and myself—it was not confined to the constituency of Leix and Offaly, but applied to other constituencies apparently, including the one which Deputy Boland represents—were anxious to press the Minister for Lands to acquire every small farm in the constituency of Leix and Offaly and elsewhere.

It is a long time since I realised that there is no great point of public policy in taking a farm of 50 acres from one citizen and handing it over to another. Fifty acres of fairly good average land are not anything more than an economic holding and are certainly not going to help to relieve congestion. I can assure the Minister—I think he knows it from what he has heard from Deputies from my constituency during the past couple of years, and I think his predecessor has heard the same story—that there are about a dozen large holdings in two or three electoral areas in my constituency not worked by the people who are supposed to own them, estates of anything from 500 to 1,000 acres. In a number of cases the owners have not lived in this country for many years. The land is being set by solicitors acting as agents and by auctioneers to thousands—hundreds, anyway, in a couple of electoral areas—of smallholders.

Heads of families who have holdings of very low valuation, cottage tenants who have no other means of livelihood and sons of small farmers take these lands which are set at figures—and proof can be given for this, where it has not already been given—ranging from £10 to £22 per acre. I am not sure whether the Minister and particularly the commissioners, where you have a big nest of uneconomic holders —cottage tenants and landless men— who are prepared to take the risk, and it is a great risk in these doubtful times, of taking land at such a high price as, say, £16 an acre on the average, actually recognise such persons as coming within the category of congests or whether they confine their interpretation of "congests" to persons who have small-holdings under a fixed valuation. If we are going to make provision for the building up of a bigger population in rural Ireland we will have to give these smallholders, cottage tenants and the sons of landless men and others who take conacre lettings, some relief. We will have to take the necessary steps, within a reasonable period of time, to acquire these large tracts of land from the owners, whether they live in the country or outside the country and give them over to persons who will work them for the purpose of making a livelihood for themselves and their dependents and for the purpose of enabling them to keep their children, particularly their sons, in this country rather than that they should be given tickets to go to the cities, where there is no employment for them, or to Great Britain probably to work for farmers there. I should like to have some kind of an assurance from the Minister, when he is replying, that these thousands of people in the midland counties to-day who are endeavouring to make a livelihood for themselves and their dependents by taking conacre lettings, are regarded by the commissioners as persons who qualify for and who are entitled to receive portions of land wherever estates are being divided.

Every Deputy in this House who lives in a rural area has experience of being asked from time to time to recommend suitable applicants for an allotment wherever land is being divided. The best reference I can give a man—and I do not care what his political outlook is and I have never bothered about it in matters of this kind at any rate—who is looking for a portion of land where an estate is being divided, is that for a number of years he has been taking conacre lettings at high prices to make a livelihood for himself and his family. I know that in many cases and places where such persons have been looking for land and have such qualifications they have been completely ignored. Migrants have been brought from western areas and from Kerry into my constituency— migrants who had no idea or previous experience of the working of land in midland counties—and they were complete failures. If smallholders and persons who take conacre lettings—the sons of small farmers and so forth— were given these lands, I believe that they would have proved themselves to be much more suitable applicants in cases and places of that kind.

There has been a good deal of criticism and I myself have taken part in this criticism—I hope it can be regarded as constructive—not alone of the present Minister but of his predecessor because of delay on the part of the Land Commission in carrying out their duties in acquiring and dividing, within a reasonable period of time, estates for the purpose of the relief of congestion. The Land Commission was originally established and organised as a result of Land Acts passed in a foreign Parliament. That foreign Parliament and the people who passed these Acts at the time, the majority of them at any rate, were much more anxious to protect the interests of the landlords rather than to acquire land for the relief of congestion. The Land Commission, as originally established and organised, was set up and its whole machinery was devised for the purpose of delayed action policy. I am not so sure that, even since the passage of the 1923 Act and the many other Acts which have been passed since then, there has been any revolutionary change in the administrative machinery of the Land Commission—and that is the real cause of the delays and the complaints that are being made from every side of this House, year after year since the 1923 Act was passed, when this Estimate comes up for consideration. I hope, therefore, that the powers now given to the Minister in the Bill which passed through this House yesterday will enable him to make a revolutionary change in the existing machinery of the Land Commission so as to speed up the acquisition and division of land and ensure that that job is completed inside a reasonable period of time.

I am not reflecting on any individual in particular when I say that no commercial or industrial concern in this country, where the English language is spoken and understood, would tolerate the delays that take place in the Irish Land Commission. I think, but I am not sure, that Deputy Boland was there for a short period and he would, therefore, have to share to some extent responsibility for the clogging of that particular machine. Every time we have had a change of Government and every time we shall in the future have a change of Government you will, of course, look to the new Minister to work wonderful miracles in this respect. I believe that the present Minister understands the problem that concerns him and I believe that he is so sincerely anxious to solve that problem that he will not cod himself by thinking that he is going to solve it quicker than his predecessors if he does not alter the methods and machinery of the commission from top to bottom.

Can I have it from the Minister, when he is replying, that the commissioners believe that their primary function is the acquisition of land for the relief of congestion? Is that the purpose for which the Land Commission is in existence? I do not believe it was originally established for that purpose. I believe it was established by the majority of the members of the British Parliament in order to satisfy, for the time being, the demands that were being made by the old Irish Party. There is no doubt about it. If the Minister had lived in the Midlands he would have seen that if the Land Commission, as originally established, had not been tied up by red tape and policy considerations of that kind, they could have acquired and divided all the untenanted land of this country even before this State was established. It should not take 100 years for welloiled machines, for men who know their jobs, to acquire and divide the untenanted lands and relieve the congestion as far as possible and provide for the maintenance of a bigger population in our rural areas.

As soon as the present Bill is signed by the President the Minister should regard it as his first job to establish some inter-departmental commission to reorganise from top to bottom the present machinery of the Irish Land Commission.

I have stated, and my colleagues will confirm it, that there are estates in my area which have been under consideration by the commissioners for many years. I raised a question on the 30th March last, regarding one estate subject to proceedings since the Land Act of 1923 was passed. I know the landowner concerned. He never handled a shovel or fork in his life and never had to do it—he was lucky enough in that respect—for his livelihood. He indicated in very strong language to me that as long as he lived that land would never be taken from him. He is one of the planter class and has succeeded in that up to the present, through some kind of assistance or influence that enabled him to hold large tracts of untenanted land and never bother about working them in accordance with the requirements of national policy.

Other individuals of the same class were able to get away under the compulsory tillage regulations, if they could prove to the Land Commission inspector or the inspector of the Department of Agriculture that they had a few well-bred horses. They were able to cover themselves by the title "running a stud farm" and escape the ordinary obligations of farmers who were prepared to work their land and carry out the departmental regulations. Some others of the same type could satisfy inspectors during the emergency by scratching the surface of the land.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That would not come under this Estimate.

Mr. Davin

If you had given me the opportunity to utter another sentence, I would have added that these are the type of persons who own large estates in my constituency and from whom land should have been taken long ago. That land should go to the occupiers of cottages and the sons of small farmers and thereby prevent a considerable amount of emigration which has taken place from some of the areas in my constituency.

I asked the Minister on the 30th of March also if he would be good enough to ask some of the Land Commission inspectors—who knew perfectly well they could get the information; they had it at their fingertips if they wanted to give it to him—in the Edenderry electoral area, where there is a greater amount of emigration than from any other over the past 15 or 20 years, to visit a number of uneconomic holders in that electoral area and find out the position there. If the Minister did that and found out the number of uneconomic holders, cottage tenants and landless men who have taken conacre lettings over a long period of years, he would be satisfied that there was a real and acute problem of congestion in that area. That being so, I asked if, having the figures and the evidence before him, he would ask the commissioners of the time—they have been in existence for a number of years—to state why it is they were refusing year after year for so many years to acquire many of the large tracts in that area which should be acquired for the relief of congestion.

The Minister was confronted with the argument and a lot of cross-fire took place here on Tuesday last with Deputy Flanagan, in connection with statements made concerning the longdrawn-out agitation for the acquisition and division of the estate of Mr. Matthias More, Lumville, Edenderry. I did not state this to the Minister before, but had intended to tell him privately—I state it publicly here now —that it has been stated locally and in the hearing of a large number of persons that if the Fianna Fáil Government had remained in office that land would have been acquired and divided amongst the local congests long ago and that it was the intention to acquire and divide that land in 1935.

I have been doing some research work at home, having more time than I had previously, and have been reading up papers, partly for the purpose of destroying what might be regarded as of no use, at any rate in a house. I was lucky to get hold of some papers in connection with the problem of land division in my area. I have here a letter which I received from the private secretary to the Minister's predecessor in connection with this very same estate. It has been stated and repeated that if the Fianna Fáil Minister had been left in office this land would have been acquired and divided in 1935, say not later than 1936. Undoubtedly, I am aware, and I have documents here to prove it, that there was an agitation going on in the area at the time. Deputy Flanagan, my colleague, wrote me an urgent letter on the 26th June, 1946—that is long after 1935 and 1936—in connection with this matter, pressing me to make arrangements for the reception of a deputation by the then Minister, Deputy Seán Moylan, in connection with the agitation for acquisition and division of the land of Mr. Matthias More. I made representations to Deputy Moylan, the Minister at the time. This is an interesting document, to disprove what has been stated locally quite recently. There is nothing more conclusive than this. This is the letter, dated 23rd July, 1946, signed by the private secretary to Deputy Moylan:—

"You will recollect that on Thursday last you phoned me about a deputation from Rhode Island, regarding the resumption of the holding of Matthias More on the Piggot estate, S.5792 in the townland of Lumville, County Offaly. You asked me to arrange that the five or six gentlemen concerned be received by some responsible official in the Land Commission.

I contacted the official in the Land Commission dealing with the matter, who informed me that he is inundated with applications to have this holding resumed. It is of no avail, however, as the commissioners have not yet lifted the restrictions on resumption of holdings in County Offaly. As you are aware it was only in certain congested districts that the stay on acquisition and resumption of lands has been lifted.

The official to whom I spoke was of the opinion that no useful purpose would be served by the deputation calling on the Land Commission as the restrictions regarding the resumption are still in force in County Offaly. The only thing that could be said to them would be that the Land Commission cannot take any action in the matter at present.

In the circumstances, perhaps it would be desirable to contact the gentlemen concerned and inform them that their visit would be absolutely of no avail."

Mr. Boland

What date was that?

Mr. Davin

I read out the date—23rd July, 1946. There was a refusal by the Fianna Fáil Minister, not alone to hear the views of the local people on the matter but telling us quite straight and candidly that there was no hope.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We are not discussing the Fianna Fáil administration.

Mr. Davin

I am proving in the most positive way, with evidence of a convincing character, that there is no justification for stating locally, at any rate if it is done for Party political purposes, that these lands would have been divided ten years before 1946.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy should take some other means of doing that. We are not discussing Fianna Fáil administration but the administration by the present Minister.

Mr. Davin

I have no desire to be irrelevant and no intention of pursuing that line. The Minister has there the evidence, if he takes that as evidence, that there was a refusal in 1946, not 1935 or 1936, and I am certain that public agitation was going on in 1935 and 1936 as well as in 1946 and it is going on to-day. I want the Minister to ask his commissioners if, before the present Bill becomes law, he could get hold of the file dealing with that estate and find out how the land has been worked for years past. He could find that out and satisfy himself as to whether there is not a clear case for the acquisition of these lands, or some portion of them, as well as other untenanted lands not being properly worked in the same area, for the purpose of relieving the acute congestion which exists over the whole of that electoral area.

If the powers that the Minister has recently received from the House are not used by him for that particular purpose, it is a pretty sad state of affairs, and the people of the area cannot have any other hope in future than to provide their grown-up sons with tickets to Dublin to seek work that is not here or with passports to Great Britain to work for some farmer, working the land in another country. This is one electoral area that I will continue to deal with no matter what Minister is in office. There is either a case for the relief of congestion or there is not. I am open to be convinced that there is no case, but if I am so convinced I am unfit to be a representative of the Laoighis-Offaly constituency.

I do not intend to go over all the affairs of my constituency in a debate of this kind, but I would ask the Minister to take another area in County Laoighis known in land history, namely, the Luggacurran electoral area. I asked a question here the other day as to what action, if any, had been taken for the purpose of acquiring and dividing a number of estates in Laoighis. The Fisher estate in the Luggacurran electoral area, near Stradbally, was one of them. The owner of that estate has not been working the place. It has been let in conacre and some people who take conacre lettings take 600 and 700 acres, strange to say. There are 20 smallholders who have been taking conacre on the Fisher estate, near Stradbally, Laoighis, who are now advised that proceedings are going on for the sale of that estate by private treaty. If these proceedings are concluded and the place is sold, the 20 heads of families, one of whom has been taking conacre lettings for 35 years, will have their live stock and machinery put on the roadside and there will be no means of livelihood left for themselves and their dependents.

Mr. Blowick

That is the Fisher estate?

Mr. Davin

Yes. I could cite the Kellet-Marsh estate in Offaly, another case of the same kind, but worse in that the owner is supposed to be living in Canada, and the place has been let by an auctioneer for over 55 years in conacre lettings at prices ranging from £8 to £20 per acre. Does Deputy Cogan think that these are a simple kind of case that should not be dealt with under the existing land legislation? Are these the kind of cases he has in mind as farms? In my part of the country you would not describe 1,000 acres or 500, 700 or 800 acres as a farm. You would describe it as an estate. If there is all this congestion immediately surrounding these estates, the Land Commission have a job to do and should do it or should say that they are not willing to do it or that it is not their job. If they say it is not their job, I have been wasting my time listening to discussions on Land Bills and discussions year after year on these Estimates.

I want to raise on this Estimate, and I would ask the Minister, in his reply, to deal with the matter as a serious matter affecting my constituency, the point as to what right, if any, cottage tenants have as such and cottage tenants who have not purchased their holdings from the county council, to a division of land when land is being divided in the immediate vicinity of the cottages where they reside. I have a case in point at the moment. It is the case of a comparatively small-holding, but there are other lands in the surrounding area that may be acquired and divided at a later date. In the case I have in mind the acreage of land to be divided in the immediate future does not exceed 100 acres. It is not a very big holding, especially in view of the fact that there are 51 applicants, presumably all deserving, for holdings on this small place. There are eight cottage tenants living in the immediate vicinity of this holding and it has been asserted by a Land Commission inspector that, simply because these cottage tenants have not purchased their cottages and plots from the local authority, therefore, they are precluded from being considered as suitable persons for a small portion of the holding that is to be divided in the very near future.

Remember, Sir, every one of these cottage tenants has been taking conacre lettings on this holding and on other holdings in the same area that may be divided in the near future. Whether or not they are cottage tenants, whether or not they are precluded or have no rights simply because they are cottage tenants, not having purchased their holdings, it is a serious thing to leave these people in the lurch when these lands are being divided. They justify their claim to portion of this holding because they have been taking conacre lettings over a long period of years.

I would ask the Minister to give his opinion to the House because this is not an isolated case in my constituency. I understand many similar cases will arise in connection with the acquisition and division of other lands.

During the past few weeks I addressed a question to the Minister in connection with the acquisition and division of bogs. I referred in particular to the Coote bogs, covering thousands of acres in County Laoighis, and the bogs owned by Lord Rosse in Offaly. These bogs are situated near towns and villages with populations from 5,000 to 1,200. The people who live in and near these towns proved to the satisfaction of everybody in this country that they were able to satisfy their fuel requirements during the emergency period and during the present period. Quite recently I was asked to take an interest in the case of bog situated adjacent to the Coote bogs near Mountrath, where there were 25 small people deeply interested, who are paying as much as £2 14s. 0d. per perch for turf banks and who this year, up to the present, have been refused another letting. I have asked the Minister for Local Government and the county manager for the area to intervene on behalf of the tenants for the purpose of securing for them continuing rights, even for another year. I am not sure that I will succeed in that.

It is a disgrace to the Land Commission that it has taken so long to bring the proceedings for the acquisition and division of the Coote bogs in Laoighis and the bogs owned by Lord Rosse in Offaly to a satisfactory conclusion. To these people living in the rural areas and in small villages and towns, this huge acreage of bogland could mean a considerable saving in the cost of living to them and their families if the bogs were acquired and divided amongst them. That should have been done long ago. It would help to solve the cost of living to some extent for those who are living on very low weekly incomes. If the bogs were acquired and divided by the Land Commission these people could obtain turbary at a much lower figure than they have to pay at the present time to private turbary owners. I would urge the Minister, therefore, to speed up the acquisition and division of these bogs.

Last night Deputy Moylan said that very little had been done by the Land Commission since the present Minister came into office except in the congested areas. I addressed a query to the Minister in relation to the acreage of land acquired and divided since he came into office two years ago. Everybody knows that when he came into office he had no land on his plate and there were no proceedings for the acquisition of land. The files were lying there covered with dust. They had to be taken down and cleaned and the inspectorate staff had to be brought back from the Department of Agriculture. Notwithstanding all these difficulties, some progress has been made. I am not very enthusiastic about it, but I am not dissatisfied with it. In the constituency of Laoighis-Offaly during the past year the Minister has provided 90 allottees with approximately 1,500 additional acres to their holdings. I will not pat the Minister on the back and tell him he is a grand fellow to have done that. The figures are small when compared with some of the figures quoted by Deputy Moylan during the period he was in office. At that time, of course, he had a staff working full steam ahead and everything in apple-pie order. Deputy de Valera seems to be amused at that.

Mr. de Valera

I am.

Mr. Davin

I have heard the Deputy speak on this Estimate. I heard him speak on the Land Bill recently. Will he tell us that he is very enthusiastic in relation to the total acreage of land acquired and divided during the 16 years of his Government?

Mr. de Valera

I shall tell you what I think of it.

Mr. Davin

How is it that so much land has been left over and is still available for division?

Mr. de Valera

We will talk about it later.

Mr. Davin

I am fully satisfied the Minister understands and appreciates the problem that confronts him. I am satisfied that he is sincere and honest in his desire to solve it. I hope that with the additional powers and the new machinery given to him under the Land Bill which has just passed through the House he will succeed in solving this problem in a much shorter period than it has taken up to the present.

Mr. G. Boland

I did not intend to intervene in this debate because I have not prepared for it. Having heard Deputy Davin refer to the fact that I was Minister for Lands for some time I think it is only right I should intervene. I was Minister for Lands from 1936 to 1939. I would like to remind Deputy Davin and others who may not be aware of the fact—Deputy Davin ought to be aware of it—that shortly before I became Minister for Lands a decision had been given by the courts to the effect that as the Land Commission was exercising judicial functions land could not be compulsorily acquired. It was, therefore, only possible to acquire land with the consent of the owner of that land. That position obtained until the new Constitution was passed. In that, Article 37 provided for courts of limited jurisdiction. That Constitution was not finally enacted until the end of 1937. We then had to have the Land Act of 1939. That was only just passed when war broke out. I remember I was in the Seanad some time in the month of August, 1939, and on the 1st September war broke out in Europe. Now, that is not an excuse; it is just a reminder.

Despite the outbreak of war, however, during the emergency period an average of about 22,000 acres was divided. Nobody can deny that fact. Deputy Davin and others are well aware that we were then passing through the worst war in history. War did not cease until 1945. War conditions continued for about four years after that, so that it might be said we went through a period of nine years' war. On the cessation of hostilities food became much scarcer since the hungry in the devastated areas of Europe had to be fed. Consequently, war conditions still obtained and the Land Commission staff had to be left with the Department of Agriculture to ensure that the necessary food was produced. It is very convenient for Deputies to forget all that now. Nevertheless, 22,000 acres on an average were divided during the war period.

I was interested, too, in Deputy Davin's statement that certain people believed that if the Fianna Fáil Government had remained in office a certain estate would have been divided. I do not like to hear that kind of talk in any constituency. I know it is being said in Roscommon. There is a particular farm there—it is not an estate since it only comprises about 200 acres —and only a fortnight ago Deputy Beirne said the reverse of what Deputy Davin said; he said that if we had remained in office, he was quite certain that land would never have been taken over at all. The fact of the matter is that the owner of that land was anxious to get rid of it. He came to me when I was Minister for Justice and asked me to get the Land Commission to acquire it. The Land Commission, unfortunately, had not the staff to deal with it since they were engaged on the compulsory tillage scheme and the land could not be taken over. The fact is that no Deputy can force the Land Commission to take any particular land. The Minister was of that opinion when he was in opposition.

Mr. Blowick

No.

Mr. G. Boland

May I remind the Minister that, according to the debate in 1947, he did not know that Section 6 precludes the Minister from doing such a thing? I drew his attention to it then. He knows what the position is now, but he did not know it at that time. Even now he himself, as a Minister, has not taken power to acquire any estate. This is merely an attempt to deceive the people and to pretend that a Deputy can compel the Land Commission to do something they have no right to do. We can all make representations. When I was Minister for Lands I was constantly asked to see what could be done about having estates acquired. All I could do was to tell the Deputy making the representations that I would ask the Land Commission to consider them. That is all the present Minister can do, except in respect of inter-mixed plots.

Mr. Blowick

Not even there.

Mr. G. Boland

Within the threemile limit.

Mr. Blowick

Not for acquisition or resumption.

Mr. G. Boland

For the allottees and the price they will pay.

Mr. Blowick

Only in rearrangement.

Mr. G. Boland

Only to that extent, then, has he modified the position. I think he will find he has made a mistake there, but only time will tell that. The position was and is that, despite this Bill, this remains a matter for the Land Commission and not for a Deputy or a Minister. I resent the suggestion made by Deputy Davin that they can get the land divided. They can only do what I can do, namely, ask the Minister to put this matter to the Land Commission for consideration. That is all they can do. I am not sure whether or not it is true, but it is reported in Roscommon that Deputy McQuillan and the Minister went to a particular area there and asked the people if they would like land in the Midlands. If the Minister says that is not true, I will accept his denial. I know the area well. I was amazed when I heard the statement. I think it is most improper for a Minister to do such a thing. Deputy Davin feels that he has a grievance when people, Fianna Fáil supporters in his constituency, complain and say that if we had been left in power the land would have been divided. I think we have a much greater complaint if land is promised to certain people even before it is acquired. They have not gone so far as to say who the people are who are going to get it, but I daresay that is done privately. It is a bad practice, a practice that will eventually react on the Parties responsible for it.

Mr. McQuillan

It is the practice that was pursued before.

Mr. G. Boland

It was never pursued before. We knew the law too well and we adhered to the law. Other speakers dealt with the amount of land divided during our term. So far as County Roscommon is concerned all I can say is that anyone who remembers the conditions obtaining there in 1932, going through the county to-day, would hardly recognise it. It is full of new farms and new houses. The plains of Boyle have been divided. There are still certain big farms around Castlerea but a considerable amount of work has been done in the acquisition and division of land in the county. Anybody can see that around Ballintubber and outside Roscommon town. The whole appearance of the county has changed since 1932. There is no use in saying that we did not do the best we could in the circumstances. I am satisfied that any Government will try to solve this problem as best it can but there is no use in saying that one Party will do more than another. We all do the best we can and we shall leave it at that.

Mr. O'Gorman

In a debate of this kind, Deputies generally either eulogise or disparage the activities of the Minister. On the Estimate we are discussing at the moment, I propose to do neither one nor the other. The Minister is such a big man in every respect that I am sure he will be completely impervious to the little pin prick which I propose to give him. I am in the fortunate position that for many years past very little land has been acquired in the constituency which I represent, East Cork. There are just one or two estates which I should like to bring to his notice. I have already been with him on a few occasions in connection with these estates. One is the Trabolgan estate at Whitegate which was acquired some years ago by the Land Commission—I would say rightly so. My grievance is that I personally detest the idea of bringing in migrants from other parts of the county when a farm is acquired —whether from North or West Cork or West Kerry—and giving them allotments on an estate of 500 acres while there are plenty of land-hungry people living in the immediate vicinity. This is a matter which has caused me a lot of worry as a Deputy for the area. I do not bother the Minister very often, and I must say that at any time I approached him he has been both courteous and gentlemanly. At the same time I am glad to have the opportunity of putting the grievances of certain people in that locality before the Dáil this afternoon. The Trabolgan estate contains something in the region of 450 or 500 acres. At the present time nine houses are being built there. One has been allocated, I believe, already and eight are to be allocated at a later date. If the matter has not already been decided by the Land Commission I want to see the land on that estate allocated to young men living in the locality. You have a number of small, thrifty farmers living there and in some of these humble homesteads you find four or five boys trying to eke out an existence. The total area of the holding may be only 15 or 20 acres, and in the ordinary course of events the eldest son will get it. There is nothing then left for the other two or three boys but to emigrate. I think it is very much to be deprecated if, in cases such as that, the Land Commission will not give holdings to young men living in the locality instead of forcing them to seek passports to Britain or somewhere else. Nobody in this House desires to see forced emigration of that kind.

I think the people we should encourage are the small cottiers in these areas who show their industry by taking five or six acres in conacre, rearing a few pigs and fattening them, buying a few dropped calves and keeping them until they are 18 months or two years until they get a decent price for them. These I say are the people we should encourage to remain in the locality. We may hear Deputies saying that people in other parts of the country are forced to live on two or three acres but I think it behoves us all to mind ourselves and whatever land is available for division in the locality which I have described should be allocated to people living in that locality. If a father rears four or five sons until they reach ages ranging from 21 to 28 years, it is very hard luck on him to find that when land is being distributed in his own locality, no consideration is given to his sons while people from outside districts are brought in to occupy that land. I would impress on the Minister that he should give serious attention to that aspect of the matter when estates are being divided.

Where the Land Commission is concerned, I find it anything but satisfactory. I do not want to come down upon officials but their methods to my mind are redolent of a past age. A visit to the Land Commission reminds me of a visit to the landlord's house in the days gone by. That should not be so in this year of 1950. Take a case where the Land Commission has got a certain estate to divide. You know a boy who is industrious and who is anxious to make his living on the land. You write to the Land Commission naming the applicant and recommending him very strongly for a parcel of land on that estate. After a week or two you get back a little chit, just acknowledging receipt of your letter and that is all you ever hear about the matter.

People who sometimes wish to get land approach me but I tell them that there is really no use in doing so. I have approached the Minister on a few occasions and tried to ingratiate myself as a person who, if he could, would like to do something. He received me very courteously, but I often wonder what power the Minister has over the Department he administers. After all, any man running his own business, if he has not the power of command would get out of it. I would respectfully suggest to the Minister that he requires to give the Land Commission a gee-up and have them pay more attention to Deputies who do not worry them very often. I should like to see whatever land is being distributed given to the sons of farmers and cottiers living in the immediate vicinity. I do hope that when the estate which I have mentioned comes to be divided the Minister will allocate it amongst the young men in the locality. These remarks likewise apply to every constituency.

There is another estate in my constituency which I understand is about to be divided in the near future and the observations which I have made in connection with the Trabolgan estate apply with equal force there. I refer to the Foley-Turpin estate near Midleton. I have recommended two or three industrious young men living in the area who are anxious to make a start in life. These are the type of people every Deputy in the House should encourage. We should try to stimulate their efforts to acquire holdings so as to give them a chance of making a living in their own country.

There is another matter in which the Land Commission is concerned. In connection with it I have had to call on the Minister on five or six occasions during the past four or five months. In East Cork, some seven or eight miles from Youghal, embankments on the Ponsonby estate at Yellowford and Shanakil, near Ballymacoda, were broken down by the sea some time last November and 300 or 400 acres of land have been under sea water for months. It was only last week I got a reply from the Minister's Department stating that the Department of Finance—after a period of five months—had decided to give a grant for the repair of these embankments. I am not blaming the Minister for this long delay, but I have received heartrending letters from five or six people living on the estate at Yellowford and Shanakil pointing out that 400 acres of their lands are under water and that they were on the point of selling their milch cows. I know that in three cases they had to get their cattle into higher land where they expected to have meadows in the summer months. They will have no hay now because the land has to be used otherwise.

I suggest to the Minister that where embankments are broken down through sea erosion or otherwise—it is particularly bad from the sea, where the River Woomanagh enters—the Department of Finance should allocate to the Department of Lands, let us say, a round figure of £20,000 in order to carry out emergency repairs to embankments and so save those lands from being submerged by salt water for four or five months. There are many Deputies who know, perhaps, far better than I do, that in the case of land, particularly near the sea, if salt water breaks into the farm and the land is inundated for four or five months it takes from 12 to 18 months for that land to be restored to its fertility. That is a very serious thing. Salt water breaking into land can be poisonous for a period of 18 months.

I hope the Minister will pass that tip on to the Department of Finance, that, for emergency purposes—and this is a real emergency, where the livelihood of several people is threatened— it would be advisable to allocate an adequate sum for repair work. As I have said, I have received heart-rending appeals from these people.

I will give the Minister his due—he did everything possible and gave every help in getting this matter rectified, but it took the Department of Finance, the powers that be, some five or six months to make up their minds. Where embankments are broken down I hope the Department of Finance will put to the credit of the Land Commission a certain sum for emergency purposes such as I have described.

In the constituency that I have the honour to represent there is not a whole lot of land available for division, but I feel I would be unfair if I did not say that on the occasion of my visits to the Minister, I found him what I expected a man of his calibre to be, big and jovial in every respect. I suggest it would be no harm if he threw his weight a little bit more on the Finance Department in Merrion Street.

I will not travel over the ground that has already been covered by other Deputies. I have made my little requests to the Minister and I hope he will accede to them. I do not trouble him too often.

Mr. Killilea

Judging from the speeches we have heard from the Government Benches on this Estimate, there appears to be general dissatisfaction with the Minister's Department and with the progress that has been made in the matter of the division of land. Yesterday evening, when the Minister was opening this all-important debate, I thought that it was rather amusing to see—whether or not because they knew the bad story he had to tell —that he had behind him not one member of the Fine Gael Party, not one member of his own Party, one member of National Labour and not one member of Clann na Poblachta.

Mr. Blowick

And there was one member of the Fianna Fáil Party. It could not be described as a full House.

Mr. Killilea

The Minister must now be thinking there is something wrong at his own end of the House. When the Minister was introducing his Estimate last year he said something similar to what he said in the preceding year, only he had a slightly better case to make for his inactivity the previous year. He said that the Land Commission were still held up by certain emergency restrictions, but that they were free to resume activities outside the congested areas and to proceed in other counties with the acquisition and resumption of large tracts of land. He said the inspectors were working full steam on the preliminary work and the results were beginning to show themselves. I wonder where are the results? We see that during last year the Minister took over about 8,000 acres.

Mr. Blowick

Not at all.

Mr. Killilea

Have you not even reached that figure?

Mr. Blowick

Where is the Deputy quoting from? I know that Deputy Moylan quoted the figure of 8,000 acres in the report for the year before last, but I did not give the House, nor was I asked for it, the figure of the area of land acquired last year. I do not want the Deputy to walk into that bog.

Mr. Killilea

We must only assume that the Minister has gone only that far. He avoided giving us any figure yesterday as to what had been acquired.

Mr. Blowick

What is worth getting is worth asking for.

Mr. Killilea

When the Minister was introducing his Estimate he should have had sufficient respect for the House to give particulars of the amount of land taken over during the year. Perhaps I know why the Minister did not do it. Perhaps it is because the quantity of land taken over is practically nil.

Mr. Blowick

Why do you not ask for it?

Mr. Killilea

I am asking now for the figure. Maybe the Minister will give it when he is concluding the debate, but he really should have done so when introducing the Estimate. The information will be very little use to us if he gives it when he is replying. At the moment we do not know where we are.

Mr. Blowick

It is in the neighbourhood of 34,000 acres. That is a big step up from 8,000.

Mr. McQuillan

Will the Minister get the Irish Press to correct the figure of 8,000 acres?

Mr. Blowick

Deputy Moylan, when he mentioned 8,000 acres, was quite right, but that was for another year, not last year.

Mr. Killilea

I can assure the Minister that so far as we in Galway are concerned there is no trace of any farm having been taken over during the past year or two. There are two farms that were the subject of proceedings by the Land Commission and they were divided all right, but I think my colleague, Deputy Kitt, has some matters to mention to the Minister and he will point out the disgraceful way the division was carried out. He had a question with regard to the Monaghan lands at Grange and Daly's at Knockbrack.

I think there is one thing on which everybody must agree, and that is that, in so far as the Fianna Fáil policy was concerned, when we took over office the position we found the Land Commission in then, as regards the division of land, was that the man who had plenty of money and had a good holding was always eligible to get more land. But the man with a large family, struggling from day to day on eight or ten acres of land, if poor, was always passed over. In order to overcome that, and to see that justice was done to uneconomic landholders, we insisted that every man within an estate whose valuation was under £10 would be dealt with first. That was carried out by the Land Commission irrespective of what Deputy McQuillan says. Of course, he knows nothing about it and does not even try to know anything about it. But that was the position, no matter what he says.

I challenge the Minister to show where, in the West of Ireland, any Deputy of the Fianna Fáil Party ever insisted on the Land Commission giving a particular farm or a particular increase in land to any individual. We all made representations on behalf of individuals. That is done by all Deputies. It is their duty. We have to point out to the Land Commission now and then that there are localities in which congestion is much greater than it is in other areas. We think where that is so that a preference should be given to those localities. I do not think that any of us have gone further than that. I certainly am not one who, at any time, would agree that the Land Commission should be put in the position of being obliged to act at the beck and call of any particular Deputy.

I am very disappointed with the Estimate. During the last few months, since the Minister introduced his Land Bill, we have had a lot of talk here about the great things he proposed to do under it. I do not think the Minister is serious at all. The greatest proof of that is the fact that his Estimate this year is only increased by £5,350. The total in the Estimate is practically the same as for last year, while the Estimate for last year was the same as the one for the previous year, the only difference being that the Minister did not expend all the money that he was given last year for Land Commission work. The result is that some of that money has gone back to the Exchequer. The figure in this Estimate is the same as the figure that was made available by the Fianna Fáil Government during the emergency when it was practically impossible to do anything big in the way of land division. I think that is a clear indication that the Minister is not serious, and does not intend to proceed in the way that we had hoped or expected a Minister would proceed when dealing with land at this time, when the war has been over for a number of years. We all expected that there would be greater progress in land division and a greater speeding up than there is at the moment.

I should like to have heard the Minister, when introducing his Estimate, give some indication of the target that he intends to reach, some idea of the amount of land that he intends to acquire each year if this problem of congestion is ever going to be solved. It can only be solved by the Minister making up his mind and saying: "Well, in five years I will do so much and in ten years I hope we will have the problem practically completed." Having made up his mind on that he should then say: "To do that I will have to take over each year so many thousand acres of land to fix up so many congests." But the figure which the Minister has in his Estimate is an indication that he is not serious at all in dealing with this problem as it exists at the moment: It was rather peculiar to find that last year Land Commission gangers, men who had been employed by the Land Commission for many years and had hardly ever been laid off, were idle most of the year. I cannot see why they should ever have been idle when there is so much work to be done in the congested areas and in districts where the rundale system still exists. During the time of Fianna Fáil it dealt with the rundale system and quite a number of people were comfortably fixed up.

Some time ago a question was put down by Deputy Childers asking for particulars of the number of men employed on improvement works in January and July of 1938-39, 1948-49 and 1949-50. We know, of course, that the Minister of this Government like to throw responsibility for the things that happened prior to 1948 on the Fianna Fáil Ministers, but the position is that in July, 1938, the number of people employed on improvement works was 4,614, and in January, 1939, the figure was 2,308. They were employed in dealing with land that had been taken over and in respect of which schemes had been prepared by the Fianna Fáil Government. In July, 1948, we find that the number of people employed on improvement works was 2,033, less than half the number employed the year before, while in January of this year the number so employed was 710.

Mr. Blowick

They were all in full employment and we could not get them. Many jobs had to be left undone because we could not get sufficient men.

Mr. Killilea

What jobs?

Mr. Blowick

I cannot tell you, but they would not come to us.

Mr. Killilea

That is not so. The work was not there for them to come to it, and even now the work is not there for them. We have this reduction in the figures, a clear indication of the Minister's hot-air policy but with no determination at all to get the Land Commission to resume the fullblast stride that we were expecting to get from him. I think all members of the House are agreed that there is a great urgency to raise the standard of uneconomic holdings in the congested area. We are satisfied that they are much too small, and that the rundale system must disappear as speedily as possible. There is not a tremendous amount left at the present moment, but the quicker the rest of it disappears the better.

The division of a large number of small holdings will not go anywhere near solving the question. I see holdings of nine, ten and 12 acres taken over. They will be useful, perhaps, but they are not nearly sufficient and they will never go very far towards solving the problem, nor will the migration of even a small number of smallholders in the West solve the problem. If we want to solve the problem in the West of Ireland we must get on to the bigger types of farmer and satisfy him with a holding in the Midlands or wherever the Minister can create a pool of land. Only this week I had a question down to the Minister asking what steps the Land Commission have taken to remove a certain man. He is prepared to move out and he owns 223 acres of land.

Mr. Blowick

What kind is it?

Mr. Killilea

It is perfect. The only thing is that it has gone a bit wild for want of tillage. People are prepared to take it and there are hardly 20 acres of bad land in it. He is prepared to take 100 acres in the Midlands.

Mr. Blowick

One hundred for 300?

Mr. Killilea

Yes, he would be satisfied with a monetary adjustment. The case has been before the Land Commission for some time. I put it up myself and I hope that they get down to it pretty quickly because that is the type of individual whose migration will solve the problem and solve it speedily, not the smallholder.

There is little use at the moment in going over the statements which were made by the Minister when he was in opposition. The only thing that most of us hope is that he has discovered that a lot of the statements which he made then were just as wild as those we have heard from certain other people who are sitting behind him at the present time. He claimed to have an idea that all the income from the annuities should be devoted to acquiring land, but we have not heard much of that since he came to be in a position to adopt such a policy.

I listened this evening to Deputy Davin. Twenty-five per cent. of his speech was an effort to show that the Minister was not such a bad fellow at all and that he would have been a lot better only for Fianna Fáil, but the other 75 per cent. consisted of criticism and tearing the ground from under the Minister. In the course of his statement, he said that Fianna Fáil had not handed over any land to the Minister. I would not have the slightest difficulty in showing the Minister 1,000 acres of land that are in the hands of the Land Commission for practically ten years. I would not mind if they were just in the hands of the Land Commission and if they were given to the people who some day will become their owners in conacre at a reasonable price, but it is a racketeering job with the Land Commission. Year after year those lands have been let in conacre to people who have no respect for them in the world because they know that they will never own them, people who are trying to get all they possibly can out of them year after year. As a result, when the smallholders get them later on, it will not be what you call land at all; it will be completely worn out, as it is now.

Mr. Blowick

Where is it, so that I can get after it? The Deputy can write it in.

Mr. Killilea

I will. I will give the Minister a case in point at the moment. I will prove to the Minister also that this is a case where assistance has been given to an individual I know to hold the land by a pal of the Minister. It is what is known as the Flannery estate in a place called Corralea in the County Galway. I have asked a number of questions about that land over a number of years. The Land Commission had instituted proceedings before the Minister came into office and a scheme was prepared for those lands. The land was all ready to be dished out although the Minister denies that completely. The Land Commission had a scheme ready and I asked the Minister a question on the 28th February last why the Land Commission were not putting into operation that scheme. The Minister replied:

"The Land Commission are not in possession of this estate and consequently cannot divide it."

Of course, I know what was wrong. I knew that this individual, this Flannery man, was a particular pal of a certain Parliamentary Secretary in this House and I knew that there was something going on behind the scenes and that it was going on for a long time so I was not satisfied with the answer. On the 8th March, a week later, I put down a further question to the Minister. I then asked the Minister whether the Land Commission had prepared a scheme for the subdivision of these lands and if so, whether, in view of the fact that they were not as yet in possession of those lands, he would further state the cause of the delay in taking possession. His answer was:

"There is no approved scheme for the allotment of those lands. I am satisfied that there is no undue delay in getting possession."

I asked whether an inspector was on those lands. He said:

"There is no approved scheme for the allotment of these lands. A Land Commission inspector may have been on these lands, perhaps taking notes preparatory to preparing a scheme."

I asked:

"Is the Minister not aware that tenants in the locality have actually been shown parcels of land that they were to get and that now the position is that this man is allowed to set the land in conacre because he happens to be a friend of a certain Parliamentary Secretary in this House?"

The Minister said:

"I may say that I am not personally too familiar with this area."

And so on.

Mr. Blowick

You ought to read out the "so on".

Mr. Killilea

Here it is:

"The only allotment that I did hear of prior to the 1944 Election was that where the Deputy was supposed to have gone on the ground before the election and made an allotment himself."

How could any Deputy have made allotments if the Land Commission were not in possession? The Minister made a slip there by saying that the Land Commission were in possession. I then said:

"The House can take it from me that that is as barefaced a lie as ever the Minister told."

Mr. McQuillan

On a point of order, is it in order for the Deputy to describe a statement of the Minister as a barefaced lie?

Acting-Chairman (Mr. Halliden)

It is a quotation.

Mr. Killilea

I have quoted a statement made and the reference is column 1433 of the Official Debates of 8th March last.

Mr. McQuillan

Did the Deputy withdraw?

Acting-Chairman

It was a quotation.

Mr. McQuillan

It must have been withdrawn at the time?

Acting-Chairman

It was.

Mr. McQuillan

This is another way of saying it again.

Mr. Killilea

These lands could be in the possession of the Land Commission any day they wished to come in and take them over. Mr. Geraghty, the Land Commission inspector in Galway, prepared a scheme; it was sent to Dublin, but the scheme was deliberately held up here in order to give Mr. Flannery an opportunity of setting these lands for another year. Not one individual who was shown land on this particular holding by the Land Commission ever got an opportunity of taking an acre of conacre on it. It all went to outsiders, to the people who have been taking oats off this land year after year because Mr. Flannery knows it is the best way he can hammer the unfortunate individuals who have been looking for the land for a long time. I said that I could point out to the Minister a number of holdings in the West which the Land Commission have in their possession for a long time. I can tell the Minister that, apart from the West, there are two estates in Kildare which have been in the hands of the Land Commission for five or six years, estates into which migrants could probably be taken. I wonder will the Minister contradict me in that?

Mr. Blowick

What estates are these?

Mr. Killilea

The Weld estate at Downings and the Flynn estate near Maynooth.

Mr. Blowick

Both of these have been allotted.

Mr. Killilea

They have not.

Mr. Blowick

The Weld and Flynn estates?

Mr. Killilea

Neither has been allotted. They have been in the hands of the Land Commission for five or six years and there is not a word about their being allotted.

Mr. Blowick

I will look them up, but I am under the impression that the Flynn estate has been allotted.

Mr. Killilea

The Minister will find that that is not so. We have this little racket of Deputy Commons with regard to the number of questions being set down day after day, but I notice that Deputy Commons on one particular day had more questions down for answer by the Minister than he put down during all the time he was in opposition. The same applies to Deputy McQuillan, and it is a clear indication that the Minister is not moving along the line on which they have been talking to people down the country.

All over this country to-day, a housing drive is in progress and in every urban area we are building houses as fast as we can. Full cost grants are being given in all these cases, but there is one section who are left out altogether, the people in rural Ireland. Grants are undoubtedly being made and a man will get £143 free grant to build a house, but for the man who is getting an addition to his holding and who does not know where he will get a shilling to-morrow morning, the finding of £700 or £800, or maybe £1,000, is a very difficult problem. It means that such a man has to remain in whatever type of shack he had.

Some effort should now be made by the Minister, as he is talking about tackling this problem seriously, to get after this problem of Land Commission housing. In cases where grants are given, they should be such as will enable people to build houses and not leave them in a position in which they will have to think whether they will start for a number of years and eventually find that they cannot start building at all.

During the year, I had a number of complaints regarding vesting of holdings. The Land Commission had a very happy knack some years ago of making promises in respect of lock-spitting a road or fence, saying that the work would be done at a later stage. The people were so anxious to get the land that they just took it and said it would do, but the roads were never made. Then the vesting of the property commences. Most of these people do not take serious notice of their vesting orders and the lands are vested overnight, but the old roads are left as they were the day they were lock-spitted.

Mr. Blowick

They are not vested overnight—that cannot be done.

Mr. Killilea

When I say overnight, I mean within the period indicated in the notice.

Mr. Blowick

A statutory period of 28 days must elapse.

Mr. Killilea

Very well. I am not one of those who are terribly anxious about the vesting of holdings. What I am anxious about is the division of land amongst uneconomic holders. Once they get the land, they can be vested any time. We are interested in giving them an opportunity to make a living. When an estate is about to be vested an arrangement should be made for an inspector to meet the people and find out what are the things the Land Commission said would be done, so that the estate may be put into a proper condition before it is vested.

Complaints have been made here regarding turbary. We have all over the country large tracts of turbary and in the same districts people who do not know to-day where they will cut turf to-morrow. It is a matter which should get the serious attention of the Minister. Many of these cases are hardy annuals on this Estimate, but I do not know that the Land Commission ever bother taking any notice of them, because I have never seen anything done in relation to the cases put forward by Deputies. Deputy Davin has said that he has talked year after year about different estates which are still in their original condition. That is because the Minister and the Department are not taking any notice of the cases put forward by Deputies and not making any effort to remedy grievances.

A number of the Minister's colleagues have been making great promises regarding the division of land. During the past six or eight months I went to different portions of my constituency and it was reported to me there that statements had been made that such and such a holding was to be divided overnight. I was wondering how that could happen unknown to me. I put down a question to the Minister and I found it was not the case at all. I put down a question yesterday about lands at Creggs and I found that the Land Commission have not even instituted proceedings.

Mr. Blowick

Where was that?

Mr. Killilea

Satchwells. You were expected at a dance in Creggs last night.

Mr. Blowick

Did I go?

Mr. Killilea

I do not think you did. You were kept dancing here. You were ably represented there anyway.

Mr. Blowick

That is true.

Mr. Killilea

I have a number of such cases. I think it is very foolish to be driving people wild by creating false impressions—particularly for responsible members of the Government to do so—that farms of land are going to be taken over to-morrow or the day after when actually proceedings have not been instituted and when everybody knows, and I think the Minister will agree, that when proceedings have not been instituted in these cases as yet there is very little hope that the land can be taken within 12 months at the fastest pace the Minister can travel. I think that is a reasonable minimum to fix. The Minister should tell his colleagues that there is no use trying to incite the people too much. They are rushing fast enough themselves without any further pressure been brought on them.

A number of Deputies who have spoken on the Minister's side of the House seem to have great faith in the new Land Bill. Although Deputy Commons yesterday told us that he was expecting great things from it, I remember him stating when the Bill was going through the House that he firmly believed that the Minister had all the powers he required at the moment if he only gave effect to them. I am satisfied that is so. The Minister has had his Land Bill passed by this House. While of course Fianna Fáil will, in the usual way, be held up as having hampered the passage of the Bill, nobody is going to say that we tried to improve it or pointed out flaws in it here and there. I hope that the Minister will proceed with the work and that the speed will be accelerated much more than it was since he came into office and that we will not any longer in this House have to listen to comparisons made between what the Government are doing to-day and what Fianna Fáil did during the emergency.

Mr. McQuillan

At the outset, I should like to get one or two matters clear. Deputy Killilea stated that approximately 8,000 acres of land were acquired last year by the Land Commission for the relief of congestion. The usefulness of his contribution to the debate can be gauged from the fact that he got that figure of 8,000 from a certain newspaper this morning where the statement had been published as a result of Deputy Moylan's speech last night. I saw the figure in that paper and I am afraid that it might be accepted by the ordinary person in the country as being correct, that only 8,000 acres of land were acquired last year for the relief of congestion.

Mr. Killilea

The Minister gave no figure.

Mr. McQuillan

I should like the Minister to state now how much land was acquired last year by the Land Commission for the relief of congestion.

Mr. Killilea

I got him to give you the figure.

Mr. McQuillan

I want to make my own speech. May I get that information?

Mr. Blowick

32,544 is the accurate figure.

Mr. McQuillan

I am afraid some people here are very bad at arithmetic because there is a big difference between 8,000 and 32,000. I should like to have it published that 32,544 acres were acquired by the Land Commission last year and not 8,000 as was published to-day and was mentioned by Deputy Killilea. The second point I want to clear up is in connection with a statement made by Deputy G. Boland in the House with reference to a visit of the Minister for Lands to the constituency that Deputy Boland and I represent.

Deputy Boland says that he knows that constituency well and that he was informed there that the Minister for Lands went down to Roscommon and offered holdings of land to people in various localities. Deputy Boland deplored that. I want to have it made quite clear that the Minister for Lands did no such thing. The Minister for Lands came into County Roscommon on my invitation to see some of the pockets of congestion that I have written him about and mentioned to him. I think the Minister for Lands is to be congratulated on going down to see for himself the conditions that exist in my constituency, as they do in other constituencies. The Minister was not going down there to collect a few votes from the unfortunate congests in the locality, as the Deputy has been doing for the past 20 years, holding in front of their noses like a carrot the promise, "We are going to give you a farm of land after the next election."

Mr. de Valera

When you win the respect Deputy Boland has, you can talk.

Mr. Killilea

He never will.

Mr. McQuillan

If Deputy de Valera wants to pursue that line I will show him where I stand because I can talk about respectability just as much as Deputy de Valera.

Mr. de Valera

We know what the Deputy can do.

Mr. McQuillan

My background is as good as yours or any other Deputy's on the Fianna Fáil benches.

Acting-Chairman (Mr. Halliden)

Will the Deputy make his speech?

Mr. McQuillan

I will produce documents here which will make Deputy Killilea keep his mouth shut. He talked about the 13 wounds that he had the time he shot off his toe nails.

Mr. Killilea

What did your father shoot?

Mr. McQuillan

If he did any shooting, he would do it further up and do a better job.

Mr. Hickey

On a point of order. I think it is a shocking state of affairs that we should have such remarks thrown across the House. I think we should conduct the debate in an orderly manner.

Mr. McQuillan

I might point out that Deputy de Valera was the first man to cast aspersions on anybody in this House.

A Deputy

He was not.

Mr. Killilea

Deputy McQuillan has made a statement that I shot off my toe nails. I can produce evidence in this House that that is a barefaced falsehood. I want a withdrawal of that statement from that fellow now.

Captain Giles

Take off your boots and let us see.

Mr. McQuillan

I want to make it clear that if the tone of the debate is going to be on the same lines which Deputy de Valera started I do not wish to speak any more. I mentioned nothing about anybody's ancestors. Deputy Killilea spoke about my past and about my people's past.

Mr. Kitt

On a point of order. Deputy McQuillan has cast aspersions at my colleague, Deputy Killilea, who fought for the Republic of Ireland.

Mr. McQuillan

Do the wet nurse for him. Poor Deputy Killilea is well able to look after himself.

Acting-Chairman

Order.

Mr. Kitt

Deputy Killilea was fighting for his country when some people who are talking in this House to-day were not doing much fighting.

Mr. Davin

This is a fight for lands.

Acting-Chairman

Order. Deputy McQuillan, on the Estimate.

Mr. T. Walsh

It is a fight for votes.

Mr. Kitt

It is a fight for votes when Deputy McQuillan brought down the Minister for Lands to visit his constituency.

Mr. Blowick

The Minister for Lands has a perfect right to see for himself any conditions affecting his Department. I will visit Roscommon, or any lands I want to visit in connection with the problem of congestion, to see conditions for myself.

Mr. Kitt

And promise the unfortunate people there the sun, moon and stars.

Mr. Blowick

I will promise them nothing. I want to see conditions with my own eyes.

Mr. McQuillan

Deputy Boland stated in this House that the Minister for Lands visited Roscommon and offered holdings to the people in that county. I want to state emphatically that that statement by Deputy Boland is absolutely without foundation. The Minister for Lands did no such thing.

Mr. T. Walsh

Wet nurse.

Acting-Chairman

Order. Let us get back to the Estimate at once.

Mr. McQuillan

The Minister for Lands visited County Roscommon on my invitation. I invited him down so that he would have an opportunity of seeing the deplorable conditions under which some of those unfortunate people were asked to exist after 16 years of Fianna Fáil administration. I think I should curtail my remarks on the Estimate as a whole in view of the recent legislation which was passed in this House, namely, the recent Land Bill. Much as I should like to criticise aspects of the Estimate, I feel that it would be unfair to do so until we see what exactly the new Land Bill can achieve in the way of creating as many new economic holdings as possible, thereby putting an end to congestion.

From the speeches I heard during this debate I think that most Deputies did not see fit to mention that the problem of congestion is a social problem as well as an economic problem. If it were only from the economic point of view—for the good of the nation— the Land Commission should take all possible steps to get rid of this wound because as long as we have congestion or uneconomic holdings, so long as that position exists in the country, our other arm, our agricultural arm, can never function properly. We are in the position of a man who is paralysed in one side. Naturally, such a man is not able to put his full vigour and full weight into whatever job he has to do. In the same way, our real industry, agriculture, is hampered by the problem of congestion that exists in so many portions of our country to-day. We have to get a market for our produce. We have to face world competition. In modern times, with modern machinery and with the cutting of prices by other countries, it is absolutely essential that every acre of land in this country be properly utilised. I maintain that until we have that land arranged in economic holdings proper use will not be made of it. That means, in my opinion, that the closest possible co-operation should exist between the Department of Lands and the Department of Agriculture. We cannot afford to have two different outlooks in these Departments.

At this stage I should like to make a suggestion in connection with the size of holdings. In the past, when economic holdings were being considered by the Land Commission, they were considered on the basis that a man used horses to help him in his labour. We have now reached the stage where machinery, tractors and so forth, is replacing and will, in all probability, almost completely replace the use of horses. The Department of Lands should examine the problem of the type or the size of holding that can be suitably worked by machinery and, where the size of the holding in the past was decided on the grounds that horses would be used for agricultural work, see whether that size holding is big enough to-day when mechanisation is replacing the former method of working. The problem of congestion was tackled in the British times. It has been tackled down through the years since we got our own native Government. It is a terrible problem. To solve that problem the British Government and our native Governments have passed a number of Land Acts. They have created machinery known as the Land Commission. That machinery has grown and grown year by year with the fresh legislation which has been added to it until the people who are so anxious to-day to solve the problem of congestion believe that the machine can only be described as a Frankenstein. The Land Commission is now practically beyond the control of this House and it is not carrying out the duties or functions for which it was first formed. Week after week Deputies on both sides of the House address questions to the Minister for Lands. That spate of questions are not put to the Minister just for fun. They are put for the purpose of remedying grievances.

Mr. Hickey

In order to get something done.

Mr. McQuillan

They are put, as Deputy Hickey says, for the purpose of getting necessary and vital work done. I am very much afraid that the Deputies on both sides of the House are wasting their time in putting down questions. As far as I can see, very little or no heed at all is paid to the questions or will be paid or given to them in the future by the Land Commission as it is instituted at present. I consider that to be a slur on the members of this House. I am not taking sides with the present Minister. I am not criticising the past Minister. This is a problem which affects all Parties and we should have agreement on it. I am aware that many Deputies on the other side of the House are whole-heartedly with me on the question of making the Land Commission speed up its work. Yet, no matter how much we seem to talk here and agree on it, nothing seems to be done about it.

As I have said before, great sympathy is expressed in this House for the congest or the man with the uneconomic holding. It should be remembered that during the war years a great number of individuals with large farms were forced to comply with Compulsory Tillage Orders. As is well known, they got out of that by setting their land and their farms in conacre. The man with the uneconomic holding was only too delighted to get a few acres of conacre from the big farm that was beside him. I make a present of this to anybody—that that smallholder cannot get that conacre now because the owner of the land has found it to be a very paying game to rear as many cattle as he possibly can on the land at the moment. It is much easier to have cattle on it than to have the trouble of setting it in conacre and to have the fear that the man to whom he sets the land will take all the good out of it. There is a great case to be made for those smallholders and those who took conacre during the war years. They did a great service to the nation and I hope their services will not be forgotten. It is only right, in localities like that, where these men have no alternative means of livelihood, that they should be recompensed and given land, not nine or ten acres but an economic holding.

In regard to the purchase of land by aliens, there was an amendment down by Deputy Commmons to the Land Bill and I was very disappointed to see the response to it. If that amendment had been passed, even in an altered state, it would mean that the amount of land purchased by aliens would be reduced considerably. The amendment was opposed and I am surprised at some of the people who opposed it. I want the Minister to see that the inspectors in the Land Commission keep a very close eye on the market down the country and, whereever estates or big farms are put up for auction and are advertised in the British papers, they should step in. There is no question of doing an injustice to that owner now, as he is going to get the full market value. That land should be kept for Irishmen and divided here amongst our own people. We are not adding to the national wealth in any way by allowing aliens to come in and purchase big farms. The type that comes in and has come in during the last few years has not been a desirable type. They are people trying to escape the consequences of just taxation in a neighbouring country, Britain, and I am afraid that in the future we may have to face a bigger influx of this particular type of alien.

On the question of keeping a brood mare or a blood stallion on a farm, there is a loophole in the law as it stands. For many years past, land owners with a considerable amount of land have been allowed to retain that land and make no use of it whatever, purely on the ground that it is a blood stock farm. I do not want to be misinterpreted when I mention the bloodstock trade. It is a most necessary and a most useful one in the country, but it is too bad to say that men get away and cod the Land Commission and the country by pretending to have a bloodstock farm when they have only one brood mare or perhaps none at all.

I know the Minister is not a prophet, but I would like him to tell me whether he can visualise any limited period within which the problem of congestion can be solved. Does he expect that it will go on, like the words of the song, for ever and ever, that we will have the Land Commission with us for all time and the problem of congestion for all time? Most Deputies are interested in solving this problem and admit straight away that the biggest part of it exists in the West of Ireland. Can anybody see anything wrong with shifting the Land Commission section dealing with congestion, bag and baggage, down to Athlone or Galway? Decisions cannot be taken at present without correspondence passing up and down to Dublin and this goes on for months and sometimes for years about a particular farm. Those really responsible are here in Dublin and to a great extent out of touch with matters down the country. I see nothing wrong with transferring them to Athlone or Galway and would like the Minister to consider the suggestion.

I drew the attention of the Minister some time ago to the fact that in my constituency we have a large number of Land Commission inspectors, six in one small county, whereas in six large counties in Leinster I understand there is only one inspector functioning. Would the Minister check up on that?

Mr. Blowick

That is not so.

Mr. McQuillan

The area where land is available is in the Midlands and I see no reason why a bigger staff could not be employed there watching for farms to become available.

I do not think we have had anybody here, since the debate on this Estimate opened, who came down to brass tacks on the question of the Midlands versus the rest of the country. Can it be denied that our great cattle trade depends largely on the husbandry in the Midlands? What does the Minister think with regard to the future of the Midlands? Is it his idea that it is necessary to have in the Midlands farms from 300 acres and upwards, or maybe I should go lower and say from 150 acres up to 1,000—that farms of that size should be kept there to protect that great industry? In other words, is it necessary to have huge farms in order to maintain the industry and step it up? To my mind, that is one of the root troubles connected with the problems of the Land Commission. Do we consider that an economic holding in the West is one of 25 or 30 acres, while an economic holding for a poor man in Meath or Dublin is 300 acres?

I do not wish to deal too specifically with detailed problems in my own constituency. It should be sufficient if I remind the Minister that the rosy picture painted here by Deputy Boland, that there was nothing now in Roscommon, as a result of his activities and the activities of Fianna Fáil, but beautiful economic holdings, grand houses and so forth, is not a true picture at all. I do not deny for a minute that there are many grand holdings and grand houses but in between these grand holdings and houses there are pockets of congestion, as bad as those in the Minister's county.

I would like to give one example of an area that exists in this paradise that was painted by Deputy G. Boland. There is a village called Derrycahill on the banks of the River Suck. Deputy Boland criticised the Minister for visiting it. There are 18 families living in that village. They have approximately 65 acres of land between the 18 families. The River Suck curls around the village and the holdings and, for practically the entire winter period, they are cut off from the outside world except for a narrow path. The roadway is constantly flooded and a number of years ago a child was drowned. Funerals cannot come out from that village at certain times of the year. That problem of congestion has existed there for a great number of years. It existed before this Government came in and before Fianna Fáil were heard of. It is only two miles from that locality that Deputy Boland got his information that the Minister for Lands went down and promised holdings. He went down because he did not take my word for it that things were as bad in that locality as they really are.

That is one example of a pocket of congestion. I can cite various areas but I do not want to take up the time of the House. I want to refute the suggestion that the Minister went down for the purpose of giving out holdings. He went down—and more power to him—because he took an active interest in the matter. That does not mean that I agree with the Minister that the Land Commission is doing the work it should do. The more I see and hear about their activities, the more I am convinced that their usefulness is finished. I know that the Minister has said: "Put up something else; make suggestions." As far as I can see, there is no good making suggestions to the Minister or the Land Commission in this House. At any rate, in view of the fact that the Minister has assured us that the Land Bill will speed up the relief of congestion, in view of that promise made by the Minister, I am prepared to forgo for the present further criticism on this Estimate.

Minister for Industry and Commerce (Mr. Morrissey)

I move to report progress of this debate for the purpose of making a short statement, if the House will allow me to do so.

Agreed.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.