Before the debate is resumed, can I take it that I have the right to reply as the mover of the motion?
Private Members' Business. - Allotment of Holdings—Motion (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following motion:—
"That Dáil Éireann is dissatisfied at the present system adopted by the Land Commission with regard to the allotment of holdings; and that it is of the opinion that the following matters should receive prior consideration in the division of land: (a) the provision of a cow-plot where such is necessary, (b) the enlarging of uneconomic holdings within five miles of the land to be divided, (c) the provision of holdings for landless men who are living within five miles of the land to be divided and who are in a position to work the land, and (d) the provision of holdings for landless men requiring accommodation plots."—(Deputies James Tully and D. Desmond.)
I do not know whether the seconder of the motion has spoken or not——
Since a number of opposing views have been voiced I think it is only fair the mover of the motion should conclude.
I think there will be sufficient time for the Deputy to speak, if he so desires.
The seconder did speak.
When the House adjourned on the last occasion I was giving some figures. I had dealt with the question of cow-plots. I want to assure the movers of the motion that I am all the way with them as regards the provision of cow-plots wherever the Land Commission is in a position to provide them. The record in Meath has not been a very happy one, as I told the Deputies on the last occasion Meath County Council offered back all the cow-plots they had to the Land Commission, but subsequently the Land Commission succeeded in getting trustees to manage 15 of the 28 that were handed back.
On a point of order. The Minister's statement is not correct. If I am not allowed to reply surely I should be allowed to intervene for the purpose of correcting something which is not accurate.
In 1946 the Meath County Council notified the Land Commission they were handing back 28 cow-plots.
They did not actually hand them back.
They handed back so many that the Land Commission reallotted 15. I cannot be sure about the remaining eight or nine, but the Land Commission did succeed in getting trustees to manage effectively 15 of the number handed back.
And the remainder are very well run by the Meath County Council.
I cannot say that.
I can.
I will take the Deputy's word. I have no information on the subject. We are quite prepared where reasonable cases are put up and the land is available to provide cow-plots. I have already said that the distance of five miles is too great. While it might appear at first sight to be a benefit, I can assure Deputies it would be of a very temporary nature and would eventually cause more harm than good.
Take the mileage out altogether.
Very well. With regard to (b) and (c), the suggestion there would be quite impracticable and unworkable. I have already given one reason. A second reason is that if we throw a circle of five miles around every farm to be divided the Land Commission inspector will have to visit every household within that circle. That would mean that the inspector would have to comb approximately 30 square miles. At the present time the inspector must visit every house within a mile radius. A five mile circuit would have a diameter of ten miles and the inspector's work would go for nought because there will always be found within one mile enough congestion to use up every bit of land.
But the people are not getting it.
The facts show that they are. It is becoming increasingly difficult for the Land Commission to get holdings for migrants from the West of Ireland. Sometimes it may appear to Deputies from the eastern counties that we in the western areas are turning envious and greedy eyes on the East. Such is not the case. In the West in the congested areas every available farm was taken up and there is therefore more easing of congestion within the congested counties themselves. Only a tiny overflow finds its way to the Midlands, to Louth, Meath, Dublin, Kildare and so on.
A couple of hundred a year.
It is not a couple of hundred a year. Now (d) asked for the provision of holdings for landless men requiring accommodation plots. There is no limit there and I think I can meet the Deputies there.
Perhaps I will not be able to meet them to their complete satisfaction, but I promise to do my best because we have, in fact, given land to landless men. While it does appear, as a result of replies to Parliamentary Questions and information with which the Minister for Lands has to come to the House, that the landless man is altogether out, such is not the case, because last year we gave plots and small holdings to 28 landless men throughout the Twenty-Six Counties. What Deputies might misunderstand in this regard is the actual selection of the allottee to whom land would be given. It does not matter what category he falls into, whether he is a landless man, a displaced employee; an uneconomic holder, or a migrant; the selection of the particular allottee is a judicial matter for the commissioners and one in which neither the Minister nor Deputies have any right to interfere because the law of this House hands that matter over to the commissioners. It is a judicial function.
Has not a direction been given to the Land Commission by your predecessor on the question of land to landless men?
It is the Minister's function to give a direction about a particular class provided the class is within the law, but when it comes to the selection of the allottees the Minister has no function and if he were foolish enough to give a direction the commissioners would simply disregard it because this House has told them it is their function to select the particular person to whom land will be given just as it is their function to determine the particular land that is to be taken up.
Has not the Minister to direct that a certain class is to be included or excluded and has not your predecessor excluded landless men? Will the Minister change that? That is what I want to know.
I do not wish to hold up the House but I can assure Deputies that I will give them the fullest assistance within my power in regard to paragraph (a) and (d) of their motion. I would ask them, however, to withdraw the other two paragraphs now that I have pointed out how impracticable they would be. There was a time before I came to the Land Commission and had not an opportunity to look at things from the inside when I thought exactly as the Deputies who put down the motion thought. I do not want to appear to belittle the Deputies or to cast a slur on their intentions when they put it down, because I thought the same as they do now.
If I had a chance to go back on the records perhaps a motion fairly similar would be found in my name and in the name of the other Deputies of the Clann na Talmhan Party. I do not know whether we put a motion down on that subject but I would not be surprised if one were found. I would like to make it clear that it is not a labour of love on the part of the commissioners or the Minister for Lands to refuse land to a particular man or a particular class of individuals. We would like if there were sufficient land to give it to everybody. It is much easier to give things away than not to give them. It is not for the purpose of victimising anybody that land is not given; it is just because there is not enough, because of the commitment of 10,000 uneconomic holdings in all parts of the country. However, I will do the best I possibly can in regard to paragraphs (a) and (d) and ask the Deputies not to press the other parts of the motion.
I would like to hear the Minister on the suggestion I put forward in regard to local uneconomic holders. I do not agree with the five mile idea at all, but I suggested that all local uneconomic holdings should be dealt with first.
That is a fair question. The Land Commission has very strict instructions, before they parcel out one perch of a farm to a migrant, to relieve congestion in the immediate locality which is a mile or——
That is a joke.
Perhaps the Deputy knows of certain people with small-holdings who were left out. That is where the Minister's function ceases and where it is a matter for the commissioners. Perhaps a particular man, say, Mr. X, has a small holding of land. If the Land Commissioners do not consider him they have some sound reason, because they must go into each case on its merits. Perhaps the Deputy could quote cases for me where small farmers did not get land in such circumstances. If he gives me the names I will go into the matter to see if there has been an oversight or if an injustice has been done in any particular case. Further than that I think the Deputy would not ask me to go.
In reply to Deputy Hilliard's point, the Land Commission have very strict instructions to settle all the congestion in the locality first. But when it comes to the examination of the claims of the individual men, it is a matter for the commissioners and if they decide not to give land to a man, they have very good reasons for it and I can assure Deputies on all sides of the House that there is no question of victimisation.
We accept that. I was making the plea for a greater use of internal transfer to relieve all uneconomic holdings in counties such as Meath, Westmeath and Kildare.
There is nothing against that.
I want to support the part of the motion dealing with the cow parks. I come from a county where they have made a complete success of the cow parks, at Killucan, Delvin, around where I live in Castlepollard, and in several other places in County Westmeath. The county council have given the cow parks and the cottiers and smallholders round about have cows on these parks. They have them during the summer and during the winter. There are different charges for the summer and the winter. They run them economically and they show a slight profit in some cases, so much so that we have been able to avail of Government grants for lime and fertilisers; we have got soil tests in all these cow parks and have made a great success of it.
In Ardillon, outside Mullingar, the Land Commission in recent times gave a cow park on one estate there. There is a great number of cottiers; I cannot be exact but it would be an understatement to say that there are 12 cottiers living in a row and the cow park is not large enough to meet their requirements. Every man who can get accommodation and who lives in these cottages has a cow and a calf on these cow parks. It is the only chance for these people to have live stock and to supply their family with milk. I want to make the case to the Minister in regard to that area that, if there is another estate being considered for acquisition by the Land Commission they should extend the cow park and given an addition to the Ardillon cow park. They inflicted one hardship on these unfortunate people. The officials sited a cottage on that cow park, and to take away even half an acre from a cow park is a grave hardship on these people. There is a number of estates under consideration at present in County Westmeath. When these estates have been acquired and divided in the parish of Dysart, the O'Beirne estate will provide the only chance that these people will ever have of getting any accommodation for live stock. They are out of it as far as a farm is concerned. Therefore, I want to make a particular plea in the debate on this motion put down by Deputy Tully that on the O'Beirne estate in Dysart a cow park will be provided for the cottiers.
Whatever may be said by Deputy Tully or the Meath Deputies in answer to the charge that they were a failure in Meath, let them be a failure in Meath; they are a complete success in County Westmeath. We invite the Minister and Deputies to come down and examine our accounts in County Westmeath. There they will see how the cow parks work. There they will see that we are not taking everything out of the land and putting nothing back. The cow parks are better land now, under our management, than they were when we got them, and the more we have of them around the towns of County Westmeath, the better. The cow parks, for instance, around Raharney and Delvin are a great credit to the county council.
This motion deals, in clause (c), with the provision of holdings for landless men who are living within five miles of the land to be divided and who are in a position to work the land.
I know that if you were to drain the Atlantic Ocean and make land of it there would not be enough farms in it to give all the farmers' sons who look for land in Ireland a farm. Common sense tells me that. I do not need a map or a rule to enable me to come to that conclusion. The pool of land is small.
I want to make a particular plea for a kind of landless man that I know in my locality. I have a particular man in view when I make this statement, a man who lives in my own parish. He is married; he has a large family, a young family; he is in a cottage; he gets work with a horse and cart on the road and he has built up a stock of seven or eight cattle for which he takes grazing; he has a couple of cows which provide milk for the family and his wife makes butter. They have built up an economy around the cottage in that way. Yet, this man is told that he cannot get land because he is only a cottier with half an acre.
That is why that motion is on the Order Paper.
I know. Take a single man who has the same amount of stock. He is not in the same category and I am not making the case for him because, as Deputy Tully knows, many of these men got land around Athboy and Delvin and other places who never went to live in the house that was built for them.
Good man.
Or never occupied them. They are a disgrace to the Midlands and Deputy Giles knows that. These are not the men for whom I am making the case.
It was given to drunken sots who would not work the land. Why was it given to them?
I shall not go up a side walk and debate that point.
The Deputy started in on that.
I do not say that the present Minister can go out and tell them to give land to Pat, Tom or anyone else.
He cannot do it.
The Land Commission gave the land in these cases and gave it in good faith. They had no precedent and they did it as an experiment which has been a failure. I am making the case for the man in the cottage with a wife and young family, who has proved himself and who, under the particular form of administration we have at present is ruled out. I want earnestly to plead that he will get a farm. I know the difficulties in that case, particularly in the north of Westmeath, the poor part of Westmeath, where I live and where the holdings are small and where we acquired estates of 100 acres and estates of that order and, if you were to give economic farms, you would give only two or three whereas you could service many uneconomic holdings with 100 acres. An exception should be made of the individual whom I have described here. In his case, I would not mind translating him 25 miles, not to mind five.
In my contribution to the debate, I do not want to trip up Deputy Tully. I want to be helpful. One of the causes of the failure of Land Commission division heretofore was in giving the additions too far away from the parent holding. The persons concerned had to go several miles. They got tired of it and, when they were advanced in age, they got rid of it.
Twenty years ago, I pleaded in this House, and I am now more convinced that my plea was right, that there should be no vesting of anybody for 20 years and that at the end of that time they must have proved themselves to be carrying out good husbandry on the land and that they would not have it let on the 11 months' system which, unfortunately is the position in a large area of the Midlands to-day.
The two points I have made are, one, in connection with cow parks and, secondly, in connection with the particular kind of landless man whom I have described, the married landless man with a young, thriving family.
Clause (d) of the motion refers to the provision of holdings for landless men requiring accommodation plots. It is a very arguable thing. I am almost conceived that it was right, although many of my Party do not agree, and Deputy Hilliard referred to it here, to give five acres around his cottage to the cottier. It works very well in parts of Meath and I would like to see it being done. The argument that is put up by my colleagues against it is that the cottier then is neither a farmer nor a labourer. At the same time, there is a good deal to be said for it. The stage is being reached when, in Ireland, the only man who will have land is the man who will go out and save and thrive and build up a fund and, if he has not the money, his son will have it and eventually become a farmer. When all the land division has been carried out, that is what you will be faced with. They will have to stop dreaming for a farm and go out and work for it. Deputy O'Hara knows a man who went to England and saved up hard-earned money and came home and bought land. I know lads around Delvin who went to Canada and worked inside the Arctic Circle in the last ten years and saved up and bought farms around Delvin. That is going on the records and I am standing over that statement. I am digressing and nearly forgetting the argument that I was making.
I was on the subject of the five-acre plot. There is this much to be said for it—the man who keeps a cow or two and a few calves and a few pigs becomes farm conscious and will watch every penny. To him £1 will consist, not of a note, but of 240 pennies and he will strive with his wife and they will build up and eventually become farmers. There is that argument in favour of the accommodation plot or the five-acre plot.
To come to a conclusion I want to make the case that the most needed thing around a town or a village is a cow-park. A lot has been said in condemnation of the landlord system; very little has ever been said in the landlords' favour except that generally they had cow parks round their estates. When the estates were divided the cow parks went and the cows went to the long acre. As far as Meath is concerned I am making a plea to the Minister to get the Land Commission to keep on with the question of providing cow-plots. The commission will be doing a good day's work. I should also like to make another plea in connection with five acre plots for cottiers.
As land division is a very vexed problem in the eastern counties, it is only right that we should avail of every opportunity to speak on it. This motion gives us a chance of speaking on the subject again. I cannot support this motion in its entirety, although there are one or two points with which I agree. I consider the suggested five mile limit as ridiculous. The division of land in this country is nearing completion; the necessity to divide land will have gone entirely in 50 years' time and the nearer we get to that situation, the tighter the Land Acts are being operated. If this motion does nothing more than make the Minister realise the importance of the debate it will be doing good but I am satisfied it is not going to do anything like upsetting the Land Acts.
A Deputy made a speech here the other evening with which I wholeheartedly agree. It was a speech full of facts and was made by a man who was not afraid of losing votes. There is no use in my telling the people in Meath that they are all likely now to get land. That would be only fooling the people because only one in a thousand is likely to get an acre. We know that the national policy is directed towards the relief of congestion and for making uneconomic holdings economic. The Minister is inclined to disregard suggestions about the provision of cowplots because they failed in County Meath. He is wrong in that. Cowplots failed there because there was a racket in them. They were not administered by anybody with competent authority; interested in them were a few thugs operating them for their own benefit. In my opinion the cowplot is the most essential thing in our county and I would ask the Minister to consider very seriously their provision there. We now know that there is very little chance of providing land for landless men; we are aware that for every one landless man who gets a holding, thousands will not.
That is exactly it.
Is that not the truth?
It is.
There is no use in trying to hide that fact. There are areas where cowplots are absolutely essential and where they will be of great national benefit if they are provided in volume. I would accordingly ask the Minister to receive a deputation to discuss the subject with him. A great deal of the land of Meath has been given to migrants from the West. As I have said, there is little or no land for the landless there. I agree that the commission have worked hard to make uneconomic holdings economic but we find holdings where men were passed over. I would like to see much more resettlement in these areas. When a big estate is being divided and when there are in the vicinity many small farmers with uneconomic bits of land, the Land Commission should give these men decent holdings from the estate, take over the bits and pieces in the neighbourhood and rearrange them into decent holdings. Such a procedure would take care of a great deal of resettlement problems in County Meath.
In making that point, I would not like it to interfere with the provision of accommodation plots. I think that is a matter which the Minister said he would consider.
That is right.
Where there is a good man, who works his bit of land carefully and well, a man who is rearing a good family, that man is deserving of a good deal of consideration. Several of that type are living beside me. There is also the question of the hard-working men who lived in cottages on acquired demesnes. Most of these people were never a day idle in their lives and any of them for whom acquisition means disemployment should be given careful consideration. If necessary I will give the names of these people to the Minister. They could be given six or seven acre plots. I know a group of them in whose neighbourhood there is a fine field which could be divided among them at very little cost. Such plots would help them to provide milk and butter for their families. It would also help out immensely the economy of the country as a whole.
There is a cow-plot of about 30 acres in my constituency which was taken over by a group of people about 35 years ago. This group of men paid for the cow-plot and they worked it very well; most of them had two cows on it. Then land division occurred in the area and 90 per cent. of the people using the cow-plot got new holdings and new homes. But at the same time they retained their rights on the cow-plot with the result that the poor people in the area who had no land were unable to put their cows into the plot. I think this is a question into which the Land Commission should inquire. The people who have got new holdings are much less needy than the others of whom I speak.
Have the people who got new holdings the full use of the cow-plot still?
Yes, and considering that they have got these new homes and farms it is a crying shame.
These people bought the cow-plot; it was vested in them and they had the full use of it.
And the Land Commission gave 90 per cent. of them nice new holdings and gave them the right to retain this plot.
If the cow-plot is vested in them it would mean that the commission would have to go through all the machinery of compulsory acquisition.
I want the Land Commission to go through all the machinery of compulsory acquisition in the interest of the people in the area who have got no land. I do not see for the life of me why the Minister will not go straight ahead and acquire this plot. I do not see why the Minister should be so mean with the people whose interests I am putting before him. The people who hang on to the plot were each given £2,000 worth of valuable property and it is absolutely mean of them to deprive their poorer neighbours of the use of this plot. I have nothing against the people who are now using the cow-plot but I am interested in the people who are more deserving because they are more needy.
As we know, the people in Meath become very aggravated when they see migrants coming in. We tell them there is nothing that can be done about it, that it is national policy.
And that as long as the migrants do not come from County Mayo, it is all right.
No matter where they come from there is one thing certain and that is that they take off their coats and go to work. They are making good and buying new farms.
I do blame the Land Commission for the policy of 25 and 30 years ago which was nothing more than a national shame. They gave land to every Tom, Dick and Harry, to men who refused to live in the houses and who set the land and had a good time while it lasted and then sold the land when the price was high enough. That policy was the cause of all the damage that we have to-day.
This motion may have done good in causing a debate in this matter and as a result of it we may get the ear of the Minister. If the Minister gives more favourable consideration to the cow-plots, where they are now a success we will be satisfied. There is no use in us fighting for landless men. Out of thousands of landless men one may be lucky. There is no use in leading people up the garden path and making fools of them. They know now the position with regard to land distribution.
On that part of the motion dealing with the five miles, I am not satisfied that the one mile is adequate at all. We have in County Dublin a number of conacre farmers who travel ten and 12 miles on their tractors to try and get land for tillage. When a holding of land is being divided the Land Commission will not regard these men as uneconomic holders because they are more than one mile from the farm to be divided notwithstanding the fact that they travel up to nine and ten miles to get land.
The position in County Dublin is that there is not very much land to be divided, but any time that there is land to be divided we are in the awkward position that we have more uneconomic holders than any other county in Ireland for the size of it. For that reason I do hope that the Minister will make representation to the Land Commission to consider going further than the one mile. The day of fast travelling and up-to-date machinery is here. The horse is gone and it is the lorry and the tractor now. I wish to press the Minister to have that matter reconsidered.
Does the Deputy know of all the holdings that are falling derelict? It is happening so much in the West of Ireland that something will soon have to be done about it.
I know that the problem is there but nevertheless I am speaking of an area where there are conacre farmers travelling seven, eight, nine and ten miles to get land for tillage. When you consider men of that type travelling that distance to get land and then when a Land Commission holding is divided in their area they will not be considered because they are more than a mile from the holding it is very bad. They come along to me and tell me that as their public representative. I would ask the Minister, in view of the change in times, to consider this point.
A lot has been said about the people who got land and did not use it, but in every group there are individuals who will fall by the wayside. As a matter of fact in Dáil Éireann and outside of it, the human element will have to be taken into account. There are a number of cottiers in my county who got five-acre plots. It made them independent and industrious and made their children industrious. It did not make them completly dependent on a week's wages. For that reason, although the five-acre plots are small, I am anxious to see them reintroduced. By it you are making these men more self-confident and more self-reliant.
The conacre farmers in County Dublin are still being regarded as landless men, although they have been able to get conacre here and there and everywhere and make a living out of it. I think men of that type are an asset to the nation and that they should be favourably considered when there is land to be divided in the district. That is one of the points on which I have often spoken before and I shall continue to speak on it. It is a matter which concerns Deputies of County Dublin very seriously.
Running all through the speeches on this motion, especially from Deputies from Meath, Kildare, Westmeath, Carlow and Dublin, is the cry that the people from the west of the Ireland are rushing up and getting holdings from the Land Commission to the disadvantage of the people from those counties. Speaking as a Deputy from the West of Ireland, and on behalf of every honest Deputy from the West, including the Minister, I want to tell the Dáil that it is the one thing that we hate—that our people from the West of Ireland have got to come up here.
The night before they leave the West of Ireland, from Mayo, Galway and other counties there, is known as the "night of the wake" because, I regret to say in many cases, many of them do not live very long when they go away from the great hospitality to which they are accustomed in the West of Ireland to meet the cold shoulder which they get from many of the people in the Midlands. Why do they go? Because they are selected by officials of the Land Commission as the most suitable people, because first and foremost they are satisfactory in their holdings at home and secondly because even though they have only nine or ten acres of land, that little patch when they leave can be divided up and added to other uneconomic holdings in the neighbourhood.
The position in the West, or in many parts of it, is that if a man wants to put a ladder up against his house, he has to ask his neighbour's permission because the foot of it would very often have to rest in his neighbour's garden. It is only by the greatest coaxing by the Land Commission that those people consent to go at all even with the promise of better holdings in the Midlands. It suits the Land Commission to give them three times the amount of land which they have in the West because the land which they leave can be added on to five or ten uneconomic holdings in the area. That is why they come up here.
I want to refer to the part of the motion which suggests that land be given five miles away from the congested holdings. I want to remind Deputies that we had Land Acts in 1923, 1927, 1931, 1936, 1939, 1946, 1950 and 1953. In mentioning the 1923 Act I would like to pay tribute to the late Mr. Paddy Hogan who was Minister for Lands at that time. He, in his wisdom, thought it would be good to give land four or five miles away from their holdings to congests but I remember after that, I had to make representations myself to the Land Commission to allow the very people who got that land to sell the extra few acres they got five or six miles away because it was driving them to the poor house. They had to walk to that extra land every morning and walk home every night with the result that not only was the additional land neglected but the land they had previously was also neglected. I would say to the Land Commission and to the Minister, it is the task of the Land Commission to bring land together, not separate it. Land separation is no good to anyone and the suggestion of having portions of land five miles apart could cause the greatest harm.
I am not opposed to giving land to landless men if there is land available but, according to statements we have heard, we have 10,000 uneconomic holders in this country, 10,000 living in slums so far as land is concerned. I know people living on holdings with valuations of £3 and £10s. and the man in many parts of my area who has a £9 valuation is a big farmer. I hope Deputy Tully is listening. Why leave these men on low valuations of £3 or £4 in slavery? Why put another man in slavery by giving him an uneconomic holding? Is it not better to deal with these uneconomic holdings? I believe they should be the first charge on the Irish Land Commission because they are the slums of the land in this country. Every one of the Land Acts I mentioned was aimed at improving conditions. The 1946 Land Act, which Deputy Killilea mentioned, had to be brought in. I am not going to blame Fianna Fáil for bringing it in any more than I would blame the present Government because certain people got land, as Deputy Killilea pointed out, and had houses built for them probably at a cost of some £2,000 and the 1946 Act had to be passed to get the land back from them.
Where did these people come from?
The Deputy can speak when I am finished if he likes. If the land in those areas had been given to uneconomic holders at the time, there would probably have been no need to build houses at all for them and they would have worked hard. I would like to protest very strongly against another development in the West of Ireland—I do not know whether it happened in Meath or Kildare. I have seen cases where, when land is to be divided certain Deputies come together and say: "We will hold a meeting and decide who is going to get it".
Deputies do not do that.
They do. I know in certain places in the West of Ireland where, when a man has agreed to leave and go to the Midlands and his land is to be divided, Deputies go into that area and called a meeting. Admittedly, the people are land hungry and when They hear about this they all gather round. One Deputy says: "I will get that piece for you, Tom, and that piece for you, John." That is all wrong. It is deception. The Minister for Lands —and he is listening to me—has no authority to give land to anybody and I hope he never will have. It would be a bad day when any politician could give land to anybody because we have a certain amount of human nature in everyone of us and naturally we would give it to our own supporters. The officials of the Land Commission are in a different position.
Unfortunately they have human nature in them too.
No, I have watched their efforts for many years. I am in the heart of a very congested district in North Galway and I know of cases where the Land Commission had to spend over 12 months going round from house to house trying to please everybody when a piece of land of about 50 acres had to be divided into three-acre plots. I will pay this tribute to the Land Commission officials—they generally do a good job. Frequently a man comes along and says:—"I did not get land and my valuation is only £6." He does not deserve any land because he would not keep it in any better condition if he got it. In order to judge a farmer, one should go in in the month of October, look at his haggard and see the way he looks after his stock, his crop and his implements. His valuation is of no importance. There are people who go round trying to convince others that they, and they alone, have the giving of land. Deputies here have not the giving of land. The Minister has not the giving of land.
It is my hope that land will always be given to those who need it most. I want to make it quite plain to Midland Deputies that, so far as our people in the West are concerned, it is very hard to prevail on them to leave the West. They would rather have the breath of the heather on the mountains in Mayo and Galway. It is only when the inducement held out to them by the Land Commission is so great that they are prepared to move away from the West.
The policy of the Land Commission in regard to land division is that congestion in any area should be remedied. I am afraid that policy cannot be applied 100 per cent. everywhere in the country. You have in the West of Ireland, especially in Mayo and Galway, very severe congestion. In other western counties there is less severe congestion. Then, in Meath and the eastern counties generally, the land is good and the farms are large. In Donegal, the situation is quite different. In Donegal we have some congestion in the west of the county. These congests are not prepared to go to Meath or to other parts of the country. In East Donegal we have some very good land. The farms are large and the Land Commission has taken over quite a number of them. It was the custom of the Land Commission, having acquired farms in East Donegal, to divide them and offer them to congests from the west of the county. Now the holdings taken over by the Land Commission in East Donegal are lying derelict. New houses have been built on them. The congests of West Donegal have inspected the farms and the houses and have refused to take them. I think we have there a case for giving such holdings to landless men, to the conacre farmers. We have many such in Donegal.
In East Donegal, the area I represent, there are no small farmers. The majority of the farms are fairly large. The result is that the conacre farmer, and I know many of them, pays up to £25 and £28 per acre. I know many who paid that for potatoes and wheat. Their conacre bill may amount to anything from £200 to £500. I know a few whose total expenditure last year was well over £500 for the year. Now these people cannot afford to buy a farm when it comes on the market. They never will be able to afford to buy a farm because the price is too high. They cannot possibly pay £5,000, £6,000 or £7,000 for a farm of 100 or 150 acres. The result is they have to go round the county taking conacre, here, there and everywhere. They try in that way, and they succeed, in making a fair living for themselves and their families, but the work is very hard. If smaller farms were available these people would be able to purchase them. At the moment, they cannot purchase the farms that are offered because they are too big. Despite the fact that No. 1 priority, so far as the Land Commission is concerned, is the relief of congestion—and I agree with that priority—I still maintain that the situation which exists in East Donegal should be remedied and can be remedied by making an exception.
No matter how hard and fast a rule may be, there are always exceptions. I would urge that we should have exceptions in the case of land. Indeed, we can make very good cases for exceptions. After all, it is impossible to draft a regulation and apply it everywhere all over the country and in all cases. One does not act fairly in trying to do that despite the fact that it may be a good regulation.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance, said, in reference to the 1946 Act, that many people who got land had subsequently to be evicted from that land. But he did not say that it was erstwhile landless men who had to be evicted. His statement does not prove or disprove anything, unless he goes a step further and says that the 1946 Act, which was passed in order to remedy a certain defect, caused the eviction of men who got land from the Land Commission. He did not say that these were Mayo men or Galway men. I can give the Minister the names and addresses of landless men who did get land and who are making very good use of that land. The Land Commission in these particular cases did not build houses on this land because they had decided to give it to landless men. But to-day there are good houses built on these farms, better houses than the Land Commission ever built. I maintain that if land is given to landless men, of the type to which I have referred, they will make a far better use of that land than some of the congests who have had no experience of present-day methods and modern husbandry. A conacre farmer with a tractor and a plough has experience. If he is given a medium-sized farm, he will be prepared to work that farm as he is at present working land on the 11-months' system.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Deputy Donnellan, described the painful picture which presents itself in the West of Ireland when some of these small farmers leave and head for the holdings in County Meath. It is a more painful picture to see a person who has, say, for 15 years, been taking conacre, a landless man, at the end of that period, gathering together a tractor, farm implements, a few head of cattle, some sheep, all the paraphernalia that goes with the working of land, putting those articles under the auctioneer's hammer and taking a boat to England or Scotland.
They belong to an inferior race, according to some of the Deputies here.
Yes. That is a more pitiable sight and it takes place in many cases, due to the action of the Land Commission. I know places where conacre, landless men, get good livings from the large estates, work them well and worked them well during the emergency and produced their quotas of wheat, oats and potatoes. I have seen the Land Commission step in and purchase those holdings and those farms. I have seen the articles I have mentioned come under the auctioneer's hammer and I have seen those scientific farmers leave the country and take employment in the beet fields of England, in the coal mines, building schemes and hydroelectric schemes in Scotland. I think those two could run side by side, the relief of congestion and the enabling of the conacre farmer to get land that he could call his own, and land which would form the nucleus of a larger holding when his family would grow up.
The Minister knows that the situation which I mentioned exists in East Donegal. He knows that there are large farms there which have been worked for the last 20 years, and well worked, but not by the owners. We have reached a situation now where the Land Commission is faced with doing one or other of these two things: they must stop taking over large estates, or, if they continue to take over large estates, I would suggest, they must give them to landless farmers. I do not think they will decide, or can decide, to stop land acquisition. It would be for the benefit of this country if many of the large and medium sized farms which are being let year by year were given to this class of farmer who has proven experience. There is a large number to pick and choose from. The Land Commission can pick the best from a good selection. From the point of view of the economic interests of the country and from the point of view of agriculture, they would be settling in land men who have a life's experience, or experience at least from their young days, of farming on medium-sized farms.
On a point of order, Sir, could you say how much more time is left for the motion?
An Leas-Ceann Comhairle
At 10.30 p.m., there will still be 40 minutes to go on this motion.
That is enough for any man. While catering for the very necessary job for which the Minister and the Land Commission are responsible, that is, the relief of congestion and the rearrangement of small uneconomic scattered bits of land in the West, they could put side by side with that the building up in this country of a type of farmer who is of value and an asset to the State, the farmer who would be given by the Land Commission 40 or 50 acres of good land, not because he is a person who can give up five or six acres in Mayo, Galway, Kerry or elsewhere, but because over a period of years, although he is a person who has no land, he has contributed to the well-being of this State through the food he has produced on land which did not belong to himself.
If you settle a fair number of these people in the different counties of Ireland, nobody will blame the Minister or the Land Commission. We thought one time in our county that such men never could become landowners for the reason that the congests in the west of our county were not anxious to take holdings. Then luckily the Land Commission gave land to some of these people. They are examples of what I personally am proud of and of what the Land Commission has every reason to be proud of. That does not at all interfere with the general policy. It is a pity, I know, that the predecessor of the present Minister was 100 per cent. for the relief of congestion. That was his policy; that is the present Minister's policy and the policy of the Land Commission.
Debate adjourned.