Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 1 Jun 1955

Vol. 151 No. 4

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

Debate resumed on the following motion:—

That the Estimate be referred back for reconsideration—(Deputy Derrig).

Donnchadh Ó Briain

I want to refer to one specific matter which came to my notice recently in relation to the operations of the Land Commission where the division of land is concerned. There is a certain amount of land, about 2,500 acres, in the hands of the Land Commission at the present moment in County Limerick. I want to appeal to the Minister on behalf of a specific class of which the Land Commission rules governing the distribution of land do not sufficiently take cognisance. Perhaps this position which I am interested in bringing to the Minister's attention does not apply in many other counties besides Limerick. In the dairying districts we have a class called dairymen.

These are people who rent land for a certain number of years, stock dairy cows and supply milk to creameries. I would ask the Land Commission to take the position of people like those into consideration. I have known a few of them who were provided with farms by the Land Commission in the past. They are deserving people because they have no land of their own. They have proved to be very efficient workers when they rented farms, stocked them and produced milk and other commodities on that land. Unfortunately, they have often had to leave at a moment's notice. That is the type of person who should be taken into consideration in any place where land is being acquired and divided, that is, of course, when the demands of local uneconomic holders have been met.

There is another class of people who are very deserving in my opinion. As I have said, the Land Commission rule them out more often than provide for them, that is, the cottiers who only own the county council plot they get with their cottage. These men, through thrift, industry and hard work, succeed in taking grazing land and stocking it with milch cows. I know of instances where cottiers, without owning a perch of land except the cottage plot, own six, seven and eight milch cows and keep those cows on land they rent for grazing and pay for very dearly each year and have been doing that for years past. There are a number of these people and they deserve well of this country and deserve the special consideration of the Land Commission. I have been making inquiries about this and the only time, I understand, that cottiers of any description are considered is when they live within a half mile of the estate to be divided.

In the case of a cottier who does not own land of his own who cannot purchase it, but who is renting it from year to year and who has five, six and sometimes ten cows on that rented land, I think he is deserving of consideration no matter what distance he lives from the estate. Even if he lived five or six miles away, he would deserve consideration. He would be written down, of course, under the Land Commission rules for the division of land as a landless man. I put it to the Minister that in a position such as obtains in County Limerick, cottiers who rent land in the way I have described should receive more favourable consideration from the Land Commission than they have received heretofore.

I suggest that the distance limit of a half mile which applies should not continue to apply where you have men who, to all intents and purposes, are at present in the same position as small farmers but who unfortunately do not own the land they are farming. These people should be made tenant holders and given allotments by the Land Commission. The stock is there already, the equipment is there already, the ability to work is quite apparent from the fact that these men, year after year, are paying heavy rents for land in their locality and are working it to the best of their ability.

There is another aspect of Land Commission policy and Land Commission regulations to which I should also like to refer. Some Deputy here yesterday referred to a recent practice of the Land Commission in refusing to accept the decision of the Appeal Tribunal now and again as regards price. I think that is an unfair attitude to adopt. I suppose it is a question maybe of the Department of Finance making representation to the Land Commission in connection with that matter so that too high a price would not be paid but I think it is wrong that when there is an appeal on price by the owner of land and when the tribunal fixes the price in the last appeal that can be made by the owner, the Land Commission should not honour the decision of that court.

Minister for Lands (Mr. Blowick)

The Land Commission are only acting in the interests of the allottees who are fighting to get the land.

Donnchadh Ó Briain

I understand; the Commission feels that if it does not cut the price suggested by the tribunal the allottees would have to pay too high a rent in order to recoup the portion for the payment of which they are responsible, but is it not a fact that where land is acquired and divided the allottees have only to pay half the price paid for that land?

Mr. Blowick

That is right but even at that a steep price could mean a very high rent.

Donnchadh Ó Briain

In my opinion that question does not arise when people are hungry for land. The people about whom I have been talking are paying far more rent per annum for the land they rent for grazing than they would were they asked to recoup the Land Commission for any allotment they might get. There are also a few areas in County Limerick which I would describe as practically desert. Some of it is the finest land in the county, but the Land Commission does not do anything about it because there is no congestion. Some of the finest land in the country is available there for acquisition and division if the commission would only agree to take it and divide it. They would find allottees for it and good ones. But apparently there must be some problem of congestion in the immediate locality in order to justify the Land Commission stepping in and acquiring such land.

There is one parish where there are 1,000 acres of land which I regard to a great extent as a desert. It is magnificent land but the Land Commission will not touch it because there is no congestion there. I intervened in this debate principally to say a word on behalf of the type of applicant for land whom I have described as the cottier who owns no land but who rents it every year and who keeps anything from five to ten dairy cows. This man can get nowhere nor can he own a farm of his own because he has not the wherewithal to purchase it. If these people had the price of land they would not be depending on the Land Commission but would get out into the open market, but with the inflated price that is paid for all kinds of land now these people cannot purchase on the open market, despite all this talk about the flight from the land.

It is very difficult for the people who are working hard like they are but who are not able to put sufficient money together to purchase a farm of their own. Men of that kind who did succeed in saving sufficient money did go out and purchase and they made eminently successful farmers. The vast majority of them, however, cannot purchase land on their own and I plead specifically for a relaxation of the rules governing division of land where applicants like that are concerned.

Seósamh Ó Cinnéide

Ba mhaith liomsa beagáinín níos mó Gaeilge a chloisteál sa díospóireacht seo. 'Sé mo thuairmse go raibh i bhfad níos mó le cloisteál suas le cúpla bliain ó shoin. Tá fhios ag chách go mba cheart go mbeadh dlú-bhaint níos láidre idir an Roinn Tailte agus muintir na Gaeltachta. Blianta ó shoin is cuimhin liom scéal a chloisint faoi fear a bhí ag foghlaim na teangan. Bhí mórchuid Gaeilge aige i dtosach, ach leis na blianta chaill sé aon tsuim nó dúil nó spéis a bhí aige innti. Tá faitchíos orm go bhfuil an scéal céanna le rá faoin Roinn seo.

Is féidir leis an Roinn a lán maitheas a dhéanamh in obair na teangan. Tá an-chumhacht acu chun an teanga a tharraingt isteach in a gcuid oibre agus molaim-se go ndéanfaidís é chomh maith agus is féidir leo. Tóg, mar shampla, ceist na litreacha a chuireann siad amach. Nuair a cuireadh an Stáit seo ar bun, do dhein gach Roinn iarracht mór an Ghaeilge a thabhairt isteach agus úsáid níos mó a dhéanamh dí; chuir siad tús le na gcuid litreacha le "A Chara" agus críoch leo mar seo: "Mise, le meas" nó "le mórmheas"; ach suas trí na blianta chuireadar cosc leis an nós sin agus níl acu anois ach "Dear Sir" agus "Yours sincerely".

Creidimse go mbeimíd indon an Ghaeilge a thabhairt tharnais, ach caifear í a aithbheochaint in dhiaidh a chéile. Níor cheart do scríobhnóir, mar shampla, fanacht go mbeidh mórchuid Gaeilge ag chuile dhuine; ba cheart dó tosnú a dhéanamh le habairtí simplí Ghaeilge ag tús agus ag deire a litir. Sa chaoi sin, beidh sé ag tabhairt cabhair mór don chúis. Molaimse anois go gcuirfidh an Roinn atá i gceist anseo tosnú ar an obair sin.

Deputy McQuillan spoke, yesterday, about possible savings in the Land Commission in the number of officials and in other aspects of expenditure. My opinion also is that there could be a considerable saving. While some may be pulling their weight, the great majority are not pulling their weight, and they are not giving a full day's work for a full day's pay. That holds for the field staff as well as for the office staff. I think that there could be great retrenchment and a great saving for this State in the Land Commission. I have that opinion of the whole Civil Service, but in this particular Department there is a call for retrenchment and it should be examined.

I am not one of those who say that the Land Commission should be abolished, when it does no useful work, that in the policy of migration it is very slow and is not meeting with the spectacular success that people anticipated, and that, therefore, it should be abolished. I do not agree with that at all. I think that in the rearrangement of rundale and in migration, the Land Commission have done a very big work and a great lot of good for the country as a whole.

I have been in Connemara several times and I have seen the homes from which people were translated to Meath and to other parts. They were never translated to Tipperary because the Government and the Land Commission were always afraid of Tipperary, but that is another question. Anyway, I have seen the homes from which they were migrated. The land from which they were taken was added to other homes. I have seen, after a number of years, the sons in the houses which got an additional holding building houses on the old holding, so that you had the congestion all over again.

You see all that from Donegal to Kerry, but that does not deter me from praising migration, and it does not suggest to my mind that the Minister or the Land Commission should change that. It does indicate, however, that you have no quick solution for this problem of migration or congestion. Candidly speaking, I would far sooner see a rural slum than a slum in a city area because in the former independent men and women have a better chance of developing their individuality and their citizenship in a rural congested area than they would have in a congested tenement area in a city.

There is another point with which I should like to deal. The Land Commission had been operating before there was ever an independent State in this part of Ireland. One notable fact about the old Congested Districts Board was the slovenly, half-hearted way in which they did things, and the way in which they left things unfinished. They divided an estate say in Meath or Kildare. The old British Government voted so much money to make ditches and roads into the homes of the people. We will say that the sum was £50, which was a lot of money at that time. They made the road half-way or three-quarters of the way and left it there. The people at the end of the estate were left without any road. That is a fact, and you can see evidence of it in County Clare and in County Westmeath. That evidence is there until this day where you see people having to carry their goods across the unmade part of a road, if one can call it a road because it is little more than wheel tracks.

Things have improved a bit since then. The grants are meagre and the officials do the best they can with these grants. But, again, there is often neglect in completing the work. I know an estate in my own parish, the Hempenstall estate, which is situate at Ballinascary. I wrote to the Land Commission recently about it. There was very bad mishandling in the matter of administration there. I want to draw the attention of the House, the Department and the Minister to certain details. The ditches were never completed; they were never fully made. The ditch between a man named Reynolds and a man named Philip O'Reilly was never finished. The pump was never properly sunk, and who is to blame for that I do not know. The fact, however, is that these men have to pay their annuities and their rates and there is no protection to keep their cattle and sheep from crossing one another's land. The Minister is not to blame for that, but I am drawing his attention and the attention of this House and of the Land Commission to that particular estate.

Another matter to which I should like to draw the attention of the Minister, and of the Government, is that when an estate, like the Chapman estate, at Southill, near Delvin, County Westmeath, is acquired where you have big belts of woods or forests, the Land Commission, with its child, the Forestry Department, should put their heads together and see what is to be the ultimate national result in a few years in the wiping out of those forests. The Minister and the Land Commission know of that. You have it from Galway to Dublin and from Cavan to Kerry in the case of big estates which have been acquired. Whatever we may say against landlords, and there is very little good that we can say of them, one thing they did was to preserve any forests that we had in the country.

I should like to deal with the question of the division of estates on which there are belts of trees. Take the case of Joristown. There you have one of the finest belts of elm and larch to be found around any estate in the country. I cannot tell the exact depth of it. What is going to happen to it? It is going to be knocked down and sold by the incoming occupiers of the land. Is it going to be replaced? Not a whin bush will be set in its place. Any afforestation that takes place will be of a nature which will not grow timber that will be one-tenth as good, because it will be on cut-away bog, and will not yield timber of the quality that you have in Southill and in Joristown and on a number of other estates.

I should like the Land Commission and the Minister to look very seriously into this matter and see what can be done about it. I can see young larch and mature larch, I can see elm and oak, mature and immature, being felled every week that I come to Dublin. What is going to take their place? These are posers for the Minister and are of national importance. I suggest it would be very desirable if the Minister could deal with them when he is replying.

On the question of migration, local requirements should be met as far as possible. Sometimes they are not; sometimes there is a lack of justice on the part of the Land Commission, and deserving people are put out. I do not want to minimise the problem that there is in the West. I know that where you have a lot of small holdings with valuations of £10 and £15 you have to deal with them, but I would ask the Minister to bear in mind that, in the Midlands, we also have small valuations. For instance, if anyone looks up the Statistical Abstract for 1938, the latest one that I have seen, he will find that there are 8,000 or 9,000 holdings in my own county under £10 valuation and you have quite a big number with valuations of £2 10s. I suggest that the position of these people should be considered when they are near an estate and that they should not be left out.

Coming now to the question of the big migration to Delvin, you are going to deal with an estate in Adamstown. Why not give the locals there a chance? You brought decent people, good citizens, who are a credit to the country, up from the West. Now give the local people a chance when you are dividing the Adamstown estate. In the same way, why not give the people in a comparatively congested area like Dysart a chance?

In the Kilbeggan electoral area, the farms are all small. It is not the grazing part of Westmeath. It adjoins Offaly, and the farmers there are great growers of barley and all grain crops. Why not look into their claims when dealing with the 100 or 200 acres of land which you are about to divide in Dysart?

Deputy Donnchadh Ó Briain dealt with the question of cottages. We have successfully gone from the conditions when the British were here in regard to the number of cow parks in the County Westmeath. The cottiers there may have one or two cows and calves and may need accommodation. I am making the case that the people from Dysart should get a cow park.

You have an estate at Joristown, which I mentioned before, and on which there is a big holding. I think its valuation is £35 or £36. You brought innumerable people, as you were entitled to do, from the West, to inspect that holding, to see if they would give up their holdings in the West, and take that over. The valuation on the house frightened them, and they have gone back. I will give you 20 people within 20 miles of that holding who will not be frightened of the valuation, and who will give up their holdings and go into that. I appeal to you to give them a chance. They will make good farmers, will not bog down on the rates, but will pay every cent of them. Every one of them is a good mixed farmer, and will make a success of it. You are two or three years tinkering with it now. Give the Westmeath and Meath people a chance—it is only a couple of miles from the Meath border—of proving themselves and going in there, after yielding up their own farms. This will aid the relief of congestion.

I do not subscribe, for one moment, to the doctrine that a man should have a limited amount of land. If a man had 10,000 acres of land, gave good employment for which he paid a good wage, and drew a good yield out of it, more power to him. Why limit the amount of land he should hold? It is only the man who is a chain-grazing farmer whom I would make work. The size of a man's farm does not frighten me in the least. One of my constituents wrote to me, condemning us for the handling of the Land Commission. He wrote:—

"If I had the handling of the Land Commission, I would get a map of Ireland and divide the land into squares. You would do it in 12 months."

I do not believe in that kind of thing. As I said, if a man is giving good employment, and getting the best out of the land, he should be left in his holding.

But, side by side with that, you have the Land Commission going after Westmeath holdings of 20 or 30 acres, in the vicinity of Dysart. I know the case of a widow who was left, unfortunately, with a number of children to rear. She got into debt with the bank, and some wiseacre said that the Fine Gael Party were making war on the children. She is dead now, and the children are all working, trying to pay the bank. They are like a lot of hounds after a fox in a field. To take 20 acres from the children of this woman is most unfair and uncalled for. The children were well entitled to go into that holding when they got on their feet. If ever anything made for Communism that kind of thing makes for it.

In my career as a public representative, I know of nothing where we can be more unfair and unjust than in this question of land division. Go into any political meeting of any political organisation. You can talk about social welfare, or about any other matter relative to this State. You will get fair and, maybe, hard criticism at times, but eventually you will smooth things out. But when land division is mentioned the lid is off, there is "meela murder", and anything can be said. If people take advantage of the political Party they are in to make war on the person taking land, the Land Commission should not lend themselves to that kind of action.

There is another matter with which I would like to deal. The only person, whether he is a migrant or not, who should get consideration in the allocation of land, is the man bringing up a family. If he is a successful farmer, the political Party to which he belongs should not enter into the matter, whether it be Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Labour, Clann na Poblachta or Sinn Féin. This should not be taken into consideration. Any Deputy who uses his influence—and I know of something that happened four years ago—and says: "Do not give that man a farm", is doing a disservice to the nation. There will be repercussions later. That man may be a family man with 12 children, maybe with seven acres of land. If he is put into another holding, no Deputy should say: "Do not give land to that fellow because he is a rabid Fianna Fáil man."

Mr. O'Leary

That happened last year.

Mr. Kennedy

It happened in my constituency. It went so far that the Land Commission would not speak to the man when he made representations to them. It went so far that when I wrote to the chief inspector I could not get the courtesy of a reply. Yet, when another Deputy made representations he had a letter back by post saying that his representations got consideration. After all, I have been elected for the past 27 years in my constituency and I think I am entitled to as much courtesy as the members of other political Parties. I apply that rule all round. I know when we came into office it was said to us: "Oh, you are giving the land to Fine Gael as well as your own". We had not the ultimate say; and I certainly would not like any Minister to interfere to such an extent that he would say who should get it.

Mr. O'Leary

Who decides it?

Mr. Kennedy

It would be a terrible thing if a man is entitled to land on every ground, both family circumstances and good husbandry, and is deprived of that land because of his political allegiance.

Mr. O'Leary

It is a pity the Deputy did not think of that long ago.

Mr. Kennedy

Deputy O'Leary is not a bit innocent. He is long enough here to have some common sense and to know that I am making a commonsense statement.

Mr. O'Leary

Down my way it was the Fianna Fáil people who got it, and it is they who are getting it under the present Administration.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Kennedy is in possession. Deputy O'Leary will get an opportunity of making his own statement.

Mr. Kennedy

They must be good farmers. Tá súil agam go ndéanfaidh an tAire rud eigin faoi na poinntí a chur mé os comhair an Dáil.

Mr. O'Leary

I have a few words to say on this Estimate. Since I came into this House in 1943 I have seen more questions on the Order Paper in relation to the Department of Lands than in relation to any other Department. At the rate of progress that is being made quite a number of people who are looking for land will have gone to their eternal reward. The Land Commission is too slow.

I was glad to hear there are cottagers in Limerick in such a good position that they can keep five and six cows. They are very wealthy cottagers. Unfortunately we have none of them in Wexford. Very often when we seek information here about the activities of the Land Commission we are told the Minister has no say; it is the commissioners. The result is we do not know where we are. Deputy Kennedy talked about politics. Last year in my constituency the Galbally estate, on which a number of small farmers and others had been accustomed to take conacre, was given by the Land Commission to two single men. They were taken from one farm and transferred to the Galbally estate. The Land Commission took over the Ellis estate and I was surprised to see the house on that estate being demolished and an auction advertised. Surely that policy is wrong. We are always talking about lack of housing. Why then knock down a house? That house could have been given to a small farmer.

No later than a week ago people approached me asking if they could get a few acres of land on that estate. I asked them if anyone had called on them and they told me no one had called; but the strange thing is they were able to tell me who was going to get the land. Surely there is something wrong there. Now I have written to the Land Commission as frequently as any other Deputy here. I might as well have been writing to the Dead Letter Office. So much for political influence! Anybody on whose behalf I ever wrote never got as much as one acre. At the same time political influence was used; but it was not the Labour supporters who got the land. In my area it was the people Deputy Kennedy was talking about.

When Deputy Derrig was Minister for Lands I put down a question in relation to a certain farm in my constituency. I asked him to give me the names of the people who got the land. His reply was that it was not in the public interest to give the information sought. Nevertheless I could be told before I ever came into Leinster House who the allottees were. In some cases land has been given to old age pensioners with no families. If that is the way the Land Commission works it is time we scrapped it. Farmers' sons and labourers' sons cannot get one acre; and then we talk about the flight from the land. The young men in Wexford are willing to work the land if they get it.

When there is land for division in Wexford the wrong people get it. Allocating land to suit politicians should stop. I believe the Land Commission will have to change its ways. It is the slowest working machine of all Government Departments. The number of questions tabled here shows how slow the machine is. An estate has been acquired outside Enniscorthy and the people are waiting for it to be divided. The general practice of the Land Commission is to set such land for a year as conacre. The allottees who ultimately get the land find all the good has been taken out of it and it is these unfortunate people who have to lime it and fertilise it and put it into good heart. That system is wrong. Houses on these estates that are taken over should not be demolished if they are in good repair. The house should be given over together with 30 or 40 acres of land to one of the allottees. Now I think anything less than 40 acres of land is useless. Fortunately we are not troubled very much in Wexford from the point of view of land but a few things have happened which have caused some contention. I have never seen an inspector of the Land Commission. I do not know but that the gentlemen sitting on the Minister's right may be the inspectors.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy should not refer to officials. It is the Minister who is responsible.

Mr. O'Leary

At one time we are told it is the Minister and the next time we are told it is the commission. Has the Minister any say at all or is he only a figurehead?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister is responsible for the Vote.

Mr. O'Leary

Yes, but I do not think he is responsible after that because, as far as I can see, the Land Commission is doing what it likes and causing a great many grievances among landless people by dividing land as they are dividing it. I think something should be done to speed up land division and to give the people who want land a chance of getting it. We talk about keeping the people on the land and about the flight from the land, but we should give the applicants the land they need and not give it to people who already have acres of land. I think the first people to get land should be the landless men. I was told one day that if you had no land you had no chance of getting land; according to that landless men are ruled out.

I know that some very bad decisions were given in the Enniscorthy area and I am prepared to stand over that statement if necessary. People were given land who were not entitled to get it at all and genuine cases with three or four acres, people who were trying to live by working on the roads and so on, were turned down. I hope the Land Commission this year will do more, and do it more honestly and in such a way that they will see that applicants who want land will get it. I hope the Land Commission will stop this trucking and swapping to suit certain political Parties.

Mr. Killilea

I want to add my voice to those who have stated that they resent the attitude of the Land Commission in refusing to take land which has been subject to a decision fixing the price. I think it is very wrong of the Land Commission. It should not have any more right to refuse such lands than have the people from whom the land is being taken. I think all that is due to the fact that the 1950 Land Act was a bad Act. The 1950 Land Act led us to understand that the market value would be paid for land. If the Minister is satisfied that he was right in saying that market value would be paid for land then he should also insist that if a price is fixed on farm land the Land Commission should definitely pay that price.

Mr. Blowick

Would you buy a thing that would be too dear for you?

Mr. Killilea

The Minister should wake up and realise one thing: it is not a question of it being too dear for you. Those lands, as far as I know, are mostly lands—many of them at any rate—that are let in conacre and unfortunate people with small valuations of £5 or £6 are mulcted to the extent of £14 or £15 per acre which they have to pay for those lands in conacre year after year. I think that is what the Minister must face up to. If the Land Commission is to relieve these people, they must be given the lands they are crying out for even at greater prices, because conacre has them robbed; where are their profits going to come from when they have to pay up to £15 or £18 for conacre in my part of the country? I know the Minister chimed in when Deputy Ó Briain was speaking with the remark that the land would be too dear on the people. Is it going to be anything like the same price as when they are taking it in conacre?

Mr. Blowick

It might be.

Mr. Killilea

Well, why not scrap this 1950 Land Act? Is it not a complete failure?

Mr. Blowick

It is not.

Mr. Killilea

How many holdings of land have been acquired under it? I heard questions asked about this and I do not think there were more than half a dozen.

Mr. Blowick

You know the Deputy in your Party who said that.

Mr. Killilea

I do not know of any holding taken over under it, and that is a clear statement. I live in a constituency that is very congested and day after day holdings are being sold. Some of these holdings were actually offered by the people who own them to the Land Commission but the Land Commission refused to step in. They refused to offer the people alternative lands or buy them over from them. I wonder why that is the case and I wonder if the Minister will say that that must stop.

The question of migration is a very important one, but at the same time where good holdings of land are for sale in a townland and where these are suitable for the rearrangement of holdings in the townland I see no reason why the Land Commission should not step in and take over those holdings. I heard it said here yesterday, and I suppose all of us resent the fact, that we had during recent years—or was it confined to last year—racketeers starting wheat-ranching in certain parts of the country. If there is any sort of ranching like that going on we should realise that we have been a long time fighting in this country against cattle ranching, and if there is any other type of ranching going on, it is up to the Land Commission to wake up and step in. All that type of stuff can be stopped overnight. The cutting of the price of wheat by 12/6 is not a solution to the problem.

Mr. Blowick

Well, it stopped it.

Mr. Killilea

It did not.

Mr. Blowick

Yes, it did.

Mr. Killilea

If the acreage of wheat is down this year it is down because of the fact that the price is cut. That does not get away from the problem. If you want to stop any racketeering in land for cattle-ranching or wheat-ranching it could be done if the Land Commission became a little more active and stepped in and took over those lands. You would not then have Deputy Tully resenting the migrants from the West coming in because there is plenty of land available in the Midlands for these migrants if the Land Commission only woke up, or if the Minister exerted himself a little more.

Another thing I have been coming across from time to time, particularly in latter years, is in regard to the rearrangement of holdings. We have a number of holdings that the Land Commission has on hands for 14 or 15 or even 18 years and they have been letting these lands in conacre year after year. Of course much of this land is let in tillage and the heart is knocked out of it. It is then handed over to some unfortunate individual, a small struggling farmer with perhaps a £5 or £6 valuation, and it is given to him in an impoverished state incapable of growing any crop other than rushes or weeds. I must say that the previous Minister, Deputy Derrig, did a bit of land reclamation work last year on impoverished lands before they were handed over. Let us hope the present Minister will continue that and extend it more and more.

Liming and manuring was done on some of the lands and although these are not handed out yet, an effort is being made to build them up before they are handed over. If impoverished lands incapable of producing a crop are handed over to a small farmer who is usually a man without much capital he is not in a position to manure those lands or bring them up to fertility so as to produce a decent crop from them. I think it is the duty of the Land Commission to try to hand over to those people lands that are fertile and lands that are not choked with weeds or in want of manure.

I ask the Minister to press ahead with that work. They also hand over lands that are flooded out and unable to grow anything but rushes or heather and are useless to an uneconomic holder and he is as well off without such land. Again, lands are handed over which are all shrubbery and in no condition for anybody to do anything with them. It is all right to say that the Department of Agriculture are dealing with that aspect in the land reclamation scheme, but it is the duty of the Land Commission to hand over to any small farmer lands on which he can start to work right away rather than that he should be in the position of having to endure hardships in trying to get the land into a condition in which he can knock something out of it.

I might draw the Minister's attention to a statement he made at the Archbishop's meeting in Tuam when he promised to give immediate attention to the migration of people willing to migrate from the flooded areas in North Galway. I regret to say that no Government Department gave an ounce of assistance, outside the Army, in those flooded areas. We were expecting and hoping that the Department of Agriculture might do something, but nothing was done. There are at least four families there—I put this matter to him on a few previous occasions—who are willing to migrate immediately and I ask him to have the matter examined as he promised in Tuam and to get something done about it. I told the Minister the night he made the promise in Tuam that a scheme had already been submitted to his Department, with the names of the people concerned. If this flooding recurs this year, we will have Government lip sympathy with these people, but now is the time to remedy the situation and I sincerely hope that we will get more than lip sympathy for them.

While I agree that the basis of valuation is about the only line on which we can go in the division of land, at the same time, the Land Commission should take into consideration that you have small holdings adjoining certain demesne lands, the valuation of which is exceedingly high. In numerous parts of my constituency, you will find people with a valuation of £14 and £16 who still have only six or seven acres of arable land. When a holding of land is being divided convenient to these people, they are not eligible for any increase because they are over £12 10s. valuation. I think we should give a little attention to the size of the holding because a man does not derive his livelihood from the valuation of a holding. While the valuation is an indication, it is, at the same time, very detrimental to many people in the West of Ireland who have to live on eight or ten acres, which is not an economic holding, although the valuation may be £14, £16 or even £18. The Land Commission should be a little bit more liberal when dealing with such land and should try to stretch a point in favour of these people and give them at least an economic holding of 25 acres of arable land, no matter what the valuation of the holding.

Deputy O'Leary said that the Order Paper is half filled every day with questions regarding land and all asked by western Deputies. Deputy O'Leary happens to be living in a part of the world where Cromwell was kind to them——

Mr. Blowick

Maybe it is that he was extra cruel.

Mr. Killilea

——but the people he pushed out had to come down to the mountains and bare spots of Connacht and it should not be forgotten that they are still trying to eke out an existence there. I could say that the man living in a labourer's cottage in Wexford, which I know pretty well, is better off than a lot of people living on £2 10s. to £5 valuation holdings in the West, and, if we put down questions, it is because we are making an effort to focus the attention of the Land Commission on the plight of these unfortunate people.

A few things happened recently in my constituency that have been very much resented. I had a question down here last week asking the Minister what the Land Commission proposed to do regarding certain lands at Belclare. There is a publican who lives in the City of Galway and who has another public-house in Tuam. He is a married man without a family and his wife has another big business in Galway, and an old man died a few years ago and left him a holding out beside where I live of 12 or 13 acres. It is in the area where the flooding took place last year. The old man had three acres of the holding on a temporary letting and the Land Commission are now going to take over these three miserable acres and leave the rest of the holding to the man in Galway. The peculiar feature of it is that the holding was sold a few months ago, and, because the man sold these three acres along with whatever vested land he had, the Land Commission refused to sanction the sale and the sale was broken off. Now this man proposes to sell the other nine acres, but the Land Commission will not go in and take the holding over.

Mr. O'Leary

They are too slow.

Mr. Killilea

There is no pressure on them. I had a question down some time ago regarding a farm known as Blackacre at Tuam. The Galway County Council built a number of cottages there some years ago and the owner of the land then was very decent to these cottiers. They had the farm for the grass of their cows. Tuam is a town that has not an oversupply of milk and those people were serving a very useful purpose by relieving the town supply in producing their own milk but the Land Commission allowed this farm to be sold. The day after it was sold, all their cows were shoved out on the high road and pushed on the market and those unfortunate people now have to purchase their milk requirements. In my view, that was a slow move on the part of the Land Commission. I protested before it was done and I protested before the sale was sanctioned. Actually, the Tuam Parish Council were in touch with the Minister about the matter but nothing was done.

I want the Minister and the Land Commission to wake up and push ahead more vigorously with the acquisition of land. At the moment, there is a very congested area between Headford and Shrule and a very good and large farm is about to be put on the market. I should like the Land Commission to step in there. They can help to solve the remaining problem in that area by taking over this particular farm. Some time ago they let a farm on the Galway side of Shrule slip through their fingers and I hope that will not happen again in this case. Another congested area is Cloonacat. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance knows all about the position there. It is bad enough that the Land Commission should give permission to sell a vested holding but it is far worse when permission is given for the sale of an unvested holding. There was an unvested holding in that area and the Land Commission gave permission for its sale. The same happened in Clooncum W. An unvested holding was sold to a shopkeeper. If a man is a shopkeeper then that is his way of earning his living and if a man is a farmer he must be allowed to make his living out of his holding of land.

We have now arrived at the stage when we are again creating ranches all over the country. Any man who has a bit of money can go out to-morrow morning and purchase every small holding that is for sale in the country, one after the other. Something must be done about that situation. There is no point in breaking up ranches to-day if we allow them to be created again to-morrow. Yesterday I met a young man and his wife who were leaving a ten-acre farm and hitting off for England. That is happening every day in Ireland at the present time. If we allow holdings of land to be sold and allow people to become ranchers again after all the efforts from the Land League days down to the present time then the position will be even worse than it was.

To the uneconomic landholder, it does not matter whether the rancher is the old type of landlord or the new type of rancher except that under the old landlord system he might have had a chance of getting an acre one way or another. However, with the present land grabber who is building up this type of holding by the purchase of every patch of land in his vicinity, there is little or no hope for the small fellow who is trying to eke out an existence even by the purchase of conacre. There is no hope for him when these fellows jump over his head and purchase every patch of land that is for sale. I trust that the Minister and his Department will push ahead with the acquisition of such lands.

I want to refer now to the type of road the Land Commission are making. In County Galway we have the greatest road mileage of any county in Ireland. Day after day the Land Commission are adding to that road mileage. Nobody would be a bit worried about those Land Commission roads if they were decent roads but, on a farm, they pick out the crookedest wall they can find and then they think it is economic to build a sod fence along it——

Mr. Blowick

That is not true.

Mr. Killilea

I beg the Minister's pardon. If he says that what I say is not true I will tell him that he is not telling the truth when he says that what I say is not true. I invite the Minister to go over to Castlehackett and inspect the road into the flooded area and see what kind of a road the Land Commission made.

Mr. Blowick

I was on that road. I know it well.

Mr. Killilea

Is there any straight 50 yards on that road——

Mr. Blowick

Because of outside boundaries they could not do anything else.

Mr. Killilea

They took over 700 acres of land. The Minister should talk about something he knows something about. He knows nothing in the world about this matter. This road was built in the centre of an estate of 700 acres which was taken from General Beirne.

Mr. Blowick

In a few cases——

Mr. Killilea

"In a few cases."

Mr. Blowick

The Deputy is quoting one case and an impossible one.

Mr. Killilea

Every Deputy knows that what I am talking about is true. The vast majority of the roads the Land Commission are building are too narrow.

Mr. Blowick

The Deputy said "crooked" a while ago.

Mr. Killilea

The Minister interrupted me. I was about to point out at that time that not merely were they crooked but they were almost as crooked as the Minister himself.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance (Mr. Donnellan)

I would advise the Deputy to keep to the floods.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Killilea will withdraw the expression "crooked" which he used in reference to the Minister.

Mr. Killilea

I withdraw it. When the Minister starts telling me that I do not know what I am talking about when, in fact, I am talking about roads that I know from A to Z, I cannot describe him as straight. Not alone are those new Land Commission roads crooked but in no case are they more than ten feet wide, and if two donkey carts happen to meet then one of them must pull up on the side of the ditch so as to enable the other one to pass. If our county council were to take over those roads our county engineer would say that we would have to remove fences here and there and the position would be that the removal of the fences would prove a greater expense than the making of the road itself. He will not take over a road unless we have at least 14 feet carriage-way and a minimum of 21 feet between fences.

The result is that, with rates at their present level, the finances are not available for taking them over. In my view, the Land Commission could easily give us straighter roads and an additional three feet or four feet in their width because to leave them with a carriage-way of less than 14 feet is useless. The donkey cart is now more or less done away with and lorries are travelling on most of the roads. If lorries meet one another on roads with less than 16 feet carriage-way the position is obviously very difficult, and if a donkey cart meets a lorry then the donkey cart has to go over the ditch in order to let the big fellow pass. I hope the Land Commission will look into that particular item.

I want to deal now with roads that were started into bogs but were never completed. The Land Commission should examine that matter with a view to ensuring that those roads are put into such a condition that the people can use them. I feel it is a breach of contract on the part of the Land Commission to hand over a bog to people in such a condition that they are unable to use it. Down through the years, turbary has been handed over to people who cannot make use of it because of the condition of the roads and they have to rush into other places where turbary is already scarce so that, because of competition, you may have to pay as much as £7 for your turf.

If the Land Commission carried out their drainage and road-making when they were dividing up the bogs the problem would be eased. We have in areas not too far from Glenamaddy, County Galway, huge stretches of bogs that cannot be used because they are inaccessible while people elsewhere have scarcely enough for themselves. The Land Commission should complete this sort of work and the Minister should make money available for the completion of jobs such as those I have mentioned.

Mr. Donnellan

Listening to Deputy Killilea one would imagine that the Land Commission exists for no other purpose than to give out scrub, brush and water. I think the Land Commission serve a very useful purpose, but I do not agree with the Deputy at all that they should get the land limed, fertilised and all that sort of thing and hand it over to people. My feeling is that they should hand over the land and let the people themselves do that. They have many schemes under Government Departments for doing such work, as I did myself lately, and so did Deputy Killilea.

Mr. Killilea

Should they provide hay seeds for those lands?

Mr. Donnellan

Well now, surely if they are able to pay £16 an acre for conacre as the Deputy said, they are able to pay a few pounds for hay seed You said that they paid that and I am taking you on your word. If the Deputy lets me make my own speech he may be better off because when the Deputy was on this side of the House the Land Commission was all right, but when he is on that side it is all wrong.

Mr. Blowick

Hear, hear!

Mr. Killilea

I never said that.

Mr. Donnellan

As far as I am concerned, I criticise the Land Commission where it is necessary and I praise them where I think I am entitled to do so. The Land Commission are good in points and God knows it is my view that they are very bad on points, too.

I heard Deputy Killilea telling us about some land in Shrule. He did not mention the names—apparently it did not suit—Belclare, Disken; Tuam, Joe Burke; Glenamaddy, James Keaveney. Of course, he was selecting the people who do not vote for him. It is not the land at all that matters.

Mr. Killilea

I could get more votes in Clooncun than the Parliamentary Secretary.

Mr. Donnellan

I got two quotas and the Deputy did not get one at all.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The quotas do not arise on this Vote.

Mr. Killilea

Put up three candidates and we will see.

Mr. Donnellan

I got the quotas and the Deputy did not get one. He got in by the back door. I saw that Party with three seats in North Galway, then with two, and now I see them with one without a quota of votes, so do not get into that.

Mr. Killilea

You were scraping to get into Fianna Fáil.

Mr. Donnellan

I must compliment Deputy Hilliard, to whom I listened very closely, when he was speaking here last night. He referred to the fact that in this House we say: "Such a man did so-and-so," as Deputy Killilea said in connection with a matter in Glenamaddy. I have a supplementary in which he said he wondered "would the Minister tell us if there was a little pressure brought to bear on him by the Parliamentary Secretary for his relations". Deputy Killilea is quite a long time in this House.

Mr. Killilea

That is right.

Mr. Donnellan

He knows that he was a member of a Party which was the Government here in 1933 when they passed an Act called the 1933 Land Act. He was in this House when the 1950 Act went through. This House handed over control to the Land Commission and they and they alone are the people who can acquire land, divide land or bring migrants from one place to another. That is the law in this country to-day. Mind you, I very seldom have any interference. I am not one of those who go around the country when I hear that a farm of land is going, get a few innocents to come together and say: "We will see Mark about that. He will divide it for us."

The position is, and I tell the people throughout the country, that Deputy Killilea has no more say than I have nor have I any more say than he has, because it is the people whom the Land Commission consider are suitable tenants who get the land and it is the people whom the Land Commission decide on from whom land is acquired. That is the position as I know it since I came in here, since 1943, and it is the position to-day. I must compliment Deputy Hilliard. I am sure that if Deputy Killilea was listening to him he would blush because he just told the real truth about it. Deputy Killilea says that the 1950 Act was a great mistake.

Mr. Killilea

I did not say any such thing.

Mr. Donnellan

He said it was a bad Act.

Mr. Killilea

I did not say any such thing.

Mr. Donnellan

Why should I write it down? He said it was a bad Act.

Mr. Killilea

That is not what I said.

Mr. Blowick

He said it was a bad Act. Do not go back on it.

Mr. Killilea

I am not agreeing that it is a good Act but that is not what I said at all.

Mr. Donnellan

It is like every other Act. There may be loopholes in it such as Deputy Lindsay rightly referred to here last night when he said that under that Act the Land Commission come along to a man, decide on a price and acquire the land; the man appeals, the case goes before a higher court and lasts probably for two years. Then the Land Commission say that the price is too high and that they will not accept the land. The owner is not in a position to say that the price is too low and that he will not give the land. I think that that section of the Act should be amended so that fair play can be given to that man, who has probably a lot of expense also. I am sure that Deputy Lindsay as a man of his own profession did not want to mention that, but the owner probably has a lot of expense, and finally the Land Commission will not accept the land.

Mr. Cunningham

How would you suggest that should be amended?

Mr. Blowick

We will hear the Deputy's suggestion.

Mr. Donnellan

I am speaking here on this matter. Perhaps it is a pity the Land Commissioners are not here. If they were it might make them wiser men. But probably they will read the debate and with the Minister present during the debate they may have these things brought before their notice. There are good points in the Act as Deputy Killilea knows well. I know a certain farm of land in County Galway where on three occasions the Land Commission made attempts under the 1933 Act to acquire the land. Every single time the Land Commission inspector went there the owner of the land had ten or 15 fellows rounded up and pointed out that each and every one of these people had to get a holding out of the land, and the result would be that the Land Commission inspector had to go away, because after giving a holding to each of these supposed labouring men there would be no land at all left for distribution in the area. So if there is a bad point that can be removed, there is also a good one. I cannot agree that a man who works for a few years for a weekly wage on a farm should get a holding while there are uneconomic holders living around that land. That was a good point in the Act and I hope the bad ones will be amended.

Of course, Deputy Killilea could not forget the flooding. He says: "If what happened last year happens this year..." As regards migrating some of the people who are there, I know well that the Minister is working in that direction. I will try to raise Deputy Killilea's heart a bit: any day he stands outside his own door now and opens his eyes, surely he will see places where works are going on to make quite sure that that flooding will never occur again. This year the Board of Works is spending £150,000 on the River Clare that broke its banks and was responsible for the flooding in that area.

Mr. Killilea

It took me a long time to make you do that. Six months I have been at it.

Mr. Blowick

Since 1945 you never did a thing with the arterial drainage.

Mr. Killilea

The Minister heard me appealing in Tuam, as well as the Parliamentary Secretary.

Mr. Donnellan

When I was a young man I used to hear old yarns and stories, and I used to believe them, but Deputy Killilea brings me back to them to-day, for one of them was: "There is no fool as bad as an old fool." The Deputy walks into it when he says it took him six months to make me do this scheme. He knows that on the 14th February, 1948, I started on that scheme.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I do not see how this arises on the Estimate.

Mr. Donnellan

I am going to relieve the flooding in that area where Deputy Killilea says these people are in such a bad way. I think that is in order.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The question of flooding does not arise on the Minister's Estimate.

Mr. Donnellan

It is flooded land. The Land Commission should help to migrate these people. If I am not in order, I bow to your ruling; but I think I am.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Parliamentary Secretary is not in order in discussing the scheme to which he refers. It does not arise under this Estimate.

Mr. O'Leary

I think it is grand that it took only six months. Deputy Killilea was 20 years at it.

Mr. Donnellan

If it were not for the three years' delay, the flooding would not have occurred at all.

Mr. Derrig

Are we to have a discussion on drainage?

Mr. Killilea

He might tell us now how the employment is going on.

Mr. Donnellan

Deputy O'Hara was rightly referred to in to-day's Independent as saying that the people who know the job know what they speak about. It is very complimentary to him because he is one of the men that know it, but he made a slight mistake and I think it well that it should not go out in the official records. I think he said it cost £5,000 to migrate a family.

Mr. O'Hara

£3,000 to £5,000.

Mr. Donnellan

The fact is that it does not. I will ask the Minister to give the figure when replying. Even if it cost that, it would be a very good thing and money well spent. Coming up through Midland towns to Dublin I remember some years ago they were ghost towns. If you call to any of the business people in them now, you will find they appreciate the fact that the area is populated now and they will praise those people who come from the West of Ireland, from Kerry or elsewhere; and they say it is a good job it happened, as their towns are no longer ghost towns.

I appeal again to the Minister to look into the 1950 Act. I am dissatisfied that in many cases holdings put up for sale were not purchased by the Land Commission. I know of a case where an inspector went to a sale and did not bid. From the information I got, he made a recommendation to the head office that the land was worth it and should be taken, but apparently the commissioners decided otherwise and did not take it. That happened in the Williamstown area. Things like that should not be allowed. To a certain extent, the fact of the Land Commission under the 1950 Act being able to say after the whole thing being investigated: "We will not accept" is slowing up the taking over of these holdings.

I am glad to see the increase in subhead I, where last year £621,100 was spent on taking over those lands and paying for them. This year the Estimate is £623,100. That is an increase, but I believe there should be twice as much. A couple of thousand pounds increase is of no use. I would ask the Minister in his Estimates next year and for many years to come to increase the amount. He himself is a man from a congested area and knows the difference. As Deputy McQuillan rightly remarked, although there were many wrong things he said, without money you can do nothing. I hope the Minister will get more money every year and that in a short time congestion will be relieved—and the sooner that happens the better for us all.

Mr. Beirne

This debate has been carried on in a more or less friendly spirit up to the present and it is a great thing that there has been such a close bond between all sides. There was some wit and humour brought in and we all enjoyed it. This is an important Estimate to people from the western areas, where the problem of congestion is acute. I suppose no Deputies, Senators or experts could draw up a set of rules and regulations or formulate a policy that would be suitable for all areas, a kind of uniform policy. That would be impossible, as the social and economic conditions in many parts of the country differ so widely. Let us be honest about it. The Land Commission, with all its shortcomings—and they are many and I will deal with them later on—formulated a policy to cater for all sections of the community and all parts of the country.

Our main problem in the West, of course, is congestion. How long it will take to solve it, God only knows. I do not think it will be solved in my time or for several generations. People complain that it is slow—that is true and I will deal with that later on. I do not think the Government or the Department are tackling that problem as vigorously as they should. Some steps have been taken to remove that evil from our midst but we are proceeding just at a snail's pace.

Many Deputies have accused the Land Commission of being slow but in some cases I must say there is justification for that slowness. A Department dealing with public money voted by this House, has to be careful in the expenditure of that money. I have known of estates in my part of the country which it took the Land Commission over three years to acquire and I as a new Deputy came into this House and inquired why they were not taken over more expeditiously. I was a little bit severe on the Land Commission because I discovered afterwards that there was a solid and sound reason for their slowness in dealing with those estates.

Estates in this country are in a peculiar position. You have estates where title has to be traced back over several years. It is a complex problem for the Land Commission to get clear title and the Land Commission will not take land, any more than a private individual will take land, without getting a clear title. In this respect I believe they are quite right and their slowness can sometimes be attributed to that fact. However, where I think unjustifiable slowness often occurs is when the lands are acquired. As I have said, it may take them three years to acquire land. First of all, the owner of the land objects; secondly, there is the question of price. The price is fixed but the owner objects and there is appeal after appeal. Finally the land is taken after a period of three years and I say that this is when they begin to slow down. I often wonder why it is that they do slow down at that particular stage. I know that in certain cases there are sound reasons for moving cautiously but these cases are very few. The other cases are in the vast majority.

There are cases where the Land Commission buy over an estate, and another estate might be in the offing and convenient to that estate. I say it would be a foolish thing for the Land Commission to deal with the first estate they have taken over without acquiring the second estate so as to have a comprehensive scheme. That very often causes justifiable delay but those cases do not arise very frequently. I know of estates in the hands of the Land Commission for years for no apparent reason. Whether it is because of lettings for grazing, tillage or some other reason, I do not know. The Land Commission is not so small that they should hold back land in that connection. I think it is unfair to the people in the area who are starving for land.

At this particular time land is fetching a high price. Some people seem to quarrel with the 1950 Act which gives permission to the Land Commission to go into the open market and buy land. I think that is a good idea. I see one flaw in it which has been pointed out by Deputies who spoke here, a flaw which can be remedied and which acts more against the seller of the land than against the Land Commission, that is, where the price dispute is taken into court, where the court decides that the price is to be, say, £5,000 or £10,000 and the Land Commission decides it will not touch it. I know a couple of cases where the Land Commission could have bought land and I think this position should be remedied. We all realise that the Land Commission, dealing with public money, must spend it prudently. They cannot buy land that costs too much because this may eventually react on the poor unfortunate tenant. Nevertheless, in these times when land is so dear, I do not think the Land Commission should stagger at a small increase and withdraw from buying land as they have done.

It has been said here on various occasions that there is scarcely enough land available to bring every holding up to economic level. However, provision should be made in the congested areas to give some kind of employment and to move people out of the really congested areas. Even though progress has been slow some good work has been done in those areas as far as the rundale system and the rearrangement of holdings are concerned.

As regards my county in the eyes of the Land Commission, perhaps in the eyes of Deputies in this House, and of many other people, Roscommon has the name of being a county composed mainly of ranchers. That is not the case by any means. Land Commission activity down there has been very marked over a number of years. I would not like the Land Commission or the members of this House to have the impression that my county is a county of ranchers and that there is no such thing as congestion. There is very acute congestion there. In mid-Roscommon you have the economic type of holding, but north, south, east and west you have slum conditions and people are living on land with valuations from 30/- to £3 or £4.

Very little has been done for Roscommon as far as migration is concerned. I have been pressing for an improvement in conditions there since I first became a member of this House; I have been pleading that these people, living in congested or slum townlands throughout the county, would be taken away, given economic holdings elsewhere, and that the land which they occupy would be given to adjoining holders. I should like that more attention would be paid to the problems of congestion and migration from these towns. I think it is absolutely necessary, essential and vital.

Someone spoke in the course of the debate about the action the Land Commission should take against absentee tenants. Some Deputies seemed to be rather drastic in their approach to the question of the action the Land Commission should take against people who would leave their farms and emigrate to England or elsewhere in order that they might improve their conditions. To my mind that tenant left due to economic, or should I say, uneconomic circumstances; he left his little farm due to poverty or other reasons. It was a tragic thing in the first place that such circumstances compelled him to leave his holding because he was forced to try and make a bit of money to enable him to come back later and work his land. I think some Deputy said that there should be no mercy shown by the Land Commission to such an absentee tenant—that his land should be acquired forthwith. I am afraid I cannot agree with that.

I think that a reasonable length of time should elapse before the Land Commission would take any action so that that man would be given a chance of making good abroad, of saving a little money and of returning and working his land. I think the Land Commission should be slow to tackle such a holding until a reasonable length of time after the tenant had left. Of course there is a limit to the time that should be allowed as there is a limit to everything. If the man does not return within the space of, say, six or seven years, everybody is having a pick out of his farm and is ruining its fertility. I would say that after a period of five years the Land Commission should give that man notice that the land is not being used and that action will be taken if he does not return and work it.

Quite a lot has been said here about Land Commission roads; the tradition here has been anything but good. There have been certain improvements during the course of the last few years but up to then the Land Commission had been doing roads in a very lackadaisical style. They left eyesores in many places. I have seen Land Commission roads which were made perhaps ten or 12 years ago. They are nearly impassable now. There is not even the possibility of cycling over them not to speak of trying to take a car over them. But, as I have said, within the past few years there have been some improvements. I must, however, find the Commission guilty where bog roads are concerned. The Commission have at the moment considerable areas of bog in their hands. They have divided quite large tracts but they have made no provision for access to those bogs; they have made no roads into them. Though they collect rents from the tenants or occupiers they have made no provision for the easy removal of turf.

Also in the drainage of those bogs they have been lackadaisical and careless. All these bogs should be handed over to tenants in an approachable and productive condition so that the turf could be cut and the banks approached over a well constructed road. As regards fencing also I have a few words to say. I suppose fencing depends to a great extent on the contour and surface of the land, but I would suggest that as far as possible all fencing of Land Commission land should be done by concrete posts and wire. I think there is a terrible lot of wastage of land through stripping the top-soil off and taking the roots with it for the purpose of erecting clay fences which, anyway, do not withstand time. I have seen clay fences erected on Land Commission farms in years gone by and they have crumbled away so that now there are no fences. Wherever possible, the commission should put down concrete posts and wire.

Mr. Blowick

That change has been made.

Mr. Beirne

It is very recent.

Mr. Blowick

Inside the last couple of months.

Mr. Beirne

Was that change brought about as a result of a question asked by me at some time I wonder?

Mr. Blowick

It might have been.

Mr. Beirne

I am glad to know that the Land Commission took my advice. I should like to draw attention, too, to the carelessness of the Land Commission about providing water supplies to farms for domestic use and for live stock. When allocating farms and houses, the Commission did not make provision for water supplies for either live stock or domestic uses. I hope an attempt will be made to do that in the near future and that there will be no further need to complain about carelessness or neglect in that regard. I would go further and suggest that at this stage surely to God provision could be made to provide Land Commission dwellings with sewerage facilities. I think that is not too much to expect.

Going still further—it may be said here that I am going too far—I would suggest that, in any area developed by the E.S.B., when the Commission are building houses they would have them wired for electric current, even if they were to charge the incoming tenants a little for this service. It would be much cheaper to have the wiring done when the houses are being constructed, and when it would be easy to wire walls and ceilings, than later on when the houses are completed.

I do not think there is much more I wish to add about the Land Commission except, perhaps, to refer to a suggestion made during the debate that migrants coming into, say, Meath from Connemara or elsewhere, misuse their land, that they have let their land in conacre and so on. Perhaps there is an excuse. I shall make a counter suggestion. Supposing a poor small farmer from the West of Ireland comes up to Meath. He has left a farm which had a valuation of £2 or £3 or maybe £4, and finds himself in possession of one which has a valuation of £20. He brings with him his little bits of furniture, his live stock consisting of a couple of cows and calves, and very little else. He has very little or probably no money. He is put into a big house which undoubtedly is a very big change for him.

That man has not sufficient money to stock his land, and what is he going to do? I suggest that the Land Commission, in the case of a man like that, should do something in the way of giving him financial assistance to enable him to utilise his land to the best advantage. If he were given say £300, to be repaid over a number of years, it would be the means of enabling him to put his land to good use. The Minister shakes his head.

Mr. Blowick

It would be bad policy to tie a millstone around his neck that he would never be able to carry.

Mr. Beirne

If he got an interest free loan it would enable him to use his land to the best advantage, and he would, therefore, be in a position to repay the loan. When people talk about a man in that position misusing his land, I suggest that it is really not his fault. He has not the means to stock the land. What I am suggesting is that financial aid should be given to him to enable him to make a fresh start.

I want now to say a word about the officials of the Land Commission, both local and central. I do not intend to be profuse in my praise, but I should certainly like to say that in my contacts with all the Land Commission officials, local and central, I have received both courtesy and co-operation. I think they are giving good service to the country.

I should like to conclude by saying a word about the division of land. For very many years I have taken an interest in public life, during Fianna Fáil times, inter-Party times and Fine Gael times, and I must say that I have never seen very much political influence used as regards the division of land, particularly since I became a member of the House. I could not pin point any case where political influence was used in the division of land. I say that as one who lives in an area where land is being acquired and divided almost every day of the week. I could never say that anyone had been selected as an allottee for a holding because of his political leanings. I think that is a good thing.

We may not all be saints on this side of the House, and I am sure those on the opposite side would not claim that they are all saints either. You will find good men and bad men in all grades of society. I should like to pay my tribute to the officials of the Land Commission and to the head of its administration. Politics, as far as I know, have never entered into the work of the Land Commission.

Mr. Gilbride

My contribution on this Estimate will be very brief. I am not going to start off by abusing the Land Commission and saying that they should be done away with, or by reminding the Minister or Deputies opposite of speeches which they made on the Estimate for this Department when they sat on this side of the House. I think that we will have to take the Land Commission as it is and make the best of it. Neither would there be much use in my saying that the 1950 Land Act was a good Act or a bad Act. I have no doubt that, when the present Minister introduced it in 1950, he did so with the best intentions in the world, and that it did some good.

The Minister, I think, is a big enough man to agree with me when I say that the 1950 Act did not do some of the things that were expected of it. It was said in this House at the time that the Land Commission would go to public auctions and buy land, but they have not done so. The Act did not achieve the things that were expected of it. On the other hand, I am afraid that the Act did a lot of damage because it stopped people from putting land up for auction. They are now resorting to the plan of selling their land privately, and I think the Minister is aware of that—that farms are being sold privately.

Mr. Blowick

They are, but not for the reason which the Deputy has given.

Mr. Gilbride

I maintain that is being done for the reason I have given. I know of cases where people were approached and their answer was: "Well, if we put the land up for auction the Land Commission will come in and acquire it." As the Minister knows, the Land Commission are, first of all, very slow in taking over land and slower still in paying for it. I know farms of land which were taken over more than ten years ago and the people who owned them have not yet been paid.

Mr. Blowick

That is their fault.

Mr. Gilbride

The Minister says that it is their fault and they say it is the Minister's fault. I do not know who is going to be the judge.

Mr. Blowick

The money is in the hands of the public trustee, and they can claim it any time they prove their title to it. The Land Commission have parted with the money.

Mr. Gilbride

I had occasion to go to the Minister, and I find that there is great difficulty about this. I am not blaming anyone, but I am pointing out what is happening. Probably there are faults on both sides, or it maybe a question of lawyers keeping this thing hanging on. The fact remains that farms were taken over a number of years ago and the owners of them are still without their money. That is something that should not happen. If the Minister feels that this is something which needs correction he should have no hesitation in bringing in legislation to amend the 1950 Act.

I want to endorse what Deputy Bartley said last night, that in the congested areas, where a farm of land is for sale or where it is known that it is going to be disposed of, the Land Commission should have no hesitation in going in and taking it for the relief of congestion. I said that here years ago and I now say it again. I repeat what Deputy Bartley said, that the Land Commission should have no hesitation in going in and taking that farm of land at a fair price. There is machinery available for the fixing of the price by arbitration.

In view of what was said when the 1950 Land Act was going through this House, it was thought that the commissioners would go in and buy land at the public auctions. On different occasions, when farms were put up for sale, I approached the inspectors in the area and asked them if they were prepared to go in and bid on these farms. They told me that they had no power to do so, except in the case of a rearrangement.

Mr. Blowick

Rearrangement and migration.

Mr. Gilbride

Therefore, I say that the 1950 Act did not fulfil the expectations that were held out at the time in regard to it. We were told here that the effect of it would be to relieve congestion in no time and that power was being given to the Commissioners to go out and buy land at public auctions. We now find that their power is limited in that respect to land which is required for rearrangement and migration. We have had that admission from the Minister himself.

In view of the fact that so very few farms have been bought at public auctions, would the Minister not consider that some change is necessary in the existing legislation? The Minister should not take it that I am finding fault with him. I know that the 1950 Act was brought in with the best intentions in the world but I believe that a change is now required to enable the Land Commission to take land when it becomes available.

I believe that, if a fair-sized farm of land is required for the purpose of relieving four or five small farmers, it would be less of a hardship to put out the owner of it than it would be to take over the land belonging to these small farmers. I heard the Parliamentary Secretary saying a few minutes ago that it costs between £3,000 and £4,000 to send a migrant. It would not cost anything like that to buy a farm of land and accommodate four or five congests.

Mr. Blowick

What the Parliamentary Secretary said was that it would take £2,400. He was correcting another Deputy.

Mr. Gilbride

Even £2,400. It would not take that amount to move half a dozen congests. Another difficulty I find in dealing with the Land Commission is that their idea about farms is different from that in the West. I heard Deputy Giles saying that he would not live in the West owing to the conditions. He is making an awful mistake. These people in the West can live quite happily on their small holdings, and an addition of three, four, five or six acres would mean a terrible lot. They may not be able to go to Harold's Cross and put £5 on a dog, or own a swanky car in which to run around the country. They live good Christian lives, and I think the more of them who are put on created holdings the better.

Another argument which I have heard put forward here is that some of the migrants from the West do not make a good turn-out. I think the percentage is very small. How can Land Commissioners foretell that such people will not make good? I do not think that the Land Commission should be accountable for such a small percentage of failures, men who get good farms, make good profits, but squander them. This talk about failures is, in my opinion, a lot of nonsense.

Deputy Beirne spoke about title. I think the Minister should have no hesitation in passing an Act in regard to this matter. Where the title is not clear something should be done to short-circuit all this legal work in taking over farms. I think there should be no difficulty in doing that. I know of cases where the Land Commission, after examining farms, held on from year to year. Nothing was done, and the excuse was that they could not get title. I think the Minister should see that something is done to short-circuit this kind of trouble.

I know, in my county, fairly large farms were offered to the Land Commission, but were not taken. One case, in particular, was not very far from Sligo. A fairly large farm was actually being thrown at the Land Commission, and I do not see any reason why they did not take it. The local inspector says that he has recommended it should be taken, but that he cannot get sanction from Dublin. I do not know where the blame lies. There is a fairly substantial house on it, but that should not stand in the way. There is a congested area near enough to that farm, from which men could be transferred. This would prevent migrants being sent to Meath.

There is another estate nine or ten miles from Sligo. It, also, was offered to the Land Commission for years, and no effort was made to take it over. There is yet another estate of which I know. Half of it was taken over, and the other half left. When land of this description is being given freely, I do not see why there should be hesitation in taking it. I think it would be a better policy to take these farms, and not bother about the smaller patches. This is a policy I cannot understand, and the Minister should do something about it. The taking over of these farms would relieve a lot of congestion in the county, and, as I have said, would stop people crying, asking to be taken to Meath.

Any small farmer would sooner get land in his own county than be migrated. I know that, because I learn that the Land Commission has great difficulty in getting people to migrate. This is, I suppose, a natural inclination. No one wants to go far away from where he was reared. There is nothing wrong in seeking to get back to those estates in the Midlands from which people's forefathers were evicted. There is a different outlook now from what it used to be some years ago. I know that a lot of those migrants from the West have made good. Deputy Beirne pointed out the improvements they made in the Midlands. I am glad that people are beginning to realise that migration from the West has been a help to them. It is about time they did realise it.

I should like to impress upon the Minister that, where a farm in a congested area is offered for sale, there should be no hesitation in acquiring it. I think the Minister should use any power he has, or acquire more powers, if they are necessary, in order to do that. Quite often, a farm is put up for sale, and someone buys it privately. That finishes the matter. These farms should be taken over to relieve congestion, and the cost should not be detrimental to doing so. If it costs £2,400 to move a migrant into Meath, it will not cost £2,400 to improve a small farm. In my opinion half a dozen small farms could be improved at that price.

I would ask the Minister to look into the 1950 Act. If it does not give him enough power, I think he should scrap it, and bring in a Bill which would give him more power. I think he would have the support of the whole House if he did so. It is the only way. No hardship is being inflicted on anyone in doing that. The big farms should be taken over when offered, and it would stop this running after the small patches.

Mr. Moher

I have listened to the various speakers in this debate, including a fair proportion of representatives from the West. One of the things common to every speaker representing the congested districts in the West was that, in the main, criticism seemed to be directed against the mechanics of land acquisition and land division. But nobody tried to analyse the problem of congestion itself. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance anticipated that the solution was at hand or would be found in the foreseeable future. I would remind the Parliamentary Secretary and others that their hopes of an early solution can be measured by one yardstick; that is, by the progress that has been made in the acquisition of land and the progress that has been made in solving this problem over the last 30 years. As far as I am aware, the surface of the problem has only been scratched; and taking into consideration the amount of land available, I cannot see that the problem of congestion in the West will reach any-think like a reasonable solution.

I was amused last night when listening to Deputy Giles. There was a complete change of front. Remembering debates in this House in the past, Deputy Giles springs to memory as one of those who tried in the shadow of Sergeant Custume to prevent the on-rush of migrants from the West to County Meath. Now that a via media has been arranged he is in the happy position of being able to receive the migrants from the West with open arms and a warm embrace.

Long before I became a member of this House I thought over this problem. I have studied the formation of the Land Commission and its history over the years. It is somewhat regrettable that land re-settlement has been motivated by what one might describe as the terrible wail from the West. I do not think that is a good approach. In every county and in every constituency there are a considerable number of uneconomic holdings. We have them on the slopes of the Galtees, on the Knockmealdowns, the Nagle and the Comeraghs; we have there people living in a more acute state of congestion than most of the people in the West—people from whom and on whose behalf we never hear a word spoken. The reason, of course, is that the pattern of agriculture there is very different from the pattern of agriculture in the West. There one has an intensive form of agriculture while in the West one finds what might be legitimately described as an extensive pattern.

One of the greatest tragedies of the last 30 years is the fact that the West rejected the co-operative system. In the West the dairy herds are small. There are no creameries. There is no market for liquid milk. The smallholders there utilise as much milk as they can themselves and suckle a few calves on the remainder.

Mr. Blowick

They do a lot more than that.

Mr. Moher

I am speaking now of the basis of their economy. That is the type of economy that one might describe as the intensive pattern. As I said on the debate on the Vote for the Department of Agriculture, a reasonable figure for land per acre under grazing is £18; a reasonable figure for land under dairying is £33, or thereabouts. One can see from that the considerable difference that exists. You have then the tragic and ludicrous off-shoot from that system, the ranching of 50 acres of land; and there has been a side-throw from that too. The province of Connacht contains by far the biggest number of cattle jobbers, or cattle dealers, if you like; that is a side-throw of the particular system operated there. There is no capital investment required; all one needs is an ash plant, the open road, and take your chance.

Mr. McQuillan

The Deputy should stick to Cork.

Mr. Moher

I am speaking now of the overall picture. I am not dealing with the matter from a constituency angle, as have most of the speakers who preceded me here.

Mr. McQuillan

Co-operation is not much good in a small area.

Mr. Moher

I am talking of conditions generally in the West. I have no doubt that the people in the West should do as well co-operatively as the congests in West Cork. We can all remember the vagaries of the cattle trade, and the ups and downs of the cattle trade.

An Ceann Comhairle

I am afraid the Deputy is thinking of this Vote in terms of a postscript to the Vote on the Department of Agriculture.

Mr. Moher

I said earlier that the pool of land available is limited. In nearly every county there are uneconomic holders. Even when all the land is exhausted there will still be this problem of congestion in the West. There will still be the uneconomic holders. We have 62 per cent. of all the farms in Connacht under 30 acres and I think something like 60 per cent. of the farms of Ireland slide down the scale from 50 statute acres. We have in that picture a disproportionate number of small holdings; we have holdings so small that on the present pattern of our agricultural economics they are uneconomic. The creation of a further addition to those small holdings will only render the position more acute because the farmer's son or daughter who remains on the land is apt to measure the return for his or her labour in comparison with the return for his or her brother or sister in the factory town.

I have always maintained that a farm to be economic in the rather static pattern of our set-up should be about 50 or 60 acres, and the creation of holdings by the Land Commission of 25 or 30 acres is not a solution. It is really creating another problem. These small holdings form the basis for more and increased social services. We have this peculiar pattern here of the Land Commission creating 400 or 500 holdings every year while at the same time we have the natural consolidation of small holdings at between two and three times that rate, so that we have one Department of State creating at one end, and then we have the pattern of our economic set-up eliminating three times that number at the other end.

I have said many times, and I think I have said before in this House, that migration and land division will not solve the problem of congestion in the West. It needs something more. If we could only decentralise the hive of industry around Dublin and bring some of it out to the West——

Mr. McQuillan

Give us the oil refinery.

Mr. Moher

Here in the confines of Greater Dublin we have something like 45 people out of every 100 in industrial employment. If we had in the rest of Ireland afforestation and industries developed based on timber I think it would go much further to solve the problem of congestion and to rid us of the rural slums in the West.

All over the country some impression has been made on the reclamation of bogs but nothing whatever has been done to reclaim the marginal lands. If any impression were made on the reclamation of marginal land we could add considerably to the pool of land available for distribution to uneconomic holders. In my constituency, on the road to Cork, in the vicinity of Kilworth Camp, a considerable amount of land was acquired and utilised in the old days by the British as a shooting range. That has been under the control of the Department of Defence, I think, for a number of years.

An Ceann Comhairle

Is the Minister for Lands responsible for land reclamation?

Mr. Blowick

No. That is the Minister for Agriculture.

Mr. Moher

I am just making the point that a considerable amount of land could be added to the diminishing pool already available.

An Ceann Comhairle

It would broaden the discussion considerably if we were to allow land reclamation to be discussed.

Mr. Moher

Considerable tracts of land are being acquired in some areas for forestry and there is a certain danger there. I had a complaint recently, which I forwarded to the Land Commission, where portion of the land acquired was land which one would describe as marginal. There is the danger that land of that type would be absorbed for forestry purposes when it could be reclaimed and divided among smallholders or small land owners on the small farms adjoining.

Recently, I was approached in connection with a very large parcel of land and it was pointed out that almost 200 acres of that land were land which was at one time farmed successfully. There was a danger that this big tract of land would be acquired and that the whole parcel would go under forest plantation. I would remind the Minister that it would be a pity to use for forests land which could be reclaimed and put to some use as agricultural land when we have such a considerable quantity of land on our foothills and well up the hills that can still be used usefully for forestry purposes.

I think there is a considerable tendency to acquire farms which are of an economic size and to carve them up. There is that temptation. We have too many small holdings and the multiplication of small holdings is a very undesirable thing to my mind. Recently, not far from where I live, a farm of something over 90 acres was offered for sale and in that particular area there were dozens of sons of small farmers who had capital and wanted a farm. After considerable persuasion the Land Commission was compelled to loosen its grip on this particular farm and the farm was sold and was purchased for something like £4,000. There was no very big case there for the division of the land among uneconomic holders.

I have often wondered whether from the point of view of the proper utilisation of land the congest is the best type of farmer. In the southern counties where we have a tradition of mixed and intensive farming we have considerable emigration of sons of small farmers and I think many of these people who have served their apprenticeship to a type of farming which would considerably increase our agricultural output should be considered from the point of view of their training and their efficiency as farmers.

In my area, too, there is a considerable acreage of land which heretofore could not be touched and could not be acquired but under a recent Act the Minister has power to acquire that land. I refer to the Moore Park estate where there is something in the region of 1,000 acres. I should like to know if the Department has any plans for dealing with that land. There are also some 2,000 acres or more on what used to be the old shooting range nearby. On the fringe of that area, there are quite a number of smallholders living in the foothills and I think that, in the present pattern of our set-up, the necessity to utilise that enormous stretch of land as a training ground for soldiers no longer arises and the Minister should examine the possibilities of that very big tract of land in the Kilworth Camp and Moore Park areas.

Mr. J.J. Collins

This is the only opportunity which those of us who have an interest in the acquisition and distribution of land get in the year to discuss the question of land division. Having listened carefully to speakers on both sides, I feel that the debate has centred around the merits or demerits of the 1950 Land Act. Speakers on both sides set out to condemn it and I think that they were rather unfair in their judgment. When that Act went through the House piloted by the present Minister, there was a full and free discussion and the Act finally got the full imprimatur and blessing of the Oireachtas. Those of us who are interested in land acquisition and division thought that, after some 30 years of native Government, we had found a solution of this very vexed problem. In Section 27, all the goodness of that Act lay, but we now discover that that section—possibly not through the Minister's fault—is not getting the implementation which all sides thought it would get.

The section gives the Land Commission power to give what is described as the market value for land. We have had many cases where land was not voluntarily surrendered and where the Land Commission used its machinery to acquire land because of congestion in the area and because there was a prima facie case for its acquisition and division. The matter of price went along the chain of command until it finally reached the price fixation tribunal and therein we find the snag in that section, which we all welcomed. If, in the opinion of the Land Commission, the price decided on by that tribunal is too high, the Land Commission have power to refuse to acquire the land in question.

Mr. Blowick

That is not in the 1950 Act—it is in the 1927 Act.

Mr. J.J. Collins

Did you make any provision in the 1950 Act to remedy that defect?

Mr. Blowick

No; we did not touch that section at all.

Mr. J.J. Collins

The fact remains that the acquisition of land, no matter under what section or Act of Parliament it is undertaken, is seriously retarded when there is vested in the Land Commission the power to refuse land after a price has been fixed by the price fixing tribunal, whereas the vendor or owner who is contesting the price issue has no appeal whatever. That matter should be remedied.

I was really surprised when the Minister, when my colleague, Deputy Ó Briain, made a point with regard to it, more or less gave the commissioners his approval in the exercise of that power and said that the allottees might object to the price or to the fixing of the annuities thereafter placed on them. That is not the case because there is such a demand for land, both by people who till land and who dairy land, that allottees will never grumble about whatever price is fixed by the Land Commission in respect of any parcel of land being handed out to them. If that is the only excuse which can be made by the Minister to shelter the Land Commission, I think it should be exploded. In County Limerick, we have people taking land for dairying purposes and for tillage purposes, and no matter what price the Land Commission pay for land they acquire and no matter what price is levied on the successful allottees, it would be far less than the current market price which the people I mentioned are paying for land at present. If he has not got the power already, I should like the Minister to take that power and remove from the Land Commission the right they have at the moment in that regard.

A lot has been said more in criticism than in favour of the officials of the Land Commission, both in rural areas and in central offices. The officials both in central offices and in rural areas are just part of the machine. They are as the machine has made them and if they have been subjected, as they have been, to great criticism in relation to their work, to my mind, it is due to the machine in operation at the moment—the obsolete machine, as we might describe it.

I have listened to speakers blaming the officials in connection with the division of land. The position is that these officials have their instructions set out and declared by the Land Commission, and, if a particular farm is to be acquired in any part of the country, they work to a prescribed plan and to conditions laid down for them. When the lands have been properly transferred, they take an area of half a mile and sometimes more, and they get together the people working farms nearest to the economic unit or ceiling. That has always been the practice of the Land Commission and no matter what Government is in power, they adhere rigidly and fairly to it. They find out the number of people who are described as being nearest to the economic area and they make them economic.

That is a good principle and it is sound in every respect. They move down the list, if they have sufficient land, and take any man that might be on the three-quarter or half-way line and if they have the land they try also to fit in people who might be described as having almost an economic holding.

I thoroughly disagree with Deputy O'Leary's wild statements that there is political pull, intrigue and patronage in the division of land. I have in mind some farms in County Limerick which were acquired by the Land Commission under a Government other than a Fianna Fáil Government. I must say, in fairness to the officials in charge of the division of the estates I have in mind, that their division and allocation was beyond question and beyond reproach. They worked strictly in accordance with the regulations, without fear or favour. They did not mind whether the successor allottees were supporters of Fianna Fáil or otherwise. They acted fairly and above board. I think credit must be given where credit is due and I am glad to pay that tribute to those men. They have been criticised and it has been said that their progress has been a slow crawling type of progress.

You cannot blame the Land Commission officials if the machinery has become obsolete. Give them more powers so as to enable them to move at a faster pace. If we find in 1955 a different situation confronting us from that which confronted this House in 1933 in relation to the acquisition and division of land, then is it not time for us to effect a change? If the present method is outworn and needs to be revived and rejuvenated, why not give the powers to enable the officials of the Land Commission to get on with their work?

I mentioned the type of allottee who is generally given first consideration. He is the type of farmer living within a half-mile radius of the farm that is considered nearest the economic unit. However, I want to mention the cottiers who are to be found living very close to estates which are acquired and divided. I have always had and always will have great admiration for the rural cottiers of Ireland. I heard it said a while ago that that section of our community deserves well of our people and of our Government—and rightly so. In every fight since the days of the Land League the cottier has been in the forefront.

As one who had experience during the Black and Tan war, I wish to say by way of tribute, that in West Limerick we never found them wanting whenever we needed their help or co-operation. We got our freedom in 1922 and no matter what Land Acts were brought into operation by this Oireachtas the cottiers were always relegated to the end of the queue. They came in just when all other interests were served and were fitted in. It has been said against them, by way of criticism and in justification of the treatment that has been meted out to them, that they did not own their little homes, that they were under contract to the local authority for the one acre, ten perches and that, because they were not owner-occupiers, they did not fit into the ambit of the scheme operated by the Land Commission. If the Minister can, without legislation, give the Land Commission the powers they may need to embrace and incorporate that section of our people into land division schemes in the future, he should do it.

There is another class of cottier whom I should like to mention. As a result of legislation enacted by this Oireachtas, we have given our cottiers the emancipation the small farmers got from the agitation started by Davitt. They now have the power of purchasing their little homes from the local authority over a terminable period at a reduced annuity. I do not think that when the 1933 Act was framed we had legislation enacted at the time to give those people the advantages which, thank God, they have to-day. I should like the Minister to tell us the position from the Land Commission point of view the status of that type of cottier who adjoins any particular estate or resides within the prescribed distance therefrom. What is his status and what are his chances of qualifying in the future for a parcel of land on that adjoining estate?

I was reading through some of the speeches made on the debate on the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture. I am glad that Deputy Giles is in the House now because I want to refer to the speech he made on that Estimate. I read something running through every bit of that speech which I very much admire—with one exception. He said that it would be well if we could get back again to the days when our cottiers were satisfied, well-housed and well-circumstanced with their little flock of poultry, their pig or two in the byre and their cow on the long acre. He said there was grazing on the road-side. I do not think he actually meant that. In all the tributes that from my heart I should like to pay the cottier, I hope the day of asking him to have his cow on the long acre will never come again in this country. When and wherever we have the holdings to requisition and divide, I hope the cow of the cottier will be as nobly and as proudly inside the demesne walls as, in other days, were the cows of the man who owned the demesne. In the old days, the cottier's cows had to roam along the road-side on what might be described as "the long acre".

It was also said in the course of this debate that the Minister should consider men who are living in cottages and who require land for dairy purposes. We have a number of such cottiers in County Limerick and we also have a number of people who, although not engaged in the dairying business, take lands in conacre and have proved themselves a success. They are not the type of person who came over here from Britain and took thousands of acres of land for the purpose of growing wheat and cashing in on it, if they could. The people I have in mind are cottiers and their sons in County Limerick who, year after year, go out and take ten, 12 or maybe 15 acres of land for tillage. Over the years, they have worked it very satisfactorily.

I have figures here which I shall give to the Minister to prove that the bulk of the wheat growing in County Limerick has been as a result of the efforts of the type of person I have mentioned. I think that where the Land Commission officials can very carefully check up on the bona fides of those people over a number of years and have found them successful in that type of husbandry they should also be considered. It is very unfair that they should be simply cast aside and that we should stick, as I have said, rigidly to conditions and qualifications laid down possibly 20 years ago in this Parliament.

There is another point I would like to make. I was really more than surprised when I read Deputy McQuillan's speech and therein discovered that in his analysis of the figures for the Land Commission the sum of £600,000 odd, including expenses, went in the way of salaries and wages and that all that was left with the Minister for Finance for the purchase and division of land in the present financial year was the sum of £400,000.

Mr. Blowick

Deputy McQuillan is all wrong in that, you know.

Mr. J.J. Collins

I was listening subsequently to Deputy Donnellan, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, and he quoted a figure which did not agree with the figure that Deputy McQuillan gave here last night. In order to satisfy myself I checked up the figures and I find that the figures given here by Deputy McQuillan are absolutely correct and those given by Deputy Donnellan, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, are in the main incorrect.

Mr. Blowick

What figure is the Deputy talking about?

Mr. J.J. Collins

I am talking about the figures quoted by Deputy McQuillan when he stated that £600,000 odd, including salaries and expenses, will find its way to the officials of the Land Commission, leaving only to the Minister for Lands the very small sum of £400,000 to pay for land he might purchase and acquire in the coming financial year.

Mr. Blowick

That does not appear in the Book of Estimates at all.

Mr. J.J. Collins

Deputy Donnellan took the item from the Book of Estimates a while ago and went on to say that the figures he took were figures that were earmarked by the Minister's Department this year for the acquisition of land. In my check up of that particular figure I find that it is a figure of book-keeping where you have on the one side a credit and on the other a debit side and a balancing of what is known as refund or resettlement of the amount of moneys our farmers are getting by way of the reduced annuity. I am not the financial wizard of this Party as regards those figures. I have just what you may call an ordinary common-sense grasp of what I see there.

Figures are most factual things and completely demonstrate themselves. They can speak for themselves. If Deputy McQuillan was wrong in the figure he quoted and if I, supporting his view, am taking an incorrect view, and the Minister says to me that he was definitely wrong, I would like to ask the Minister here and now, or if not now, when he is concluding, if he will give me the figures.

Mr. Blowick

They are in the Book of Estimates for anyone to see.

Mr. J.J. Collins

Allowing that they are in the book I am sure it will not be too great an exertion on the part of the Minister to give them to me when he is replying.

Mr. Blowick

It will not, indeed.

Mr. J.J. Collins

If that is the case, if Deputy McQuillan is incorrect, it is time for us here to be either praising, attacking or defending the Minister on the pros and cons and the merits or demerits of the 1950 Land Act, if he has not got from the Minister for Finance in the present financial year sufficient moneys to carry on the programme of land acquisition and division that all Parties and all sections of this House would like to see the Minister carrying on.

There are one or two other points I would like to make before I conclude. One of them is to draw the attention of the Minister to one very important factor I see operating in some areas. I would like to know from the Minister what co-operation, if any, there is between the Department of Lands and the Department of Forestry. When the Minister introduces the Estimate for Forestry, I would like to say something on that too; I know that I cannot hope to go into the particular issue in this debate, but that I am in order in asking the Minister if there has been or is a possibility that there will be any sort of co-operation between the Forestry Department and the Land Commission in dealing with people who surrendered their land for forestry purposes not for the cash value which is miserable. We are all talking about forestry in this Parliament for so many years that we should be almost ashamed to mention it. I would ask the Minister if there is an arrangement whereby a family that would surrender good mountain grazing for forestry purposes could come in within the category of migrants to be given holdings in good land.

Mr. Blowick

No.

Mr. J.J. Collins

Well I think it is most unfair. I know of particular cases——

Mr. Blowick

That is, now, to migrate a farmer with good land and take up a holding and plant it?

Mr. J.J. Collins

Yes.

Mr. Blowick

That would not be sound policy.

Mr. J.J. Collins

Why not? What is wrong with that?

Mr. Blowick

I will deal with it later.

Mr. J.J. Collins

What is wrong with that for a policy? If a farmer living in good mountainy land with 200 or 300 acres of mountain grazing as sound as the grazing you could find in the Burren in County Clare surrenders that to the Forestry Department for forestry purposes, when he has finished with the redemption value, etc., the legal expenses on both sides and possibly the ceiling about £4 9s. an acre, where does he find himself at the end?

I think that those people who have been trained in the profession—and I call it a profession—of farming would be better serviced and would be a better asset to the nation if you took them off the mountainy farms that were suitable for planting purposes and placed them in a farm where you have land to divide. The Minister may be right. It may be a foolish suggestion on my part, but I believe that it is right.

Mr. Blowick

If you followed it as a policy to its logical conclusion it would depopulate the whole countryside.

Mr. J.J. Collins

You would not depopulate the whole countryside where you have a particular person with an area of 230 or 250 acres of rough mountain grazing——

Mr. Blowick

The next man is entitled to it too according to that.

Mr. J.J. Collins

The extraordinary thing about it is that we have very few next men. I think it should be something that should be considered very favourably indeed by the Minister's Department. I would like to qualify my suggestion, that it should be adopted where you have the immediate local congestion satisfied and surplus land available. Then I think those people are entitled to be accommodated and placed.

I have heard an awful lot of talk concentrating on everything west of the Shannon, the terrible amount of congestion you have in Mayo, in Galway, Donegal and so forth. But I have statistics here which when I looked into them really surprised me. Some people have a very mistaken idea about the County Limerick, for instance. They tell you it is a land flowing with milk and honey and that when you go out in the morning into the dew you will find the butter on the grass.

There may be something in that, but I have here the statistics issued from the Statistics Office which show that in County Limerick we have 10,093 people living in farms of under 30 acres. We have 5,737 between 30 and 100 acres, and we have 149 of 100 acres and over. It is interesting and illuminating to compare the Limerick figure with that for Kerry. In Kerry you have: under 30 acres, 11,617; 30 acres to 100 acres, 8,051; and over 100 acres, 1,738.

Mr. Blowick

Go to the valuations now. In the mountainous country you will have a lot of farmers with 1,000 acres.

Mr. J.J. Collins

The county valuation of Limerick is £627,814.

Mr. Blowick

Take the valuation of the farms under a certain acreage.

Mr. J.J. Collins

Numerically you can divide the whole number into the total and find the mean average. The Kerry county valuation is £467,302. We will go to Mayo now, to the Minister's native county. Great emphasis has always been laid on Mayo. You have there: under 30 acres, 23,682. Mind you, the valuation of Mayo is surprising —the total is £375,639. Compare Mayo with Limerick and Limerick with Kerry and vice versa. In a county like Limerick, it might be surprising to the Minister to hear we have so many people there farming holdings to the tune of 10,000 odd, under 30 acres— which might be described as uneconomic holdings.

Mr. Blowick

There is a neighbour of mine in Mayo who has 7,000 acres, but his valuation is only £11.

Mr. J.J. Collins

As Deputy Moher mentioned, the pattern of agriculture varies as much between Mayo, Limerick, Kerry and Cork as chalk and cheese. How many sheep would that friend of yours have?

Mr. Blowick

About 150 black head sheep is all it will carry. It is only barren land.

Mr. J.J. Collins

We have in the hands of the Land Commission in County Limerick three estates that have been finally cleared and where everything is in order to work in a scheme. They are the Donovan estate at Cooltoman, the O'Grady estate at Meanus and the Watson estate at Ballyagran. The lands in question are fully in the hands of the Land Commission and have been let for the coming financial year, both in grazing and in conacre. Someone said a while ago that the inspectors are back-pedalling, taking this easy and not going ahead with the work. I would like to ask that for the estates in question, the schemes be taken up as quickly as possible and the land allocated to those qualified to receive it.

There is a belt of land between Athlacca and Kilmallock — you could describe it as a desert in itself. I could not tell you how many farms there are in it, but it is a pretty large pocket. It is locally described as the grass ranching centre of West Limerick. I do not know why the Land Commission have not fixed their attention on this area. There are several uneconomic holders living in or about the farms in that area. If we have not enough uneconomic holders, landless men or cottiers—who are still tenants of the local authority—we will welcome into that part of West Limerick migrants from any part of Ireland, and preferably from the Gaeltacht areas.

The one thing I always admire about the migration system is that as many Irish speakers as possible should be fixed on the lands in Meath and Limerick if and when we have good land ready for them. The one thing we should do is to facilitate those people as much as possible. There is an area in West Limerick at the moment—the Lewis estate in Bally-longford, Adare—and for a year and a half there were a house idle there and 60 acres of land. I was very pleased when recently I was informed that from the heart of the Kerry Gaeltacht a native speaking family was brought along and fitted in there. It was something unique and outstanding and something that we all as Irishmen felt proud of, when that little family arrived in Adare and went round to the various shops and asked for their messages in the Gaelic tongue. I am going to say this much on behalf of the people, some of them unsuccessful applicants, that they were very pleased and proud when they learned that an Irish-speaking family had been brought into the area.

As regards this big pocket of land lying derelict and earmarked for grazing, in the Athlacca area, we can say clearly that, after the uneconomic holders, the landless and the cottiers, we will welcome into that part of West Limerick more Irish-speaking families from Mayo or Kerry. I would ask the Minister to draw this case to the attention of the Land Commission for further investigation and inquiry.

There is one type of applicant in particular, that might not have been mentioned here before, that is the cottier living within the prescribed area from the estate in question, who has purchased his little home. Even though he has only one acre and ten perches, he feels as proud and as independent as the four-cow, five-cow, or 10-cow farmer, the farmer we have in the western portion of Limerick or that the Minister may find in his native Mayo. These people should be given the opportunity of getting the same treatment, as free men and free women in a free country, as any other type of people who earn their livelihood in the prescribed way on a parcel of land, be it 100 acres or the one acre that I mentioned.

Mr. Fagan

I may be a bit different from a lot of Deputies who have spoken in the last few days. As far as I can see, they are all out for dividing more land. I wish to give a warning to the Minister and to the Government not to go too fast with that. What is the backbone of our country? Is it not the cattle trade and the cattle exports? What else have we to live on, what has the man in the town or the city to live on? Everything flows from our exports of cattle. I was speaking to a man to-day in the city; he says a friend of his bought a farm of 80 acres and found he could not make it pay, as it was not economic. Is not that strange—80 acres not economic? Yet the majority of Deputies are pushing to get all the land of Ireland divided into farms of 30 or 35 acres. As a person reared on the land, reared in the heart of Westmeath, I warn the Government about that.

If we divide our land into holdings of 30 acres and 35 acres we will develop into a country of small farmers. We are trying to industrialise the country. We will be living on industry and small farms and no one will be able to get a living. We must remember that the finances to run this country are obtained from our exports and the only thing we export which accumulates big round figures of pounds, shillings and pence is cattle. All the speeches we have heard over the last two or three days have been to the effect that more land should be divided and more migrants should be brought up to Westmeath, Meath, Kildare and the Midlands generally, which is the heart and the backbone of that export trade.

Mr. Allen

Deputy Fagan believes that men cannot live on 80 acres of arable land.

Mr. Fagan

Deputy Fagan is only saying what he thinks and he is not afraid to say it. The previous Deputy made a real political speech. He wants the cottiers to get land but that is all politics. It is not from the heart.

Mr. J.J. Collins

Where do you want to put them?

Mr. Fagan

In 1936 and 1937 the Land Commission gave five acres each to 13,700 people in this country. Had they not to take them back from all but 700 or 800 of them?

Mr. J.J. Collins

Not at all.

Mr. Fagan

Is that not on record? I am not against cottiers getting land but a man cannot be a labouring man and a farmer. That is not common sense. We do not want the people of Mayo coming up to Westmeath and Meath. If there is land being divided in Meath or Westmeath we want our own small farmers to get it. We have in Westmeath 6,000 or 7,000 small-holders, under five or ten acres. We want those to get part of the land in Meath or Westmeath when it is being divided. The Land Commission should do more in regard to the rearrangement of holdings. I know certain cases in my county where a man has perhaps 30 acres of land, five acres here, six acres there and ten acres somewhere else. The Land Commission will not rearrange holdings to remedy that position. They give a couple of local people a bit of an estate and then they land up a big colony from Mayo. I do not think the Government should make a present of a farm worth a couple of thousand pounds to a man who is able to go into the local town and pay several hundred pounds for a tractor, all in notes. Although a man getting land should have a certain amount of money we must remember that it is State money that is involved here and that it should be spent to the best advantage.

Another thing for which the Land Commission is responsible is that a farmer with 20, 30 or 40 acres of land and who has three or four very good sons, cannot get land for them. I know a case in County Kildare where a farmer had three sons; he went and bought 40 acres of an estate beside him for one of his sons and the Land Commission would not sanction it. The small farmer with 40 or 50 acres has not a ghost of a chance of providing for his sons. He has only enough for one son and the others must emigrate.

We all agree that many estates should be divided, those composed of 1,000, 700 and 600 acres, but in the Midlands, which is the backbone of the cattle trade, 100 to 150 acres are essential from the economic point of view. The Land Commission went to a friend of mine not far away. He is a hard-working man with 110 acres. One of his nephews is working with him. That man never goes anywhere. He spends most of his time working on the land which is evident from the black lines on his hands and the condition of his nails which are worn down to the fingers.

Mr. Allen

Is he a cattleman?

Mr. T. Lynch

If he is what about it?

Mr. Fagan

The Land Commission are annoying this type of man upon whom the labouring man depends, upon whom the businessman and everyone else depends. Everything flows from what we export. What balances our budget at the present time?

Mr. Blaney

People, apparently. That is your biggest export at the moment.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The House might allow Deputy Fagan to make his contribution without further interruption.

Mr. Fagan

It was said long ago: "The road for the bullock and the land for the people." Fianna Fáil were in office for 19 years and now it is the road for the people. That is the result of their policy. If we pursue the policy further by dividing up estates into farms of 30 and 35 acres it will mean the road for more of the people and the land for the bullock. If a farm is put up for sale now containing 50 or 60 acres and there is local agitation, the Land Commission go down and buy it up and the poor farmer with three sons has not a hope of getting it.

Are we not the envy of people all over the world at the present time because of the amount of cattle we have to export? We often hear talk about the Danes and comparisons are made between the two countries. But they are a lot of slaves working from morning until night and they have nothing for it in the finish. I warn the Government and the people of this country that if the position I have described is allowed to develop, we will have nothing but a lot of slaves.

Mr. Blaney

Listening to the last speaker, one certainly would not be surprised if at some future time we found that we had only a few farmers in this country and that those farmers were dry cattle farmers and ranchers who could not live on 100 acres or 80 acres of land and that they did not want to be slaves.

Mr. Fagan

The Deputy does not understand our country at all.

Mr. Blaney

I do not understand the mentality which says that a man cannot live in this country on 100 acres of land. It is a damn shame for them if they cannot live on it. We have heard that these are the people from which everything flows because of the fact that they are the people who are exporting cattle—large beef cattle. I wonder would the Deputy tell us where they got the young cattle from which they started their big herds?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That scarcely arises on this Estimate.

Mr. Blaney

It has arisen here and I should like to relate it to this Estimate as the Deputy before me has done. He said that the division of land in this country was going ahead too rapidly. Has anybody with any savvy at all the same view? Is not the complaint of all of us that the Land Commission are going ahead too slowly? I am straining charity to the utmost limit when I say that and yet we have somebody saying here that the land is being divided too quickly. If there was a good reason given to back that up I would not mind but the suggestion is that we are dividing our land into farms which are too small. That was the advocacy we heard in this House from one Deputy and from one Deputy only, thanks be to God. And thanks be to God we have got a Minister who at least has not got the views of that Deputy, who understands that 20 or 30 acres of good land are well worth having in this country. Talking about not being able to live on 100 or 150 acres! That much land would not do because he wants grass and more grass and large bullocks and the dog. He says: "Do not be like the Danes; do not be slaves". In other words, do not work.

Mr. Fagan

The Deputy does not know what work is.

Mr. Blaney

Deputy Fagan apparently has very little idea of work if he wants 200 acres of land to walk around looking at his bullocks with a dog on his heels. He says that is what we depend on in this country, that everything hinges on whether we export bullocks fattened in the heart of the country in Westmeath. Apparently nothing is done in any other part of the country. Let us have greater sized farms, do not bring in any outsiders, do not divide up the big ranches, do not make slaves of all the people by dividing the land into small farms. When, I wonder, has it been advocated that the land should be divided into small farms? I have never heard it from anybody. What has the Land Commission been doing over the years but endeavouring to relieve congestion by bringing up uneconomic holdings to a size where they could be regarded as economic and sufficient to support a man, his wife and his family?

Deputy Fagan laments the fact that we all may become small farmers. What a calamity, what an utter disgrace and downfall it would be for him to become a small farmer. I should like to tell the Deputy that the small farmers have been and still are the backbone of this country. No matter where he comes from he should never forget they are the people who make this country's economy. What he wants is to live for nothing, to look down and talk down on the small farmers.

It is a pity that there are not more people capable of becoming small farmers. If there were we would have a much better economy and it would be much better for the country. It was said that the small farmers would take everything out and leave nothing for anybody else, that the best land in the country should be reserved for a few and that everybody else should keep their hands off it. Do not let the Land Commission divide it up or they will ruin the country. We also had the statement that a man cannot be a labourer and a farmer as well. This all ties up with the further assertion that the farmer, as Deputy Fagan regards him, is a gentleman who does nothing, a gentleman of leisure, reaping the milk and the honey of the land at no expense to himself and without any loss of sweat.

I assert that the man who is not a labourer is not a farmer because he does not know what he is doing if he cannot do it himself. There is then the assertion that only a man with money should get the land. Imagine that. The Deputy says that and I wrote it down as he said it and I can read my own writing. He said that we should not be giving free money and that we should not be spending £2,000 or £3,000 on those people.

Mr. Fagan

I said that we should not give the man a present of a farm worth a couple of thousand pounds when that man is able to walk into the local town and spend up to £700 in hard cash buying a machine.

Mr. Blaney

If the Deputy says he did not use the words then I withdraw unreservedly. Let the records of the House as taken down by the official stenographer decide whether he said it or not. If I find from the Official Report that he did not make it I shall withdraw the statement privately.

Captain Giles

The statement he made was that——

Mr. Blaney

At the moment I say he made that statement and I shall withdraw, as I say, if I do not find it on the record. He made another statement to the effect that the Deputy from this side who spoke immediately before him, because he was advocating the giving of land to cottiers, was talking politics before an election. But what is it but politics for Deputy Fagan to come along and advocate that the land should be kept for the little group around him so that he would be returned here at the next opportunity. If those are the views of Deputy Fagan, and I hope they are not, I sincerely hope they are not also the views of the Party he represents and belongs to. God help the country if we should have a group as big as Fine Gael are at the moment represented by such views.

Mr. Fagan

They are my own.

Mr. Blaney

I am glad they are not any more widespread than yours because if they were they would be calamitous. For any person in public life and carrying some weight as I have no doubt the Deputy does to express such assertions is dangerous. They are dangerous not only internally but externally because surely it must be regarded as something for a Deputy of this House to be ashamed of to say that the Danes are slaves. Surely it is none of the Deputy's business, apart from everything else.

Mr. Fagan

Sure they are slaves.

Mr. Blaney

Does the Deputy know whether they are or not?

Mr. Fagan

I saw them.

Mr. Blaney

Are they not earning more at the moment than the Deputy and his henchmen even with the boom in cattle prices at the moment? The Danes have the small farms with the men working on them and doing their best and is not that a better system of farming than the rancher who goes into the market once in a while to buy stores and young cattle from the small farmer? Where will this colossal export of cattle from Westmeath, on which the economy of the country hinges, lead us? Surely the Deputy is alive to the fact that there are other people in the country who work and without whom the country could not carry on.

I move to report progress.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.