Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 6 Jun 1956

Vol. 157 No. 11

Committee on Finance. - Vote 47—Lands.

Minister for Lands (Mr. Blowick)

I move:—

That a sum not exceeding £1,173,950 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1957, for the salaries and expenses of the Offices of the Minister for Lands and of the Irish Land Commission (44 & 45 Vict., c. 49, sec. 46, and c. 71, sec. 4; 48 & 49 Vict., c. 73; secs. 17, 18 and 20; 54 & 55 Vict., c. 48; 3 Edw. 7, c. 37, 7 Edw. 7 c. 38 and c. 56; 9 Edw. 7, c. 42; Nos. 27 and 42 of 1923; No. 25 of 1925; No. 11 of 1926; No. 19 of 1927; No. 31 of 1929; No. 11 of 1931; Nos. 33 and 38 of 1933; No. 11 of 1934; No. 41 of 1936; No. 26 of 1939; No. 12 of 1946; No. 25 of 1949; No. 16 of 1950; No. 18 of 1953; and No. 21 of 1954).

The gross Estimate of £2,211,381 for Lands for the current year shows an increase of £74,006 over the gross total for last year—including the sum transferred to the Lands Vote from the Vote for Increases in Remuneration.

For sub-head A, salaries, wages and allowances, an increase of £29,808 is shown. Of this amount, over £29,000 represents the pay increase awarded last year to the Civil Service generally. The balance is accounted for by normal incremental increases. Since last Estimate the indoor staff has been reduced by 18.

The increase of £2,000 in sub-head B arises largely from a change in procedure before the Appeal Tribunal. As a result of court decisions it is now necessary for the Land Commission inspectors to give evidence before the Appeal Tribunal on questions of value and to undergo cross-examination by owner's counsel. This, of course, involves increased travelling for the inspectorate.

Over 37 per cent. of the entire Estimate is allocated to sub-heads H (1), H (2) and H (3) for making good deficiencies in the Land Bond Fund arising from the statutory halving of annuities—which alone accounts for £695,000—and other aids to land purchase. As the land settlement programme proceeds, new annuities are set up which call for additional provision under sub-head H (1), for costs fund, and H (3), for halving of annuities. This year it is expected that the halving of annuities will result in an increase of £13,000 under sub-head H (3) which, together with an estimated increase of £500 under sub-head H (1), gives a total increase of £13,500 under this group of sub-heads.

Almost 30 per cent. of the entire Estimate is allocated to the improvement of estates, including the erection and repair of buildings, the construction of roads, fences, drains and other works. This sub-head, more than any other, reflects the extent of the land settlement activities, as concentration on the relief of congestion involves heavy expenditure on improvement works, particularly buildings. This sub-head provides a substantial amount of employment particularly in the congested districts. Expenditure under sub-head I last year was £625,424, the highest for many years. For this year, additional provision has to be made for recent wage increases and the upward trend in cost of materials. The likelihood of some increase in expenditure through improved design for Land Commission houses also arises. In the course of last year's debate on this Estimate. I said that improved plans for dwelling-houses would be introduced. As an experiment, some houses have already been constructed to new plans near Trim, Navan and Oldcastle, County Meath, and others will be erected soon in Westmeath and elsewhere. Expert architectural advice has been sought and I have every confidence that the housing designs which will ultimately be adopted will be a distinct improvement on the past.

Certain deficiencies in funds such as the Local Loans Fund and Land Bond Fund are made good out of sub-head Q. These deficiencies arise when the Land Commission, having taken over land which is subject to a statutory payment, direct that the payment shall cease. The payments thus terminated are subsequently replaced by new annuities on the lands. The charge to sub-head Q is recurring and cumulative and an increased provision of £1,100 is required for this year.

As regards sub-head R, which deals with the purchase of land in the open market, I am this year proposing an increase of 50 per cent. in the amount of this sub-head. When I introduced the principle of open-market purchases into the Land Act, 1950, I envisaged the section as a means of augmenting the Land Commission's main programme for the laying-out of holdings by making available in significant numbers, holdings complete with all essential buildings and ready for occupation. It is, of course, a matter of importance that the Land Commission's use of this power should not monopolise this market to the exclusion of suitable private purchasers of land, or tend to inflate prices. A certain amount of caution is therefore essential.

It may also be mentioned that the number of holdings coming on the market, which would be suitable for the Land Commission's purpose, is limited. Generally speaking, the holding must be the right size, suitably located, comprise fair to good land, and be equipped with dwelling-house and outoffices in good repair; title must be reasonably clear and the price not prohibitive. Altogether 43 holdings containing 1,700 acres have been purchased under the section. With the knowledge and experience being gained in its operation, better results may be expected in the future. No effort will be spared this year to secure the maximum results and, accordingly, provision is made for an increase of £10,000 in this sub-head.

The amounts being provided under the other sub-heads of the Vote vary, if at all, to a small extent from last year's figures and do not call for any special comment.

As regards the general work of the Land Commission, it is gratifying to note that the drive for the completion of tenanted land purchase continues to show good results even though the rate of progress is inevitably slowing down as the residue of extremely difficult cases has been reached. Of 110,000 tenanted holdings, which vested in the Land Commission since 1923, there are now only 14,000 holdings left for vesting in the tenants. Vesting of all the tenanted holdings has been completed in County Carlow. In each of the ten counties of Cavan, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Meath, Monaghan and Wexford, the number of tenanted holdings still awaiting attention is less than 50. The total number of outstanding cases for these 11 counties is 168. For all practical purposes, therefore, the revesting of tenanted land has been virtually completed in the 11 counties I have named.

Some 12,800 of the 14,000 unvested tenanted holdings, to which I have referred, are situated in the western counties and, together with about 6,000 unvested holdings on the estates of the former Congested Districts Board, constitute the really hard core of congestion which still remains to be dealt with. About 9,000 of these holdings are in rundale or intermixed plots and require extensive rearrangement as well as enlargement and other improvements before vesting may take place. Scattered plots—sometimes upwards of 40 in a single holding— require to be consolidated into workable units; new dwelling-houses and outoffices have, in most cases, to be built and means of access and drainage are invariably unsatisfactory.

It is essential that additional land be obtained before a satisfactory and acceptable scheme of rearrangement for any group of intermixed holdings can be formulated. Scarcely any land is now left for acquisition or resumption in the immediate neighbourhood of the remaining acutely congested estates, however, and the migration of families from these districts is the only way in which land can be made available there to facilitate the rearrangement of the intermixed holdings, the abolition of rundale, and the improvement of conditions generally. Last year, it was found possible to migrate 102 families from congested areas to new holdings elsewhere.

Largely as a result of these migrations, the rearrangement, enlargement and improvement of close on 700 holdings in the congested areas was effected last year. This compares with a total of 607 holdings rearranged during 1954-55 and the increased output is most welcome and is the result of unremitting effort throughout the entire year on the part of the officials engaged on this highly skilled branch of the work. In the past few years over 2,500 families living on such intermixed holdings and comprising altogether up to 20,000 human beings have benefited greatly by these rearrangement schemes. For the information of those Deputies who are unfamiliar with the type of holding about which I speak, perhaps I may point out that in this branch of Land Commission work there arises a variety of problems, which at times appear almost insurmountable and, under the most favourable circumstances, occasion delays. Migration is inseparable from rearrangement but the natural reluctance of a family to leave the homestead, where they were born and bred, frequently constitutes a major problem in the initial stages of preparing a rearrangement scheme. Sometimes when everything is settled a prospective key-migrant will change his mind at the last moment and everything is back in the melting pot once more, after all the trouble and arrangements. Very often acquisition proceedings for the lands, which are to provide the new holdings for the migrants, are vigorously contested and as a result the proceedings are long drawn out. In contrast, the successful rearrangement schemes must be based on the consent and co-operation of the participating tenants. Prolonged negotiations by the inspectorate are essential to secure the necessary goodwill of the landholders. Very often, the more acute the congestion, and the intermixed condition of the old holdings, the more difficult it is to secure general agreement for a satisfactory scheme.

Resourcefulness of a high order, patience and tact are thus necessary to resolve the issues which come to the forefront once a rearrangement scheme is attempted. The delays which occur are attributable mainly to the difficulty of securing consent and co-operation when many landholders are involved. In the general exchange and reshuffle of disconnected plots to form composite holdings, there is rarely sufficient land available to satisfy the aspirations of all.

Having regard, therefore, to all the factors connected with this difficult work, I am most gratified with the results which have been obtained in the past year, which are the best yet achieved, and I will endeavour in the future to intensify to the utmost the sustained drive which is in progress and which has for its objective the eradication of all these remaining rural slums wherever they exist.

There is another feature of this work which I think is worth mentioning. Some Deputies, no doubt, are aware that the problem of fragmented holdings is not peculiar to this country but is also engaging attention in many countries of Europe. It has been a source of satisfaction to learn that in this particular business we are as efficient as any other country and better than many. To illustrate the general excellence of these rearrangement schemes which the Land Commission are operating and in order to demonstrate that our schemes can stand comparison with the best of rearrangement schemes completed abroad, I have placed in the main hall of the House two maps showing sections of rearrangement schemes—one carried out in this country and one abroad. The maps, in each case, show three badly intermixed holdings before and after they were rearranged. Before rearrangement, the three Irish holdings contained 93 intermixed plots which in the final result were plotted into as few as four compact divisions. Furthermore, the provision of new dwelling-houses and outoffices was necessary in the case of all the Irish holdings in this scheme but did not arise in the foreign scheme.

Whilst migration and rearrangement may—by reason of the publicity given to these activities—appear to the House to be the predominant feature of the land settlement programme, I would point out that such operations carried out last year absorbed less than half of the total area allotted, so that a fair balance is being maintained in this contentious work. In all, about 35,000 acres were allotted to some 1,900 allottees. Over 30,000 acres were acquired, resumed or taken over in exchange and over 7,700 holdings, parcels and rights of turbary were vested in tenants or allottees.

Before passing from this brief review of the Land Commission activities for last year I should like to pay a tribute to the staff—both outdoor and indoor. I can assure the House that they apply themselves wholeheartedly and efficiently to their work which for contention and difficulty is well above average. The acquisition and allotment of land are by no means the only functions of the Land Commission; each year, the collection of £2,500,000 from 500,000 payers is effected; upwards of 7,700 separate properties are vested, some 2,000 applications for consent to sub-divide holdings are examined and decided, almost £650,000 is spent on improvement works and, on top of all this, hundreds of letters have to be dealt with each day on a wide and most varied range of land business throughout the State. In the complexity and variety of its functions I think that the Land Commission is unique among State Departments.

In conclusion, I am pleased to be able to report that the collection of annuities is proceeding most satisfactorily. The amount outstanding at the 31st March, 1956, was £139,493 which is over £3,000 less than at the same time last year and represents only 0.26 per cent. of the total amount collectable since 1953.

Mr. Derrig

To put the Vote which the Dáil is now discussing in its proper perspective, it is necessary, I think, for Deputies to have some familiarity with the work of the Land Commission, and it would be very helpful to them if they were familiar with the facts set out in the report of the Irish Land Commission—the last one available, dealing with the year ended 31st March, 1954. On that date, according to a table on page 18, the total acreage of land acquired, resumed or taken over by the Land Commission for allotments up to 31st March, 1954, or which was the subject of proceedings for acquisition on that date under the Land Acts, 1923 to 1953, was 1,218,368. With regard to expenditure on estate improvements, a similar table on page 23 shows that the total expenditure for the period 1923 to 1954 came to £10,608,686.

As Deputies are aware, the Land Commission is primarily taken up with the problems of the congested areas, or, if we wish to describe them so, the Gaeltacht counties. In this report, there is a section dealing with the Gaeltacht which, for the purposes of the Land Commission, is taken as comprising the five counties, Galway, Mayo, Donegal, Clare and Kerry. Since 1923, the Land Commission state that they have divided 553,875 acres of untenanted land in these Gaeltacht counties and have expended £4,039,284 on estate improvement works, apart from employment schemes. It gives particulars of the numbers of tenants who have been migrated and the number of families under the colony and group migration schemes which have been in operation for a good many years. The total number of families migrated to date seems to be 619.

With regard to the details of the Vote, there is not much to be said about the sub-heads. The Minister has pointed out that the increase of approximately £30,000 under sub-head A is due to pay increases awarded last year to the Civil Service generally or is accounted for by the normal incremental increases. He mentions that the indoor staff has been reduced by 18; however, there are still 1,073 on the establishment.

As regards the halving of the annuities, since 1948-49 the amount provided by the State for the statutory halving of the annuities under the 1933 Act has risen from £639,000 to £695,000—an increase of £56,000. This year, the Minister expects that the halving of the annuities will result in an increase of £13,000. Naturally, one wonders whether the halving of the annuities in the case of new allottees, or allottees who are receiving land under present proceedings, is justified, and whether, strictly speaking, they are entitled to this subsidy, in addition to whatever else they may be getting in the way of concession or advantage. However, I understand the position is that the Land Commissioners assert that, under the law as it stands, the concession of halving the annuities has to be given to the allottee who is receiving land under the Land Commission schemes at the present time. It raises the question, of course, as to the total liability which may be placed upon the State in respect of this work and whether there is any way in which it can be reduced.

The total price paid for land under all proceedings of the Land Purchase Acts up to 31st March, 1954, came to £130,000,000. I am trying to get the figure from 1923, but I do not seem to be able to lay my hands upon it. However, in connection with the liability of the State, the question of the loss on resale, which occurs for example in the case of a migrant, has to be taken into consideration; and, with the improvement in economic conditions and agricultural prospects and the advantages that migrants have and the assistance that has been given to them, it is easy to see that a case could be made to urge that the losses on the resale of holdings to migrants or others should be reduced to the minimum possible.

The Minister has not made any reference to this, but I think it is only right and proper to do so, when we are dealing with a Vote in respect of which there are so many sub-heads about which we can do very little. We simply must accept them so long as we accept the position that the Land Commission must continue, that such functions as it performs in connection with the collection of annuities, for example, must be carried out together with the halving of the annuities and the work it carries out in the congested or Gaeltacht districts which might be regarded as social to the extent that it is carrying on the work of the old Congested Districts Board and is endeavouring to improve the circumstances of the congests in the western counties, to give them better housing accommodation, to give them as far as possible some extra land or to rearrange, improve and make more economic the patches they have, and also to give them roads and to provide them with a certain amount of employment while these improvements are going on in their areas. This is all very advantageous, but, as the total amount of money in question is large, it is only right and proper that attention should be directed to a particular item where one feels that perhaps losses are greater than might reasonably be considered necessary or where one feels that perhaps the best service or the best return is not being given for the money expended.

I take it to be the function of the Opposition in a parliamentary democracy to suggest economies and to press upon the Government the need for economy in public expenditure at every turn. It is really begging the question and it is a very old story to ask: what items or what services do you suggest should be discontinued or abolished? The real aim should be, if we are agreed that certain services must be provided, to see that these services are operated in the most economical and efficient way possible, to take precisely the same trouble and interest in the expenditure of public moneys as we would if it were our own personal expenditure and try to see that the utmost value and the greatest possible return is got for it.

The expenditure last year in respect of improvements came to £625,000. For this year, the Minister says additional provision has to be made for recent wage increases and the upward trend in the cost of material. When Ministers are making references of this kind to additional provision that has to be made for either wage increases or cost of material, they might tell us specifically whether the whole of the increase is due to these reasons or what proportion may be due to wage increases. If the whole or even the greater part of the increase is due to wage increases, I presume it means that not even the same amount of work, but perhaps a lesser amount, in the way of completed buildings or improvements in other directions, is likely to be carried out in the congested areas.

The item under sub-head Q seems to be an accounting item and there is nothing we can do about that. As regards the purchase of land in the open market, the Minister has not told us the number of holdings which have been purchased during the past year. He has given the total number of 43 holdings containing 1,700 acres. I have not the figures—I do not know whether they are available—as to what the 43 holdings of 1,700 acres cost, what their valuation may have been, but, in any case, I do not think there need be any fear that the Minister's determination to do somewhat more under this sub-head will create any great excitement in the market for land sale and purchase. The Minister tells us that he is anxious that the Land Commission should not monopolise the market. I do not think there is very much fear of that. It may be that, in a particular instance, there might be fault found with the Land Commission for bidding for a holding which a local man wanted and felt he could make good use of, but I take it the Land Commission are interested only in land which is definitely needed for their purposes and which they must have, if they are to improve the conditions of the congests in the area.

The Minister has stated that there are now 11 counties—last year there were ten—in which the vesting of the tenanted holdings has practically been completed, the number of tenanted holdings still awaiting attention being fewer than 50. In fact, he says that the total number of outstanding cases for the 11 counties is 168, so that for all practical purposes revesting work is finished in these 11 counties. It might seem, therefore, as if even a larger reduction in staff than the 18 to which the Minister has referred might be made, and perhaps the saving in respect of the 18 is not altogether attributable to the work of revesting.

The real question is whether, with the expenditure and the work that is being done by the outdoor staff, of whose interest, industry and competence I have no doubt, we are really ameliorating the conditions in the West of Ireland to any great extent. Unfortunately, one has to weary the House with figures in this regard, but I think it is inevitable. According to the figures given here under the heading "Western Congestion", there are 19,800 holdings which the Minister describes as the "really hard core of congestion" which still remain to be dealt with. About 9,000 of these holdings are in rundale or intermixed plots and require extensive rearrangement, as well as enlargement and other improvements, before vesting may take place.

This year, the Minister is able to report that 700 holdings were rearranged. Last year, 607 were rearranged, so that we have 1,300 holdings rearranged in the past two years. I do not know whether it will be possible to maintain the present rate of progress, but it would seem that, even at that, it will take another six years to deal with holdings that are in a very bad way from the point of view of rearrangement, not to speak of the holdings that are left. If you take away the 9,000 holdings where rearrangement is necessary, you have still 10,000 or 11,000 holdings left over. The Minister says it is essential that additional land be obtained before a satisfactory or acceptable scheme of rearrangement for any group of intermixed holdings can be formulated, but, in the very next sentence, he tells us that scarcely any land is now left for acquisition or resumption in the immediate neighbourhood of the remaining acutely congested areas.

He states, however, that the migration of families from these districts is the only way in which land can be made available to them. That means leaving on one side the question of the 9,000 holdings which may require rearrangement and in respect of which rearrangement can be carried out during the next six or seven years. The migration of 102 families is a very good result and must not be belittled in any way, because it shows a tremendous amount of work has been done. Nevertheless, it is rather disappointing, if one looks at the figures for the many thousands of congested district holdings that still remain to be dealt with.

As I said last year, one might ask oneself the question whether even after another period of years it will be possible to do more than attend to a fraction of these holdings? I remember the Minister claimed last year that the effect of the work of the Land Commission, when the holdings were rearranged, was to make them reasonably economic, but I think, having regard to the changes that have taken place in agriculture and the general changes in the scheme of things in this country, that the congests will scarcely feel that these holdings, whatever the Minister may think and no matter what industry they may display there, are scarcely likely to provide them with a reasonable livelihood for themselves and their families.

The Minister tells us also that there is difficulty in getting migrants, sometimes, to accept the recommendations of the commission and fall in with the rearrangement plans. He has not told us definitely whether this is changing and whether it is a problem we are likely to see the end of, or whether it is a continuing one and whether these key migrants or key-men in the rearrangement schemes have the feeling that, through going to this political person or that, changing their allegiance, perhaps, as the circumstances may demand, they will get something it was not intended they should get. As a Land Commission inspector said to me on one occasion: "Time was when tenants did what the Land Commission inspectors advised, almost universally and invariably. Then we got an Irish Government and they felt they could do better by going to the T.D.s. Now," he said—and he retired from the service a good many years ago—"they have come back again to the inspectors." I hope the position now is not that they have again reversed their engines and are going back to the T.D.s in an effort to get the Land Commission to do something which is impossible as there is not, as has been explained by the Minister, a pool of land available.

The Minister goes on to tell us in the very next paragraph that "there is rarely sufficient land available to satisfy the aspirations of all". With regard to the figures that have been given on the last page of the Minister's statement, in which he says that 35,000 acres were allotted to some 1,900 allottees and that over 30,000 acres were acquired, resumed or taken over in exchange and over 7,700 holdings vested, it would be useful I think, in connection with the figures for acquisition and allotment, if Deputies in future could be told what the value of the lands was, that is, the valuation and, if possible, the price.

I asked the Minister last year to let us know what is the amount of land in the machine at the present time. He has not attempted to give any estimate of the pool of land which he thinks may be available for acquisition and all we can do is to ask him to be good enough to give us the figures for land which is, as the saying goes, "in the machine", and also, perhaps, if he would be kind enough to give us some information as to the acreage of land at present under consideration, that is, the total acreage of the different schemes which either have been lodged by the inspectors or are expected to be lodged.

The Minister told us last year, or the year before, that he expected that the intake of land would be maintained fairly steadily. I do not know whether he still adheres to that view, but I think that conditions generally are making the operations of the Land Commission more difficult and, were it not for the fact that it is of the greatest importance that the work in the congested areas should be continued and everything possible done to improve the situation of the people there, one might wonder whether the Land Commission could possibly continue its work satisfactorily.

I stated on the Vote for the Minister for Agriculture that, in my opinion, the trend of events, in spite of the boom that we have had in agriculture for some years past and which is now, perhaps, giving rise to another situation, has not benefited the small farmer to the same extent as the larger man. He has not the resources and he has not the means to take advantage of the opportunities as regards the provision of credit and the utilisation of machinery and so on. He is obviously in a very weak position. That is why I believe that, in addition to the work of the Land Commission, more should be done to create industries. I urge that if possible, while paying due regard to the social importance of the commission's work in the West of Ireland, more regard ought to be paid to the necessity for improving productive resources, or, as the economists put it, "productivity", either by reducing costs or increasing the output from the land which the Land Commission is dealing with or by getting both of these results together, if possible.

I suggest to the Minister that, perhaps, after getting a certain amount of experience in the Land Commission, the younger inspectors could be called together and asked for their opinions, asked to say frankly what they thought might be done to improve matters in the work that they have to perform, and invited to give whatever suggestions they may have to offer as to how better results could be obtained.

It would be a confession of failure to regard the money that the Land Commission is spending in the congested areas simply as being in the nature of a dole or in order to provide relief work or as something that simply has gone on and we do not quite know why it is being continued. The rearrangements and the housing schemes which the Land Commission have been carrying out, which in many cases show such excellent results, should be followed up.

In the Report for 1954, there is an appendix dealing with the question of migration and with the rearrangement of a townland in County Mayo. It reveals the great amount of work that is being done about which we hear very little. One might legitimately inquire under this heading, as under other headings in connection with the improvement of rural areas, whether or not more could be done to follow up the expenditure involved, in association with the Department of Agriculture, which, it might be claimed, has the primary responsibility, in order to help out the smallholders and to encourage them, by advice and propaganda. If the State can do more by the provision of credit and by getting the people to take advantage of the other available schemes, once the Land Commission has started them on the road, we will feel that we have provided our people in the West of Ireland not only with a place in which to reside but with a place in which they can attempt to make a livelihood with more success than has been possible in the past.

In that connection I should like to ask what is the position generally as regards turbary. Are there many schemes in operation of the type that we had during the war where the Land Commission gave the use of bogs to persons in need of fuel? Are there any of these still in operation or have they all been terminated? What is the position as regards turbary in the western areas? Is the Minister satisfied that everything possible is being done to provide turbary where bogs are available for Land Commission tenants?

The provision of turbary is one of the great works that the Land Commission has been able to achieve. It has been of inestimable benefit to the people. If their turf supply is not as near to them as one might wish, nevertheless, the fact that they have turbary is a tremendous security to them. When other people have to face increased coal prices and the difficulty of getting coal, they can feel safe and secure as far as turbary is concerned. They may thank the Land Commission in a very great degree for that happy occasion.

Last year the Minister told us, in reply to a Deputy who was rather doubtful about the work of the Land Commission, that good Deputies have lost their seats by endeavouring to speed up the Land Commission machine. I do not think I have heard of any but I need not prolong my speech by going into that matter. There are many Deputies from western constituencies who, no doubt, will again voice their opinions but it would be well if we had a general examination and review of the work of the Land Commission.

While due note must be taken of complaints and grievances in constituencies, we ought to try to see the work of the Land Commission as a whole and ask ourselves whether or not it could be improved, whether or not better results could be secured, and whether or not there is any more that it could do to encourage people to stay at home in their own country. The emigration figures are very alarming and they are only a continuation, an accentuation, of previous figures and in some degree the figures have become even worse.

I remember that before the war about one-third of the 15 to 19 age group emigrated within a decade. I am sure that that fraction has increased very greatly. I am sure that about one-half, if not more than one-half of the young people must be leaving many of these congested areas, particularly counties like Mayo. We are in duty bound to do everything we possibly can to make conditions more suitable for them and to enable them to get a living in their own country. Therefore, as far as possible, Deputies should offer constructive suggestions. If they display impatience with the speed of the Land Commission or dissatisfaction with its work, I do not think the Minister should just say that they want to "crab" the work or that they are not as interested in it as he or anybody else may be.

I feel that there is not proper integration of the work of the Land Commission and that of the Department of Agriculture at the present time. I have no desire to travel further afield in that connection now. I simply want to impress upon the Minister that I realise the social benefits which flow from the work of the Land Commission in improving in some degree the position of the congests. It would be of the greatest advantage and would make that improvement very fruitful if it were followed systematically by agricultural schemes, in which the inspectors of the Land Commission would help the tenants to take advantage of the present favourable situation. We do not know how long the promising situation may last; I hope it will continue indefinitely, but we ought to do more, if possible, and not confine ourselves strictly to the technical work of rearrangement and migration. We ought to try to do more through the outdoor staff to help the people in other ways and particularly to get the largest return they can from their holdings.

Mr. Palmer

The Minister stated that in the past year 102 migrants were brought from the West to places in the Midlands. He did not state exactly from what counties these migrants were brought and, according to the information at my disposal, I do not think any one of them came from the congested areas of South Kerry. In fact, none of those people in my constitutency who applied for an exchange of holding was transferred during the past three years, so far as I am aware. We have continually been receiving representations from such people to try to expedite the transfers.

Where transfers or exchanges were made, the lands thus vacated have been let for a number of years to local farmers. It may be all right to do that for a year or so, but when they have been let for quite a long time, not only the land itself but also the houses, and very good houses in many cases, are bound to deteriorate. Therefore I ask the Minister to examine such cases in the congested areas of South Kerry and to expedite the subdivision of the holdings which have been vacated.

I think that sometimes the subdivisions, in the case of holdings of that kind, are too small. I can quite understand that the inspectors try to satisfy the local people who have applied for a portion of the lands, but it is really bringing about a situation such as that which the Land Commission have been trying to improve for many years, namely, rundale or intermixed holdings. In my view, when such lands are being subdivided, it would be much better if some two or three of the local smallholders got a sufficient acreage to make their holdings economic.

I ask the Minister to look into the matter of supplying turbary to holders of land in the different areas. For instance, we have extensive areas of bog in South Kerry. The Land Commission have repeatedly been requested to take over some of those acres of bog for the purpose of giving a plot to each landholder, but they have been very slow in doing so. I must say that, on the whole, the Land Commission officials, both at the head office here in Dublin and the outdoor staff with whom we have to deal, have always been courteous, efficient and helpful and, so far as I know, they have tried to be perfectly fair in subdivision recommendations, and so forth.

When representations are made by Deputies or even by other people who may go into the Land Commission, a formal type of reply is sent out. Its terms are neither suitable nor very explanatory. If the Minister examines that little document that is sent out, I think he will agree that it certainly requires some improvement, so that it will indicate to Deputies and others who communicate with the Land Commission the object in relation to which they contacted that Department.

Mr. McQuillan

I notice that, so far, in the Estimates which have been discussed in this House, where the Estimate was considered to be of importance some leading Deputy on the Opposition Benches thought fit to move that it be referred back for the purpose of discussion. It is rather significant that the Estimate for the Department of Lands has received no such treatment. In my opinion, that would give the impression that there is as little real interest on the Opposition side of the House as there is on the Government side with regard to the major problem, namely, the solving of congestion. I think a neutral person would be entitled to suggest that the Opposition were more or less satisfied with the progress made by a Minister who was elected by his constituents from a congested area solely to solve the problem of congestion. I feel that, above all Estimates, there should have been moved a motion by the Opposition to refer back this Estimate.

Deputy Derrig pleaded with the Minister and said he should not be hard on those who criticised the Minister and his Department for, perhaps, slowness and lack of effort in solving major problems in connection with congestion, and so forth. He pleaded also that Deputies should offer constructive criticism and suggestions. That is a very reasonable approach, but we must take one factor into consideration: If you have an old ruin and you want to build a new structure, you must destroy the old ruin first. You must have destruction before you have constructive efforts afterwards.

If we are to have any real solution in our lifetime of the land problem, we must destroy this edifice that was built up over the years, this monument to inefficiency and sloth that can be described as the Department of Lands.

On a number of occasions here, I extracted information from this Minister and other Ministers with regard to the alleged work done by the Department of Lands in relation to the acquisition and distribution of lands throughout the country. I find one significant fact emerging from a welter of figures. If we take the period from 1930 to 1950, of the new holdings created by the Land Commission—holdings, mark you, that are supposed to be and that are described by the Land Commission as economic and on which a man can live and rear a family in reasonable economic circumstances—the average size is 21 statute acres.

It is significant that, in spite of repeated attempts, I could not extract from the Minister, or from his Department, what the average valuation of these holdings was. It is an admitted fact that to talk in terms of acres alone is not sufficient. You must have the valuation in order to have a true picture of what a particular holding means economically to a particular owner. I think it was Deputy Derrig who, in the course of his remarks, pleaded with the Minister that he should make available figures with regard to the valuation of land that has been distributed, but the most I could extract was that the average holding of land divided over the years was 21 statute acres. I do not know what the average valuation for such a holding is, but I do suggest that, taking it on an allocated basis, 21 statute acres are not a sufficient holding for a man to live on, unless it is situated in close proximity to a town where the holder is in a position to engage in market gardening and so forth.

I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that, while this State body has been charged with the solution of congestion, they have helped, in no small way, to recreate congestion themselves by the system they have adopted and the size of the holdings they have issued to congests and to uneconomic holders. I do not hold myself out as an expert on what the size of a holding should be in any land redistribution scheme. That is a matter that can be thrashed out and a decision arrived at according to the locality, the circumstances and the type of land involved.

I am going to speak a short time on this Estimate, because I find it is a waste of time repeating what I have had to say here year after year. I am convinced that if anything is to be done in connection with this major problem, it is not inside this House it will be done. We find that the main charge on the Department of Lands is the setting up of as many economic holdings as possible, thereby solving congestion. I should imagine that any State body charged with the solution of congestion would, first of all, try to establish how much land should be taken into a pool for that purpose over a number of years. We must take into consideration that the problem of solving congestion was not meant to be a permanent job for the Land Commission. It was intended, I hope, that a plan would be prepared and that a solution, if such was to be found, would be found in a period of five, ten or 15 years.

In the planning of that solution, the Land Commission would be charged with ensuring that sufficient land came into the pool to enable the commission to create, each year, a specific number of new holdings. Now we find that the cry, each year, is that the pool of land is drying up and that land for the relief of congestion is no longer available. That shows the red light to thousands of uneconomic holders up and down the State and it amounts to saying to them: "There is little hope for you; only one out of 100 of you can hope to be fixed up". If that picture were true, I am sure that these people living in uneconomic holdings in the congested areas would appreciate the fact. However, they know perfectly well that sufficient land is available, and they are not prepared to accept the statement issued by this Minister, or by his predecessor, that the pool of land is drying up.

People in rural areas have only to look around in their own parishes and they can make up their minds as to the circumstances that exist in their own localities. If they find that land is available for the solving of congestion within five or seven miles of the congested districts and if, at the same time, they hear a Minister saying that the pool is drying up, they will lose faith in such a Minister.

I want to give a specific instance to the Minister. In the last week, I drew his attention to a situation in my own constituency. A holding of land was bought on the public market. That holding of land was purchased by a farmer who has 300 acres of land within four miles of this holding. I have nothing to say against the man. He is a decent, respectable man and a good farmer, but apparently he has been seized with the land hunger. Although he has 300 acres of his own, he feels that he is entitled to expand more and more. He has purchased this holding within four miles of his home and I know perfectly well that, within the next 12 months, he is going to purchase another holding alongside that.

Have we any idea of what ceiling must be imposed on the amount of land to be held by any individual while congestion exists in the State? If we allow a man with 300 acres, no matter who he is, to purchase land ad lib. are we not taking away land from the pool that should be available for the relief of congestion? This Minister for Lands will come back and tell me that he stands four-square behind Michael Davitt, that he believes in fair rent, fixity of tenure and free sale. I do not know what Michael Davitt would say were he alive to see the way things are being misrepresented here in the House. I do not think Davitt ever envisaged the day when his aims would be twisted and his ideals turned and shaped to suit the political views, the political expediency, shown by men in responsible positions at the moment.

I do not think Michael Davitt's idea was that small farmers in congested areas in Mayo, Roscommon, Galway and elsewhere should have their holdings purchased by Irish landlords, replacing the landlords driven out through the activities of Michael Davitt. If we are to allow a man to purchase land ad lib. we might as well forget all about solving congestion. This will become a very serious problem in the next few years; it will be a very thorny problem for some Government. If a man can have 300 acres in one parish, if he is allowed to buy 50 acres in the parish beside it and then to buy 50 acres in the next townland and so forth, is it not as simple a proposition to let him buy the whole county and have the rest of the people as tenants?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister has no responsibility in the matter.

Mr. McQuillan

I do not know what he is doing here, then. I see that happening at the moment and the Minister knows very well it is happening. If he takes up the Mayo papers or any of the western papers such as the Connacht Tribune, he will see reported there the decisions of the land courts. They hear appeals against the Land Commission's acquisition activities. In nine out of ten cases, the people who appeal win their cases; the Land Commission are beaten. Very often, the case is made to the land courts that there is no congestion in the immediate locality. In other words, a man who is not working a farm of 80 or 90 acres and who puts up a plea that he will work it next year or the following year will be successful if he also pleads that there are no congests around the place.

There may not be congestion in the immediate vicinity of the farm, but there may be congestion within ten miles of it. We have lost the real outlook regarding the relief of congestion if we pass over cases on the principle that the congestion to be solved must be in the immediate vicinity of the farms available for acquisition. The question of congestion is one that exists all over the West and, just because regulations are made by the Department of Lands that, where a farm becomes available, priority must be given to people living within one mile of the farm, the excuse is given to the land courts that there is no congestion in the locality. I think the land courts are not doing their duty, apart altogether from what the Land Commission are doing.

We hear a lot of talk about the congested areas and of pleas made to the Minister to keep on with the good work. The Minister need not bother keeping on with the good work, because, if things are left as they are, the problem will solve itself through the trainloads of people leaving Claremorris, Ballyhaunis, Castlerea, Galway and elsewhere. It will probably end up with one T.D. west of the River Shannon in charge of a prairie.

We have seen very efficient Land Commission inspectors functioning in the congested areas in all western counties. These inspectors have to go around and they find, let us say, Michael Murphy in the townland of Cloonkea with a farm, the valuation of which is £4. He finds he cannot make ends meet and he gets on the train for Manchester. He is no sooner there than his neighbours start up a howl to have his land divided. I do not blame them. That is human nature. They say: "This fellow has gone to England; why not divide his land?" The inspectors spend months buzzing round the area. Maybe after two or three years, if Michael Murphy stays away that length of time, they decide they will take over the little holding. They will then hold on to it and set it for the next five years, their excuse being they are waiting for another farm to become available in the area, so that, in the next few years, they may have nine or ten to divide.

While all that is going on, and while the inspectors' time is taken up, across the Shannon in Westmeath, Kildare and Tipperary, there are vast tracts of land that could be acquired. How many miles can one travel in Westmeath or Meath without finding the tracks of an inspector's feet on any farm? If we are serious about the problem of getting land to relieve congestion, the area in which to look for it is not among the small congests but outside in the vast tracts of land to which our surplus population could be transferred. I do not know how many inspectors there are in County Mayo.

Mr. Moylan

They must be all there.

Mr. McQuillan

I know there are a good many in Galway and Roscommon. I wonder how did they propose to get land over there. When a sincere inspector recommends the acquisition of land in these congested areas, the acquisition order is appealed against and, when they go to the Land Courts, the appeals are upheld and the people in the localities are left in despair for another four or five years. While all this is going on, the Minister tells us about the number of holdings he is vesting each year, as if the major work of the Land Commission were the vesting of holdings.

The vesting of holdings is not half as important as the redistribution of land. As far as I am concerned, there has been no land distribution policy under the present Government. Neither did the last Government have one. The nearest approach to a land distribution policy was between 1935 and 1938. Perhaps, through overenthusiasm in those years, mistakes were made. I do not think that should be taken into consideration now, because the fact that mistakes were made shows there was sincerity. I do not think the fact that mistakes were made should now be an excuse for a halt.

It is undeniable that people got land at that time, people who should never have got land. But that is no reason now for slowing up the process of redistribution. I criticised the former Fianna Fáil Government, perhaps at a time when I was relatively inexperienced, because the general impression given to me, as a young lad, was that if one wanted land one would have to apply to the local political club. As far as the Land Commission officials are concerned, they are far more interested in leaving no openings for rows in an area and in getting the most suitable people to whom to give the land rather than allowing themselves to be subjected to political pressure. I have met these officials and I speak from personal experience of them since I came into public life.

I am not ashamed or afraid to admit that I did say a lot of harsh things at times about land distribution. I do not think now that the people at the top were concerned. I believe it was the local clubs, the small-time politician, the club secretary and so forth who were primarily concerned—the people who, through human weakness, tried to make a certain amount of capital out of the fact that people got land. The club secretary gained political credit for his Party by getting a letter from the T.D. for the county in which the particular Minister stated: "Your representations on behalf of this man will be sympathetically considered." That is the way it was done.

Mr. Moylan

Cynicism.

Mr. McQuillan

As Deputy Moylan says, cynicism. The individuals concerned were very innocent and they believed that these representations were the be-all and the end-all, so far as the obtaining of land was concerned. But I do not believe these representations were the be-all and the end-all. I believe that in most cases the inspectors went very thoroughly into all the circumstances and into the question as to whether or not the particular individual involved would be a good farmer and took into consideration, too, the size of his holding, and so forth.

Now, the Leas-Cheaan Comhairle pulled me up a few moments ago and more or less suggested that the matters I was raising were not the responsibility of the Minister and the Minister, therefore, had no responsibility in relation to them. That may be, but the extraordinary situation exists that people believe, when a man is Minister for Lands, that he is responsible for the acquisition of land and for the solving of congestion. I do not for a moment suggest that such a Minister should be in a position in which he could turn around and say: "This land should be acquired" or "That man's holding should be acquired". But the Minister for Lands, on the advice of the Cabinet, should be in a position to say to the commissioners: "Gentlemen, I want 10,000 acres of land in the pool in the next six months. Get it". That would only be Government policy and, so far as Government policy is concerned, the Minister for Lands should have responsibility.

But there is no Government policy and I do not believe that such an issue ever came before a Cabinet or that the question ever arose as to whether the Land Commission should be told: "Get rid of congestion within the next ten years". Indeed, I do not believe that was ever even discussed. I do not believe that the majority of the members of the Cabinet know the first thing about congestion. There is no blame to them for that but it does reflect gravely on the man who is charged with responsibility for relieving congestion, namely, Deputy Blowick, the present Minister for Lands, who comes from a congested area and the members of whose Party came in here because the people in the West were dissatisfied with the progress made by Fianna Fáil towards relieving congestion. Whatever we can say about what Fianna Fáil did, we can say that the Clann na Talmhan Party, with their own Minister, have done far less.

I said, earlier on, that the solution to this problem will not be found inside this House. It will come from outside. When it comes I hope it will be the right solution and I hope there will not be an even bigger mess made than in the past. That is always the danger where there is no proper co-ordination, no proper leadership and no proper planning. I think Deputy Derring put his finger on the solution so far as future planning is concerned: there must in future be a very close dovetailing of the work of the Department of Lands and the work of the Department of Agriculture.

Let us send people to Sweden and Italy, and other countries, to see how the people there have dealt with land distribution. In these countries land and agriculture go hand in hand. It is not a question of a State Department handing over a holding at the end of a bad road, with a shaky house built on it, a churn and a plough, and the occupant told: "You fare for yourself from now on." That is not the solution to congestion and that is not the way in which to put this country on the high road to prosperity so far as agriculture is concerned. The men to whom these holdings are given must be catered for all along the line until they have gained confidence in their new surroundings and until they are in a position to utilise and exploit the land to the full. They must be given every possible help with regard to machinery and fertilisers to help them over the first five years at least. It is in that direction we lack co-ordination at the moment between the Department of Lands and the Department of Agriculture. Once the allottee signs on the dotted line, the Land Commission get out like scalded cats and leave it to some other Department to take responsibility from there on. We have had experience of that everywhere the Land Commission works. It is, of course, at times very hard to get proof.

Before I conclude, though I did not intend to dwell at any length on matters affecting my own constituency, I wish to raise one matter of some importance. I am sorry—I do not say this in any spirit of criticism—that the Minister is not present to hear me on this. The Ceann Comhairle pointed out, and rightly so, that the Minister has no function in relation to what land will be acquired. It is very nice for the Minister to be able to shelter under the wing of the commissioners and to point out that he has no responsibility in these matters. But, if he has no responsibility in these matters, it is extraordinary how much responsibility he can take upon himself when it comes to the making of appointments. I want to make it quite clear here that I do not want to see any Minister appointing pets of his own, or any other political Party, to responsible positions.

I hope that the Minister when he is replying will take time off to clarify for me a particular incident which has occurred in Roscommon. Quite recently a man who was a stock master, or stock manager, in County Roscommon fell ill. He is a very decent man. I do not know whether or not some people were hoping he would die, but he recovered. Prior to his full recovery the good news went the rounds that the Minister for Lands had appointed a successor. Now if anything was calculated to finish that man's improvement and to hand him over to Davy Jones it was the fact that he was replaced before he was fully recovered. I understand that the Minister decided he would replace this stock manager by a gentleman who was recommended to him by a political supporter of his own. That was the greatest recommendation he could have—that he was recommended by a political friend of the Minister's.

I know that a number of people became interested in this appointment, and I believe that a certain amount of pressure was exercised on the Minister not to confirm this new appointment. I want to make it quite clear to him that, before he makes any appointment of this nature, he should have the decency to set up an interview board, advertise the job and let the best man get it. The particular appointment in question was, I believe, worth over the years approximately £700 to £800 in commission. If we find that the people in rural Ireland have the impression that ability does not count and that all that counts for a job like this is how well in you are with the Minister for Lands, I think that is a very bad day's work for all those unfortunate enough to be associated with political life.

Perhaps some Deputies may have the outlook that whatever Party is in power is entitled to all the plums. If that is the mentality, why does it not apply to the Civil Service? Let it apply all round; let it be one or the other. We have an established Civil Service— at times we might suggest it is overcrowded and that a lot of pruning could be done with it—but it can be said that that body is non-political. But if we find that, in an important matter like the division of land, appointments are to be made purely on the basis of Party politics, I think it is a most dangerous precedent. Whenever a man has anything to do with land he must be completely over and above Party politics and must not be tinged with them one way or the other. I want the Minister to inform us that as far as this appointment in Roscommon is concerned——

Mr. Blowick

What appointment is the Deputy talking about?

Mr. McQuillan

Stock manager.

Mr. Blowick

Where is it?

Mr. McQuillan

Roscommon.

Mr. Blowick

I do not know what the Deputy is talking about.

Mr. McQuillan

The Minister is a very innocent man. The Minister is quite well acquainted with the facts that I have outlined. I want to make it quite clear to the Minister that it will not be worth his seat in the Cabinet if he insists on appointing a successor to the present holder of the office of stock manager and if he makes that appointment on political grounds. If the Minister wants to make an appointment, let him make it the decent way, set up a board, have all the applications examined by responsible officers and let the best man be appointed.

Mr. Blowick

Might the Deputy not have the decency to let the present holder of the office run his natural course?

Mr. Beirne

Might the Minister not have the decency to let him do it?

Mr. Blowick

It might surprise both Deputies to know that I have given the man two exensions. I gave him one last August and another early this year.

Mr. McQuillan

What I want to get here from the Minister is this. While this man was ill, a number of "carrion crows" were hanging around the vicinity waiting for his removal. Some of them said that this man would not be fit to come back. The Minister cannot deny that within the last two months he made a specific promise to appoint another gentleman instead of the present holder but that, as a result of pressure brought to bear on the Minister, he gave a further extension to the present holder. Will the Minister deny that? That is what I want to get clear?

I do not care who gets the appointment ultimately as long as he gets it on merit and it is not a question of some Deputy, county councillor or Senator walking into the Minister and saying: "I want you to appoint this pal of mine as stock manager." I want to see that cut out. That is no way to make an appointment in respect of a man who will have to deal with the county at large and be responsible for the administration of land and the utilisation of land on behalf of the Land Commission. When the Minister is replying, I want him to assure the House that, as far as the present holder of the office is concerned, there will be no suggestion of his removal and there will be no suggestion of a man replacing him.

Mr. Blowick

The Deputy is the first person I have heard to suggest his removal. If the Deputy is not satisfied with the man, I am.

Mr. McQuillan

The Minister is the greatest bluffer I ever met in my life.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy should not use that expression in reference to the Minister. The word "bluffer" should be withdrawn.

Mr. McQuillan

I withdraw it.

Mr. Blowick

If I were dissatisfied with the man, I had plenty of opportunity to let him retire instead of giving him extensions.

Mr. McQuillan

Then why did the Minister promise to replace him within the last few weeks?

Mr. Blowick

I will replace him with whom I like when I like. I will keep him as long as he is useful to the Land Commission. If the Deputy wants trouble on that score, he will get plenty of it.

Mr. McQuillan

I am afraid it is the Minister who is in trouble.

Mr. Blowick

Not in the least bit. I am perfectly satisfied with the man. If I were not satisfied with him, he could have gone last August or he could have gone last January. I extended his term and I will extend it again when the time comes if it suits me—just if it suits me and no more.

Mr. McQuillan

The Minister has stated, and I am glad he has put it on the record of the House, that he will replace this man with whom he thinks he should. In other words, that he will take any decision he likes and that he will put whom he likes into the job. Is that what the Minister means to convey by that?

Mr. Blowick

What does the Deputy want?

Mr. McQuillan

"I will appoint whom I like." Is not that what the Minister has said? Does the Minister stand over that—that he will appoint whom he likes? Is that the way appointments are made now in the State —that the Minister will appoint whom he likes because he likes the colour of his hair or because he likes the particular individual who recommends this fellow to him?

Mr. Blowick

The Deputy never worried about making such appointments.

Mr. McQuillan

Leave the Deputy out of it. I make no recommendation about these things at all.

Mr. Blowick

I do not think the Deputy will be ever here to make them.

Mr. McQuillan

I will try and help the Minister in every way I can to ensure he solves congestion, but I am afraid he is suffering from another kind of congestion.

Mr. Blowick

I will not solve it in the way the Deputy would like but which he is afraid to say here in the House.

Mr. McQuillan

The Minister has suggested I want this man removed. That is what he sought to convey.

Mr. Blowick

The Deputy was the first to mention the removal of that man.

Mr. McQuillan

Is it not a fact that the Minister had a man appointed within the last six weeks but that pressure was brought to bear on the Minister and he went back on it? I want to make sure that there will be no need for more pressure to be brought on the Minister to make appointments and promises and then decide, because pressure was brought to bear on him, that he would extend the period of the present holder for a further period. As far as I am personally concerned, the present holder is quite suitable. He is a man with vast experience of the work.

Mr. Blowick

I am glad we are of the one mind about him. I must have misunderstood the Deputy.

Mr. McQuillan

And I have no doubt that the Minister's own Department and his own officials have so informed him. I hope the information he has received from his own Department will carry weight with the Minister and that he will not be misled or persuaded by political supporters to supplant this man and appoint someone else who is a political pet. I want to make it quite clear to the Minister that, when the time comes for the present holder to retire, the appointment should be made, not on a political basis but on the basis that the most deserving and the most suitable man gets the job, and certainly not on the basis on which the Minister has put it to me five minutes ago: "I will appoint whom I like to the job." I want the Minister to get away from that approach.

Mr. Blowick

Perhaps I will say: "I will appoint nobody. I will allow the position to lapse, if I like."

Mr. McQuillan

That may happen. It is quite possible that as time goes on there may not be a great deal of work in this constituency for such an officer to do; but where the Minister does decide to make the appointment, let him make it on merit and not on political recommendations alone. I suppose I can be described and will be described by the Minister as being destructive in my criticism of the activities of himself and his Department.

I should now like to suggest to the Minister that he should read very carefully the report of the Commission on Emigration, that he should read the findings of the majority group and one or two of the minority reports in connection with the utilisation of land. It is high time the Minister and the Government blew some of the dust off this report, took it out of the pigeonholes and studied it carefully, because it has quite an amount of useful material and suggestions that may be put into operation, if the Government and the Minister are serious about facing the major problems that arise from that.

The Minister here not alone to-day but on other occasions has more or less taken the line that I have some sinister views with regard to how the land should be used in this country. The Minister is a great man at the half truth; he is a great man, when he leaves this House, for describing Deputies as being extremists or being dangerous or completely irresponsible characters. I want the Minister to be quite clear on my views in regard to land. I put them on the records of the House, and when he goes down to Knock—I believe he is a great frequenter of Knock—and elsewhere, he can make what he likes out of them.

Number one, there must be a maximum put on the amount of land held by any individual in this country. If I am asked for my personal opinion I will say that no man at the present time should be allowed to hold land of a greater valuation than £120 or of a greater amount than 300 acres. On that basis, it will not be long until you have a pool of land that will enable the Land Commission to create at least 25,000 new holdings of a minimum extent of 35 acres, with a valuation of over £20. It will be suggested that that viewpoint is too extreme. Perhaps it is for many Deputies here, but I think that 300 acres of land or the valuation I have suggested represent a reasonable amount of land for any man to hold, especially while you have 19,000 to 20,000 congested holders in the State. We must always bear in mind that the primary function of the Land Commission is the removal of congestion.

Mr. Blowick

I hope the Deputy realises now what he has said.

Mr. McQuillan

I said that I want to give the Minister something to talk about when he leaves here.

Mr. Blowick

I take it the Deputy is advocating that the Land Commission should not take up any farm under 300 acres or under £120 valuation? If I have taken the Deputy up wrongly, I will apologise to him, but I think that is what he is suggesting.

Mr. McQuillan

I think I will have to take the Minister down to the Party Room, get a cane and give him a whack each time I mention a figure.

Mr. Blowick

I am afraid it would be returned with compound interest.

Mr. McQuillan

I do not think so. Let me put it this way to the Minister. The Land Commission is charged with the solution of the problem of congestion. If that problem is to be solved, there must be a pool of land made available. I am trying to help the Minister by putting my viewpoint forward as to how that pool of land should be created. Apart altogether from the holdings which are under £120 valuation and which are not being worked, I maintain that no man should be allowed to hold land over £120 valuation or more than 300 acres, that all land surplus to these figures in the possession of a man should be acquired, either compulsorily or through a system of taxation; in other words by doubling the valuation of land over those figures. You could then bring that land into a pool that could be utilised for the relief of congestion.

I cannot think how the Minister can be so dense as to say that I have suggested that a man with £120 valuation or less, or 300 acres or less, should not be touched. I have made no such suggestion whatever. But if we are to solve the problem, we must put a limit on the amount of land a man may hold. I gave an example—I do not know whether the Minister was in the House or not—of one farmer in my constituency with 300 acres who, if he is allowed to keep on purchasing, is taking land that should be coming into the pool for the relief of congestion, and the Land Commission, with the machinery at their disposal, find he is a good farmer and there is nothing to prevent him purchasing more land. He can keep on purchasing; he can go down to Kildare and purchase another farm. We have a case in Westmeath of one man with seven chain farms. Why should we allow one man to have seven chain farms while, down in the West of Ireland, we have perhaps 50 people living in rural slums on holdings with an average poor law valuation of £4?

Is it not the duty of the Land Commission to say: "We will leave this man one good farm and take the other six and utilise those farms by bringing up congests from the West of Ireland"? What is wrong with that? That gentleman may be hurt. He may squeal to some political Party. I do not know what Party it is. The trouble is that these types of individuals who own the good land seem to have the greatest political power. They are better organised, and have the ear of the powers that be.

This country is described as a nation of smallholders. Just let us see how the land itself works out amongst the smallholders. You have 11,600 holdings in Ireland with a poor law valuation of over £2,000,000. You have 280,000 holdings in Ireland with a total poor law valuation of less than £2,000,000. Bring that down further. These 11,600 holdings represent 3 per cent. of the holdings of Ireland. Three per cent. of the landholders of Ireland have a land valuation of over £2,000,000, while 280,000 landholders, or 70 per cent., have a poor law valuation of less than £2,000,000.

The finest of land is concentrated in the hands of a limited few; the majority of the holdings are small and are on the poorest type of land. Is the land fairly distributed in these circumstances? I have not gone, deliberately, to mix up the situation by going into the figures with regard to acreage. I have adhered as much as possible to valuation, because it is valuation that counts. We know perfectly well that a farm of then acres in Westmeath is a far better proposition than ten acres stuck down in Connemara; yet we will find that for every one who has good land in Westmeath there are 20 trying to make a living west of the Shannon on the poor land.

The argument all through is that there is no return from agriculture. We are told by Deputy Derrig and others here that the small men are not in a position to utilise the machinery available now. There is more machinery utilised by the small farmers than by the big farmers. There are more tractors purchased by the small men than by the big to-day. That cannot be denied. The bigger they are, the less they are inclined to do, the less need there is for them to do, while the small man is put to the pin of his collar to keep his family and himself in some reasonable comfort.

We are not looking to see re-established here another nation of landlords with a group of tenants paid a weekly wage. We want to see as many economic holders as possible set up where they can make a reasonable living. It is a far better and more Christian proposition to have the broad acres of the Midlands divided up into 40- and 50-acre holdings that will give a living to a man, his wife and his family, who in turn will produce the utmost out of that farm, than to have 300 or 500 acres of that land in the hands of one individual, who will wear jodhpurs and be seen entertaining guests in Mullingar or some leading hotel here in Dublin. That is the position that exists at the present moment. If you go down to some hotels in the Midlands it is hard to know what nationality some of these gentlemen are. They own the finest land around the Midlands, and all they are concerned with is getting enough to keep themselves and their doubtful type of friends in luxury either in Dublin or in London, while the people from the localities have to stream to London and elsewhere, and people like myself and Deputies in this House will be pestered by protection associations in Manchester and Liverpool and London to send subscriptions to keep those people together, herd them together in their jobs and in their pastimes beyond in England.

This is the very tragic situation that we have allowed to go on so long. On a number of occasions here before I raised the question of the purchase of lands in Tipperary and Limerick and parts of the Midlands by aliens. I am not going to elaborate on it, because I found that the majority of the men in this House were unsympathetic to the views I expressed, although the views I expressed are the views of the majority of the people, the smallholders, outside this House. If many Deputies had their ear a lot closer to the ground as to the real ideals and feelings of the people they would force changes in the Department of Lands, no matter what Government was in power.

I and the congests in Mayo, Roscommon and Galway would have more confidence in this Minister if he would put a team of inspectors into the Midlands and in portions of Tipperary to examine particularly the way in which large farms are being run, or neglected, and issue acquisition notices by the score to these gentlemen that he was going to resume the lands. If I saw that happening I would believe that the Minister was sincere, but, instead of that, the Minister comes into this House and shelters these people, these brigadiers, retired colonels of the Indian Army, and war profiteers who came back from London to escape just taxation by the British Government. He stands here as the man who protects their interests. He stands condemned in the eyes of the congests in the West of Ireland as the man who is acting as protector of the racketeer, the British colonel, the retired Indian Army major and all the other riff-raff that have come over to this country in the last 15 years and purchased the finest land in the country.

Mr. Blowick

Can the Deputy give me any case in Roscommon?

Mr. McQuillan

I have mentioned the Midlands.

Mr. Blowick

Well, what about Roscommon?

Mr. McQuillan

I said that the Minister is the protector of these people.

Mr. Blowick

That is just another of the Deputy's wild misstatements.

Mr. McQuillan

When I say "protector" I mean it in this regard——

Mr. Blowick

You have said "protector". Do not try to water it down now.

Mr. McQuillan

I am not trying to water it down.

Mr. Moylan

Pickwickian.

Mr. Blowick

Even worse than Pickwickian. More ludicrous.

Mr. McQuillan

I am explaining.

Mr. Blowick

Deputy McQuillan is constantly telling us about what is happening to all the fine lands in other constituencies, but no Deputy from those constituencies ever seems to know anything about them. Let him tell us something of what is happening in his own constituency, and give us an instance.

Mr. McQuillan

I am going to tell the Minister how he has acted as protector of these gentlemen. The Minister comes in here and tells me and other Deputies that the hard pool of land is drying up, that land for the relief of congestion is not available. The man who makes that statement as Minister for Lands is betraying the congests of Ireland when he knows the position in the Midlands. That is how the Minister acts as protector of these gentlemen who come in. That is how the Minister is betraying——

Mr. Blowick

I think the Deputy when he suggests that the Land Commission should not take up any farm under £100 valuation is the betrayer. In that way, he puts it straight into the mouth of the Land Commission not to take a farm under that size.

Mr. Moylan

May the Lord protect us and give us a chance to hear Deputy McQuillan.

Mr. McQuillan

I do not know what we can do with the Minister.

Mr. Blowick

I can tell the Deputy I have great sympathy with him in regard to the problems in front of him.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order!

Mr. McQuillan

I am beginning to appreciate the problems that the Land Commission must have with this Minister in charge. I wonder does he yet know the difference between the door into the Forestry Department and the door into the Land Commission or does he still have to be led round by the nose to show him the different sections of his Department? I want the Minister not to try to misrepresent me here. I made a case here with regard to the ceiling, or the amount of land which any man should own, and I do not believe that any man should be allowed to own more than 300 acres of land, because it will not——

Mr. Blowick

No, it is the manner in which the Deputy is trying to undermine the work of the Land Commission.

Mr. McQuillan

I am trying to make the pool of land bigger for the Land Commission.

Mr. Blowick

No, you are not.

Mr. McQuillan

I think perhaps I should wait for the next debate and talk about the amount of forestry that is in the Minister's head.

Mr. Blowick

The upbringing I got places me at a great disadvantage compared with the upbringing the Deputy got.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Personalities should be left out of the debate.

Mr. McQuillan

I do not know exactly what the Minister means. I just do not follow him. All I want the Minister to do is to give congests of Mayo, Roscommon and elsewhere some sign or some hope that in the next 12 months he will make available a pool of land in the Midlands that can be used for redistribution purposes so that he will be able to come to this House in 12 months' time and tell us that it is not 80 new holdings that have been created or 80 new migrants that have gone to the Midlands, but that he will have plans prepared for a minimum of at least 1,000 per year.

We find the daily papers at the present moment publishing photographs and accounts of the send-offs and good-byes of families leaving the West of Ireland and moving off into the wilderness of the Midlands. One would think by the publicity given that the whole West of Ireland was moving in caravans across the Shannon to take over the Midlands, but we find in the whole 12 months that between 80 and 100 is the maximum number of new holdings created in the Midlands for migrants. For how many years does the Minister expect this is going to carry on? Could it be that the reason I gave here last year is the real reason —that this problem is not being solved because finance is the big snag and the money will not be made available to the Minister? Could it be that the Minister, big and all as he may be, is only a small boy when he sits in at the Cabinet meeting and is told to keep his mouth shut and asked how dare he look for money?

I am afraid that is what is happening. I am afraid that, as far as the Minister is concerned, he may bluff the people of Ballyhaunis, Westport and elsewhere, that he has a big "say," and he may bluff his supporters in Roscommon that he has a big "say", because he is able to appoint a stock manager, but, when it comes down to "divvying" out with regard to the amount of money made available for the relief of congestion and for the creation of new holdings in the Midlands, we find that the Minister is not in a position to force his views or even to get a hearing for his views within the Cabinet. By criticism here—not of the Minister personally—by the strongest possible criticism they can level at him, Deputies of all Parties will be helping the Minister because he can then go back to the Cabinet and say: "It will not be possible for me to face Leinster House again after the abuse I got last year. I want more money and I insist on getting it. I am not going to be the small boy in this Cabinet any longer."

If the Minister takes to heart the criticism that is levelled at him here, he will realise that it is levelled for the sole purpose of trying to rid the country of that terrible evil of congestion in our time, that is in the next five or six years. There is no Minister who has a better opportunity of helping to turn the tide with regard to the great drain there is on this country at the moment through emigration; no Minister has it more in his power to redress that than the Minister for Lands. The Minister and his officials are well aware of the fact that there are thousands and thousands of applications—some of them for years— in the office of the Department of Lands from first-class men seeking holdings of land of £5 or £7 or £8 valuation who are being put off year after year because the land is not available and who, in the end, are forced to close their doors, take their families with them, and move out to work in England because they are completely dispirited at the lack of progress towards solving their problems.

Even at this late stage, if the Minister can get a decision from the Cabinet that would allow him to send a field of inspectors—as we will describe them, although that may sound very sinister to the Minister and to the Minister for Agriculture—down to the Midlands, to parts of Tipperary, to examine the lands that he there to hand, to issue acquisition notices, and over the next three or four years have those lands ready for redistribution then he will occupy a place in the history of land division in this country practically as high as Michael Davitt. I know that the minute he attempts to embark on this programme in the Midlands he will be bringing down upon himself the greatest criticism, and the greatest pressure will be brought to bear on him to prevent such a scheme being carried out. When that pressure is brought to bear, it will take a very strong Minister for Lands to stand up to it because I have no doubt that, apart from anything else, the age-old question of morals will be brought into it; the Minister will be described as having the two horns and the cloven hoof and will probably be identified in some close manner with the late Joe Stalin. I have no doubt, however, that he will live longer in history and that there will be a more generous appreciation of his work than of that of the dictator who has recently passed away.

The Minister would really need to be a dictator within his Department; he would need to make it quite clear that the fundamental thing he is after is land, and that he is going to get that land at all costs. There are two things involved: one is the extra number of families that can make a living in Ireland and the second is that, by the fact of establishing these families on the land, output will be increased and agricultural expansion will take place. If that takes place, we shall have solved the greatest problem facing any Government anywhere within the next generation.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Beegan.

Mr. James Tully

On a point of order. Is it not rather unusual to wait 20 seconds, while one Deputy is standing up, to call another?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It is not unusual for the Chair to go from one side of the House to the other. It has been the established practice here. As no member of this Party was called for some time, I felt one should be called now.

Mr. James Tully

I accept the Chair's ruling, as I must, but nobody offered.

Mr. Blaney

Did the Deputy offer himself?

Mr. James Tully

He did.

Mr. Blaney

But he did not look like it.

Mr. James Tully

Did the Deputy wake up?

Mr. Beegan

The last speaker mentioned at the outset of his speech that he was surprised the Opposition did not put down a motion on this Estimate to have it referred back. Such a motion was put down from time to time over a number of years, but, as the Land Commission appears to be following such a slow-motion pattern and indulging in goose-stepping, I do not think anybody felt it would serve any very useful purpose at this stage to have the Estimate referred back. The most we can do now is, if possible, to make suggestions and ask for information.

A great deal was said by the previous speaker regarding the amount of congestion and the slowness of the Land Commission in dealing with it. I presume the Land Commission know the number of congests in the country and that the Minister would be able to give a table outlining the number of people having valuations ranging from £1 to £5, £5 to £10, £10 to £15 and from £15 to £20. I expect the Minister has that information at his disposal and it might be well if he had it inserted in the Official Report, if that were possible or permissible.

I should also like to find out whether any survey has been made in recent years of the pool of land actually available for distribution. Some people allege that we have as much land in the country at the moment available for land division as would create 25,000 holdings without much difficulty. I do not know whether that is true or not, but, if a survey were made and a report furnished to the Minister, he would be in a position to come into this House and tell us, county by county in the Twenty-Six Counties, the approximate figure in regard to the land available for acquisition and division among the congests. It was the primary aim of the Congested Districts Board, when the Estates Commissioners were set up, to relieve congestion.

In recent times, and for a good many years, land division has not been carried on with the same speed as it was 18 or 20 years ago and previous to that time. We know that during the emergency period it was difficult, if not impossible, for the Land Commission to take over land and have it divided, but a considerable amount of land was divided in the years before the emergency and all the way back to the passage of the Land Act in 1903.

Many of us would have thought that it would not take over 50 years to take over the land and have it divided. We have come to realise that the people who possess land have their rights and that they, too, can go to a court and put their case as to the amount of land they are entitled to retain and that they have equal rights with the Land Commission in that respect, but, definitely, I find that for the past few years estates are being kept on hands for a very long time and why they are kept on hands for such a long time is very difficult to understand.

I could mention a number of estates in my own constituency of South Galway, some of which were taken over away back in 1947 and which are still held on reserve and let on conacre every year. It is very difficult to understand why it is that the Land Commission have not, after a period of some five to eight years in possession of the land, passed it to the division scheme and allocated it.

There is one thing I think the Land Commission should do when they take over an estate. They should first investigate the problem of local congestion within the mile distance. I do not think it would be a very difficult problem to give extensions of land to the local congests within the mile distance from the estate and hold on reserve whatever amount is not required until there was time enough to prepare a suitable scheme for the migrants it is proposed to take in. That is one of the things the Land Commission could do and I would suggest to the Minister and his Department that the local congests' problem in all cases should be first dealt with, where it is not possible to deal with the whole estate.

This whole question of the acquisition and division of land is a matter for the Land Commission. I think that is right and proper, too. I do not believe that the authority for either the acquisition or division of land should rest in the hands of any Minister for Lands. Indeed, I would not envy the Minister if he were vested with that authority, because I know very well he would not get much time to rest or sleep. It is a difficult problem enough, and the Land Commission have some difficulty, I believe, in coming to a decision as to whether or not they should acquire a particular area of land.

I have great sympathy for congests, but at the same time I have often found that, where people were migrated many years ago to very good holdings of land, they have somehow or other acquired the rancher mentality, just as much as the person from whom the land was taken. In consequence of that, I think the Land Commission in selecting allottees should not all the time adhere to the congests' valuation limit. I would not expect they would go very far outside it or anything of that kind, but they should not be guided by that alone. They should be guided by how the person to whom they are considering allotting the land has worked his own smallholding. If that smallholding has not been worked in the proper manner—I maintain that the proper manner is to have a fairly big percentage of tillage as well as grazing—if the holder is merely a miniature grazier, he should not be considered by the Land Commission. If we are to have a policy that will be useful and that will produce good results, the people who work their holdings on the mixed farming system should be selected as allottees and also as migrants. There is very little use in bringing people from the West of Ireland to the East of Ireland, to Tipperary or elsewhere, if the next thing they want is to earn money working on the roads or somewhere else and utilise the land more as a grazing farm than as a mixed farm.

In that case, I know the Land Commission's inspectors will find some difficulty. They would not succeed in every case. We have had experience of people who did work their small holdings well and had at least 15 per cent. of the land in tillage but who, when they got the 25 acre holding, had not 2 per cent. or even 1 per cent. under tillage; it was all grass. There is a difficulty. We cannot blame the Land Commission for all the failures and all the faults. Certainly there should be a planned policy. I believe that the survey I mentioned at the outset, a survey of the approximate amount of land available for distribution, if it has not been made in recent times, should be made immediately. I am sure there is sufficient staff in the Land Commission to undertake such a survey.

It would be unpopular, I am sure, to suggest that we should not allocate any land for the next five or seven years but I feel that, if we are to have a proper distribution and allocation of land, it would perhaps be just as good a policy as anything else to take over all the land that the Land Commission could possibly take over and, apart from dealing with local congestion immediately around land that is acquired, have that pool of land there and make out a scheme of various sized holdings. If certain of the people whom it was intended to migrate did not agree to take the holding offered to them, it could be offered to somebody else. It should be possible to have a big pool of land available for division at a particular time.

I expect there are snags in that suggestion and perhaps this is rather late in the day to embark on such a scheme. If that had been done 25 years ago we would probably have better distribution of land and there would probably have been fewer failures than there have been because of trying to hasten too much and to carry out too much purchase and too much division within a short period of time, which resulted in some people being allocated land who, on more mature consideration by the officials, would not have been allocated land, and more desirable people would have got it.

While saying all that, I cannot understand the carrying over of large farms for a considerable length of time. People are asking what are the inspectors doing. There seems to be a number of inspectors and one wonders why they are taking such a long time.

Deputy Derrig mentioned the question of turbary allotments. While it is very desirable that turbary should be allotted to people who have land and to people who have no land but who are farmers and who have not turbary, it is essential to carry out the necessary improvements to the bogs. There is a number of cases in County Galway where turbary was allotted many years ago but where no improvements were carried out. The road into the bog was marked out but no road was made. Some drains were opened, but the drainage of a bog is a very difficult matter. A bog cannot be drained in one year. It takes at least six years and even then it would need a very good outfall. The banks were marked out for the tenants but that bog remains virgin bog. It has not been worked and could not be worked because of the fact that improvements were not carried out.

The position now is that the turbary allotment has been consolidated with the parent holding and the Land Commission are no longer responsible. The people concerned are not able of themselves to carry out the improvements. The cost of putting a road through a virgin bog would be very heavy. The carrying out of the work would be a difficult matter. It is something that the Special Employment Schemes Branch of the Board of Works do not want to undertake. The Land Commission are very competent, if they so desire, to carry out the necessary improvements on bog that is allotted. Where they have done so, the bogs can be utilised and the improvement works that have been carried out are a credit to the Land Commission. In many cases it has not been done; it has been passed over.

I know many cases where the turbary allotment was pointed out to people who had got holdings and to migrants but up to the present time nothing has been done in the particular bogs. I have mentioned the matter time and time again to the Land Commission, received the usual acknowledgment and all the rest of it, but nothing has been done. The people concerned have to purchase turf and go into competition for turbary with other people, thus putting up the price of turbary.

There are a few matters which I should like to bring to the Minister's notice. While our sympathy is always with the people who need land, at the same time there are landowners from whom land has been taken who deserve some practical expression of sympathy from the Minister and the Land Commission. Cases have been brought to my notice where the Land Commission acquired land by agreement on price. The price was fixed and the vendor was to be paid in land bonds at 4¾ per cent. I understand that the 4¾ per cent. is of recent origin, that it had been either 4½ per cent. or 4¼ per cent. These people now find that the land bonds are only worth £80 to the £100 on the Stock Exchange. Consequently, a person who sold land at a value of £5,000, agreed between the vendor and the Land Commission, now stands to lose £1,000.

I have one particular instance of a case where, owing to the fact that one townland in an estate was never valued and that rates were never collected on it, there was a hold-up for months. There was a delay in the payment of the bonds. Of course, the Land Commission required a certificate that all the debts had been discharged and that all the rates had been paid. While a certificate in respect of the various townlands on the estate was submitted to the Land Commission, where they were valued and the rates had been paid, still this other townland appeared on the map of the area comprising the estate and the county council or the county council officials delayed sending on a certificate and, in fact, paid no heed to the Land Commission or to the vendor's solicitor. The person concerned could perhaps have disposed of the land bonds at that time almost at their full value. However, because of a delay of about nine or ten months at least, the land bonds reduced in value and reduced very considerably in value.

I think the Land Commission and the Government have a responsibility in a case like that—and it is not an individual case. It is really not one exceptional case. I believe there are a number of cases all over the country where something similar to that has happened. I do not think it was the intention of the Land Commission, when they were fixing the price, that that person would not get the full value of the land bonds. I should like the Minister to have that matter examined with a view to having something done.

Mr. Blowick

It is under examination. I am fully aware of the position. It is not too pleasant.

Mr. Beegan

In the future, instead of land bonds, perhaps it might be possible for the Land Commission to pay in cash either a quarter or a half of the purchase price. Maybe there is a big difficulty there. I am only offering that suggestion. I know it could be one that would be found to satisfy a great many of the people who are negotiating with the Land Commission regarding the sale of their land now. The fact that a thing like that happens makes people who would be willing to part with land a bit hard and very difficult. They are not as anxious or as willing as they might be and it puts the Land Commission to a good deal of trouble that otherwise perhaps they would not have to encounter.

There was some crossfire a short while ago between the Minister and Deputy McQuillan regarding some appointment. I know nothing about the case nor do I want to know anything about it.

Mr. Blowick

There is no case. There was no vacancy and there was no appointment.

Mr. Beegan

Allegations may be made against a Minister for appointing somebody whose political views agree with his own and certainly there would be something wrong in that if the qualifications of that person were not as good as the best of the others but, where the qualifications are up to the same standard, it should be no barrier to a person of that kind to be appointed. That should be no barrier. I want to speak on this on general lines. As I say, I know nothing about the individual case, nor am I interested. It has been suggested that an interview board should be set up. Perhaps interview boards are all right. I believe that, in the main, they are honest people; probably 99.9 per cent. of them are. However, what have we heard about interview boards, over the years? From time to time, are the Local Appointments Commission not pin-pointed as not appointing the best people? Local interview boards have been said by other interested people not to have discharged their function impartially, either. Therefore, on this question of appointments, the gift of Ministers or the gift of heads of Departments, or anything like that, I think we could debate the pros and cons for the next three days and after all that I do not think we would be able to formulate a system that would be 100 per cent. perfect or one that would satisfy everybody.

I should like to ask the Minister again to give us, if at all possible, an estimate, county by county, of the approximate amount of land available for acquisition and also to tell us what he thinks would be the period of time it would take to deal with it. We do not want to see the Land Commission, as far as acquisition and resumption and division are concerned, going on like Tennyson's brook—going on forever. I do not think that that was ever intended. When land acquisition and division have been dealt with, I firmly believe the officials of the Land Commission will find plenty of useful work to do, even in that particular Department, in other directions.

With regard to the taking over of land, unless it is an agreed policy to take it over all over the country and keep it for a period of years until you have a pool of several thousand acres in order to have that vast scheme of migration carried out, I think it is very unwise to buy land and hold it over for a period of five, ten, 15 or 20 years, in some cases, while at the same time there are congests not very far away. When they see that land there, they become very dissatisfied with the work of the Land Commission. They say it is just a "mark time" procedure so far as the Land Commission is concerned—that they are just interested in retaining their positions and passing it on to other people rather than doing the work which they have been entrusted to carry out.

Mr. James Tully

Some months ago, a Private Member's motion in my name was discussed very fully in this House. During that discussion, I covered many points affecting the division of land and, therefore, I do not intend to repeat them here this evening. However, there are quite a number of items which I think should be brought to the notice of the Minister and I hope he will give them the necessary attention.

To start off, I noticed recently in the Census of Population Report that there was a very big drop in the population of the congested districts in the West. I noticed that in my constituency there was a slight increase in the population. I am aware that there has been a very big volume of emigration from my constituency and that the loss caused by that emigration was made up by the people who were brought to Meath from the West and South. The result was a net loss to the country. I suggest it is no gain whatever to the country in general if people are brought in from outside—call them migrants, congests, what have you—to places like County Meath and given land for which there is already a demand in Meath. I think that is not the answer to the problem.

It simply means that the natives of the county into which these people are brought emigrate. I feel that something is happening which the Land Commission will have to approach in a different manner. I have the utmost sympathy with the people who have to live on small farms in the congested districts, but people who have to live without any land, people who have been living on small farms in the same district all their lives, people whose grandparents were evicted from their holdings and whose families still live in the district—all these people are entitled to justice. There is no reason why they should get less preferential treatment than the people born in the West of Ireland.

Every day I see the result of the migration of these people into my constituency. I see, not only the young people, but also the older people, having to leave because the portions of land which they should have got were given to somebody else. This situation has been continuing through the reigns of this Government, the previous Government, and the two Governments before them. I feel that something will have to be done to reverse this procedure. While I have great sympathy with the people in the congested areas, and while sympathy is of very little use, I have still greater sympathy for the people who have to emigrate as a result of this policy.

The Minister has said here on several occasions that he is prepared to see that the Land Commission give preference to uneconomic holders who live within a mile of the land that is being divided. I am afraid the big trouble lies in the difference between what the Land Commission consider to be an uneconomic holder and what the people of County Meath consider to be an uneconomic holder. There seems to be some slide rule which the Land Commission use which can be set so that it will rule out some people and rule in some others who are in exactly similar circumstances.

Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted, and 20 Deputies being present,

Mr. James Tully

I was referring to the fact that people, who have lived near estates for years, consider that they are harshly treated when people from outside are brought in to get land from these estates. The result is that there is a continuous loss to the country because the natives emigrate when migrants are brought in from other parts of the country. I suggest that people who live within a mile of an estate and who are uneconomic holders should receive preference when that estate is being divided.

If that were done, it would remove an awful lot of dissatisfaction and there is an awful lot of dissatisfaction because of this matter. We have, in County Meath, quite a large number of very large estates. I do not agree with a lot of what Deputy McQuillan said, but there is something in his suggestion that a farm can be uneconomic just as much because it is too large as because it is too small. If there are large farms in County Meath and other counties which are not being used as they should be used, they should be acquired by the Land Commission to provide economic holdings for local landless people and this would do away with a great deal of the dissatisfaction.

On previous occasions, I paid tribute to the efforts of the Fianna Fáil Government, when, at one time, they did endeavour to do this. They gave farms to the local people. These people did not all turn out to be the best farmers, but 95 per cent. of them did and they are the cosiest farmers in the country at the present time. What is more important is that they were able to rear their families on these farms and the families were able to work the farms. When migrants are brought in, these migrants find that they are not able to make a living, no matter how large the farms they have, and we have recently seen the position where people who are brought into the county find that they cannot live on 30 acres of land and are competing with the local people for employment on the roads and any other type of work that can be got. Not alone do the sons and daughters of these migrants compete for that work, but the migrants themselves compete for it. Something should be done to stop that.

Then there is the question of the person who has been employed on an estate for many years. I find that, when such lands are being divided, there is a growing inclination on the part of the Land Commission to pay these people compensation which generally amounts to less than the price of one acre of the land being divided.

A Deputy referred to the fact that ten acres of land in Counties Meath or Westmeath would be better than 30 or 40 acres of land in County Mayo. That is not quite correct. There is bad land in Meath and Westmeath and the neighbouring counties. Very often, when land is being divided and when some local applicants are being given some of that land, by some strange coincidence, we find that the poorest portions of the land are given to the local applicants. I have mentioned "strange coincidence", but it does just happen that way, and I believe that is something the Land Commission will have to pay attention to. The people of Meath have been very quiet about all this, but it is high time that something were done. Otherwise, they will probably boil over.

Then there is the matter of the landless men. The Minister has stated here that, because there is not enough land to go around, he regrets that there is little he can do for them. I want to say that, despite what has been said by my two colleagues in my own constituency, I am terribly dissatisfied with the way the Land Commission have been carrying on in Meath. I am dissatisfied with this whole system by which landless men are deprived of the opportunity of getting now even what was given to them by Fianna Fáil in the late 1930s—a five-acre holding. It is no consolation to tell these people that those from the West of Ireland who got the land were in a worse state.

We sometimes find that on those old estates, no matter how badly they were run, local people were given at least what we would call the grass of a cow. Is it not ironic to find that, when these estates are divided, the cows must be taken off and put on the road or on the long acre until the Guards get tired summoning the owners? That happens because the Land Commission do not seem to realise that these people are entitled either to portion of the farm acquired or to a cow plot.

I have discussed this matter both publicly and privately with the Minister and I got the impression there would be no difficulty in providing cow plots for people if a case were put up. I find, however, that no new cow plots have been given. What we find instead is a quotation from some letter written 20 or 30 years ago to the effect that cow plots were being handed back to the Land Commission for some reason or another. That is used as an excuse for not giving cow plots now. I think the Minister should carry out what he said in this House to the effect that he would see that the Land Commission provided cow plots where they were needed and where a proper case had been made for them.

Occasionally, when Land Commission inspectors go to check up in an area where land is being divided, they ask questions about whether a person who is looking for a cow plot has a cow or not. Because of the fact that that person had no place in which to keep the cow and he had to sell it, he would get no plot even thought he may have had the money and the intention of purchasing a cow as soon as the cow plot became available. I do not know where the inspectors thought the cow would be kept while its owner was looking for a place in which to put it. People like that should be included in the inspector's lists when a case is being made for a cow plot in an area.

In passing, I should like to refer to the question of correspondence with the Land Commission. Unfortunately, very few of the people in my constituency are native Irish speakers. I do not think it is correct for the Land Commission, when replying to queries about land allocation, to reply in Gaelic. If the Land Commission want to salve their consciences, they could reply in two languages. It is, however, unreasonable and unfair to replay in Gaelic alone. It is bad enough that people have to use the steam of the kettle to open these letters, they are so small and flimsy, without also having the difficulty of interpreting the contents, written in a language they do not understand. I suggest that the Land Commission are not too hard up to reply properly to queries of this sort.

I would also refer to the question of representation. Somebody might send a query to the Land Commission asking whether a person is or is not entitled to a farm. Surely the Land Commission should reply to such a query saying whether a person is or is not so entitled? Why send back a reply which could mean anything and which usually means nothing? Perhaps the Minister has no function in the matter. This system had been carried on for a number of years before the Minister came into office and, if it is something he could discuss with his Department, he should do so. The same thing happens when a question is put down in the House. The answer is sometimes helpful enough, but sometimes it does not mean anything. When it is rumoured that estates are to be considered for acquisition, the Minister will often reply here that officially he knows nothing about it.

I know of cases in my own constituency where the Land Commission have had their eye on a holding for some time and where the local people will tell you all about it. Meanwhile, the people who own the land will either try to sell it or set it to somebody who will use it for growing wheat for possibly three years in succession. Then when anybody wants to go into it, the usefulness has been taken away and a considerable amount of fertiliser must be used on it to put it back into condition. I have the greatest sympathy for the migrants who get this land because, as Deputy Giles said, it is no more than a dust bowl when the people get it.

It seems that a junior official in the Land Commission could know more about the Land Commission than does the Minister or the heads of his Department. Talking about officials, I would make a suggestion to which, perhaps, people might take exception. I think it would not do a bit of harm if the Commission inspectors were changed round a bit. I am very glad that politicians in this House have no say in the division of land. I am not satisfied, however, that people outside have not a say in it. I have been told by people who got farms that they had been recommended by certain people. I have also been told by people that certain people in their area recommended them for farms and that as a result they got them. There is one instance to which I should particularly like to refer and that is the division of an estate in Beltrasna, Oldcastle. I understand my two colleagues are satisfied——

Mr. Hilliard

I never said I was and I did not recommend anybody for a bit of it.

Mr. James Tully

I never said the Deputy did. The Deputy will get an opportunity of refuting what I have just said later.

Mr. Blaney

Do not put something into the mouths of others that they never said.

Mr. James Tully

The Deputy will get an opportunity of refuting my statement later if he so wishes.

Mr. Hilliard

The Deputy referred to his two colleagues a few moments ago and said they were satisfied with something else.

Mr. James Tully

Lest there be any doubt, what I said was that my two colleagues said they were satisfied they were doing a good job and that I am not satisfied.

Mr. Hilliard

The Deputy is putting words into my mouth which I did not use at all. I think the Deputy should be asked to withdraw that statement.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Tully has two colleagues in his constituency. When he refers to two of his colleagues saying something which one of them says now he never said, Deputy Tully should accept that refutation and withdraw.

Mr. Hilliard

The Deputy said that I had said I was satisfied with the division of this estate in Beltrasna. I never said anything of the kind.

Captain Giles

I am not satisfied with that division and I never said I was.

An Ceann Comhairle

I take it Deputy Tully will accept that and withdraw.

Mr. James Tully

I suggest there is a new procedure here when four Deputies are allowed to speak at the same time.

An Ceann Comhairle

No. When a Deputy says that a statement made by another Deputy does not represent what was actually said, I think that should be accepted. Deputy Tully should accept the statements of Deputies Giles and Hilliard. Does the Deputy accept their statements?

Mr. James Tully

I did not say what I am supposed to have said, but, if Deputy Hilliard and Deputy Giles are not satisfied, I will withdraw the statement.

Mr. Hillard

That is putting an altogether different complexion on it. The Deputy said his colleagues said they were satisfied with the division of the estate. I said I never said that at any time. I think it would be better now if Deputy Tully told us what the Labour Party's policy is.

An Ceann Comhairle

Let us not get into policy. It is simply a matter as to what was said by Deputy Tully. Deputy Tully says he accepts that Deputy Giles and Deputy Hilliard did not say they were satisfied with the division of this estate. Is that right?

Mr. Blaney

He did not withdraw.

An Ceann Comhairle

If he accepts what Deputy Giles and Deputy Hilliard say now, that is an end of the matter. That is as far as I can go. Does Deputy Tully say he accepts the statement of the two Deputies that they did not say they were satisfied with the division of the estate?

Mr. James Tully

Not alone do I accept it, but I am delighted to hear them say it.

Mr. Blaney

Good. Continue now.

Mr. James Tully

With your permission?

Mr. Blaney

Yes.

Mr. Hilliard

And tell the House why you held up the division of this land for three months.

Mr. James Tully

Deputy Hilliard has made a statement that I held up the division of land for three months. I ask him to withdraw that statement, because I did not hold up the division of land.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputies are very thin-skinned regarding their political actions. If a person says a Deputy held up things, I do not know exactly what he has to withdraw.

Mr. James Tully

Deputy Hilliard is telling an untruth.

An Ceann Comhairle

How do I know that?

Mr. James Tully

I know it.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Chair cannot investigate every statement made by every Deputy. I suggest that Deputy Tully should now proceed.

Mr. James Tully

I will proceed by saying that what Deputy Hilliard just said is untrue.

An Ceann Comhairle

Very well.

Mr. James Tully

There were a number of people living beside this estate in Oldcastle on very small farms, some with two acres, some with five acres and some with six acres. For one reason or another, these people were passed over. Indeed, they were passed over for no apparent reason. Part of the estate was given to a person from outside the county; I would describe him as a migrant. He was given 100 acres of land. The following week—and I have raised this already by way of parliamentary question—that land was advertised for letting on the 11 months system. The Minister assured me then that, if such a thing happened again, the Land Commission would take notice of it. I understand now that there may have been a reason for that letting; the Land Commission did not meet their commitments, or did not make available the money which those people should have got.

I have two objections to make. I object to 100 acres of land being given to people from outside the county, while those living in the county get none at all. I object to the Land Commission allowing those who come into the county to set the land they get on the 11 months system. It is a matter of complete indifference to us who sets the land. We think the principle is wrong. I hope the Minister will take note of that, because there is a very strong feeling about it in the county.

Some time ago, I asked for particulars of the land taken over by the Land Commission in Meath and I was told that there were remnants and odd pieces of land which did not appear on the list I got. I asked what the remnants and odd pieces were. I was told I could not get particulars of them as there were 700 involved. I suggest there should not be any remnants or odd pieces. Surely the Land Commission should be able to divide all the land. It is the Land Commission's job to see that there are no remnants. I asked the Minister to have this matter attended to without delay. Is there any reason why a remnant of three or four acres should be left when there is a man living beside that remnant badly in need of three or four acres? I was surprised to learn there was no real record of these remnants and that I could not be told offhand what the position was or where they were.

Mr. Blowick

I did not tell the Deputy that.

Mr. James Tully

I would like to know what the Minister did tell me, when he is replying.

Mr. Blowick

I hope what the Deputy understood was that it would take a lot of time to go through all the files and pinpoint all the remnants. I gave him the bulk of the estates and I pointed out that the amount of official time needed to tabulate all the little remnants, and their value, would not be worth it.

Mr. James Tully

It would be well worth it from the point of view of the people who are looking for land. They would consider it time and money well spent if the Minister could get round to getting the Land Commission to draw up a list of the 700 remnants of estates which are lying about in County Meath.

Mr. Hilliard

Including bog banks and everything else.

Mr. James Tully

Deputy Hilliard mentions bog banks. I know there is hardly one bog bank which would not be taken by somebody if the Land Commission would only put pen to paper and give it to an applicant. With the present coal position, people are vainly trying to get firing of some kind every day in the week. It is no answer to tell them that the Land Commission have not tabulated the remnants or the bog banks, and, therefore, cannot give them to anybody. The Land Commission did acquire a considerable amount of turbary. Apparently the people to whom it was allocated were not too anxious to hold on to it and did not pay any rent for it. In some areas, people are very anxious to get this turbary. I have brought that to the notice of the Land Commission in two or three cases. I have no doubt that I am right in saying this time that my colleagues on both sides of the House have done the same with very little result. I was brought to may senses this year when a particular matter came to my notice. I had been asked to look after this matter last year and the year before that, and I was more than surprised to find that the Land Commission are still considering it. That is just not good enough.

There is another matter to which Deputy Beegan has referred already, that is, the setting of land taken over for allocation. I got a reply here some months ago stating that there were very few estates, if any, on hands for more than five or six months in County Meath. I know that there are some estates on hands much longer than that. I suggested then that the Minister's information was not quite correct and I shall be glad if he will refer to this matter when he is replying. If he cannot deal with it now, I will put down a question again in the very near future.

I appeal to him again to give special consideration to smallholders in the areas in which lands are being divided. Consideration should also be given to those to whom consideration was formerly given, namely, the children of evicted tenants. They were given consideration and now apparently they are being completely passed over.

I am sure I will be joined by other Deputies in asking that something should be done about the number of Old I.R.A. men, who are now growing few, left in the country looking for land. I suggest that, since the number is getting smaller and since the necessity for giving land at all will probably disappear inside the next few years, they should get consideration, whether they have got land at present or not. It is the very least they might be offered, and I think this should be done, if it is at all possible.

There is a portion of County Meath on the Cavan-Louth-Monaghan border, where, as I said before and now repeat, there is almost as much congestion as in any place in the West of Ireland. I suggest that those people should be considered, and considered immediately, for transfer holdings when estates are being divided. Many of those people have been promised a transfer holding for years; but promises are no good to them, and many of them have grown old in the promise that some day they will be transferred to better land. The land which they would leave behind would be very useful to the people who live in the area. Might I appeal to the Minister to have this matter looked up and that, before any more migrants from outside counties are brought in, those people will be given the transfer holdings to which they are entitled?

One other thing which Deputy McQuillan referred to here, and which I should like to mention, is the amount of land held by some people. I know of people in the county who have very large tracts of land and I should not be inclined to touch them at all because they give a very high volume of employment there; but I know of other people who have large tracts of land and who give no employment at all. I know of other instances where, when the matter of this land is brought to the notice of the Minister and of the commissioners, those people set the land to outsiders who till it for one year, and what will happen after that goodness only knows. It is quite possible that, if the eye of the Land Commission is taken off those farms, they will be allowed to go back to grass—"the natural way", as one of them described it to me some time ago—and allowed to go fallow. I think that those farms should be looked up by the Land Commission and they should definitely keep their eye on them and not take it off. Even if the land is torn up and tilled for one year by outsiders, that should not leave them free from inspection in years to come. I know of people also who have made promises to the Land Commission that they would do this, that and the other thing, if the land was left with them, and I find that some of them have not kept their promises very long.

With reference to the Land Commission, there was a statement made here that some of the people are dissatisfied with the prices they have got and some of them are dissatisfied with the way the price is given to them. I should like to mention one other point about this question of land which is given back to the owner on appeal, or is left to the owner on appeal. There is one case in South Meath where a man, one of whose farms was being taken from him, apparently proved in the court that he was entitled to hold that farm in order to carry on his business in the first farm. That seemed to be reasonable enough. It was accepted by everybody and the land was left with him. But what nobody mentioned —and this is where I am surprised at the inspectors of the Land Commission —the man had a third farm a few miles away from the second farm, and there was no reference to it, good, bad or indifferent. I think somebody "pulled a fast one" there and I would ask that the inspectors be a little more careful when they are compiling data for their cases to see to it that somebody does not get away with a "quick one" like that.

I should also like to refer to the question of employment by the Land Commission. For many years, the Land Commission built all their houses and outbuildings by direct labour and, by doing that, produced a very good job. Nobody can deny that the houses built by the Land Commission by direct labour were a very good job, and they stand as a monument to the people who built them. Then, for some unknown reason—I am not prepared to accept the excuse, because it is not an excuse, that there was a shortage of these units—a change-over took place. Some of them were employed on a half contract system where somebody was supplied with a certain amount of material and also paid for it on condition that he had a small portion of machinery. These people were given the contract and proceeded to build the houses. I have no hesitation in saying that some of the houses were a disgrace, not only to the man who built them but also to the Land Commission.

The unfortunate people who came to live in those houses will complain as long as the houses will stay up— and that may not be very long—of the condition in which those houses were handed over to them. There is a classic instance of the porch which fell away from the rest of the house as soon as it started to dry. You could go into the house without going through the door at all. I think any Land Commission inspector who allowed that sort of thing to be carried on was doing a very bad day's work, not alone for the Land Commission but for the people who were getting the land. I appeal to the Minister to see to it that the direct labour system of building houses is started again. I know it has been in some places, but I ask him to extend it and have all the houses built by direct labour, as they were heretofore.

I have a motion down here, which apparently will not be reached for some time, asking for a pension scheme for Land Commission gangers. The normal Land Commission worker is somebody who gets employment while an estate is being developed and then goes out of employment; but the Land Commission ganger is usually a man who travels around from estate to estate, particularly in County Meath, where a lot of land division is taking place at present, and for a long number of years he has been more or less a permanent official. I ask that this man should be considered for a superannuation scheme There is the question of some of these people who have had very long service. I have in mind one case of a man with 14½ years' service. Under the type of superannuation or gratuity which the Land Commission gives at present, those men would qualify after 15 years' service——

An Ceann Comhairle

Would this require legislation?

Mr. James Tully

Of that I am not sure.

An Ceann Comhairle

I think it would.

Mr. James Tully

I ask the Land Commission to look into it. It would not require legislation to look into the case of employees such as the man I have mentioned. The present system could be extended to cover this man I am talking about who had 14½ years' service and who had his services dispensed with and who cannot find further employment with the Land Commission. If he had had a further six months, he would have qualified, and it is hard on him that he should be pushed out. I want to bring the matter to the Minister's notice and I am sure he will look it up for me.

As far as employment generally is concerned, while we are not entirely satisfied with the system adopted by the Land Commission at the same time we think they have improved. I want to pay one tribute to the Minister in respect of the arrangements he made to have Church holidays substituted for bank holidays in this type of work. That was something which most of the men appreciated. There was also the question of the tea break which is allowed to local authority employees and which is now allowed to Land Commission workers also. I wish to thank the Minister for the way in which these matters were attended to, and I trust that further improvement in the conditions of employment will be granted.

There is one other point. It is generally agreed that St. Stephen's Day is granted as a holiday with pay to practically all employees. Under the present system of substituting Church holidays for bank holidays, the men would not be strictly entitled to that day with pay. Since it is a fact that they do not get what we expected they would get, ten Church holidays per year, because on an average one per year falls on Sunday, I would ask the Minister to use his good offices to have the 26th December substituted for the one which is lost.

I would again make an appeal to the Minister in relation to the drawing up of schemes by the Land Commission. Incidentally I would like to know how soon after an estate is acquired a scheme is drawn up, because very often the day before an estate is allocated the Minister will tell me in the House that no scheme has yet been drawn up and the following morning when I wake up I find that someone has come with a lorry or some other vehicle to take over possession of the land. I know the Land Commission can work very quickly but I do not think they can work overnight.

Mr. S. Flanagan

The Minister has his purposes for these things.

Mr. James Tully

I would ask that, before any further scheme is drawn up, the Minister would give consideration to the people I have mentioned and see that they do not have the grievances which they genuinely have now. In conclusion may I ask would the Minister be able to say when he is replying how much it costs the Land Commission to bring people from various parts to farms in County Meath before they finally select a tenant to take over these farms? My information is that they have brought people to see some of these farms and in one case more than a dozen people were brought before an applicant finally decided to accept the land. It is rather galling to the local people, who would take it under any conditions, to find these people——

Mr. Kennedy

And with £4,000 or £5,000 in their pocket.

Mr. James Tully

In whose pocket?

Mr. Kennedy

Some of the migrants.

Mr. James Tully

That makes the matter a lot worse.

Mr. Kennedy

I will give evidence of that in the debate.

Mr. James Tully

I would ask the Minister to see that such people are excluded and if Deputy Kennedy is able to give any evidence of such people having £4,000 or £5,000 in their pockets—and I believe he would have that evidence—I would ask that the land be taken from those people and given to the local people who need it and who are crying out for it.

Mr. Blaney

What I wish to say on this Estimate is what I have been saying on it for some considerable time, that the purpose for which the Department of Lands is instituted and for which the Land Commission was set up, that of the relief of congestion and the resettlement of the land of this country, is not being served, or, if it is being served, it is not being served quickly enough. We still have throughout the country this question of congestion. That congestion is not being solved, in my opinion, in the way that it should be solved.

Other speakers here before me this evening have spoken of lands that are published for sale especially in districts where congestion exists, and have stated that despite the fact that these lands come up for public sale, very often the Land Commission do not even seem to be interested in the disposal of such lands. At the same time we find money set aside in order that we may keep in being an organisation that is supposed to go round the country and find out where land can be got, land for resettlement and land on which to put new farmers. While they are being paid to do this and while money is being spent on our inspectors going across the country doing this work, at the same time, and in the same districts in which they are operating, we have farms for sale and the Land Commission are not interested in them. There have been cases where, although the attention of the Land Commission has been drawn to such holdings, they took no action.

If the Land Commission are to do anything and if they are to get anywhere in a reasonable time in the future, then I feel that, in addition to going around and making their own investigations and taking over land that they feel should be taken over, they should also keep their eyes open and see that when a farm is put up for sale it will be taken over for the people in that district. In my own county, there is a great deal of congestion and I know that during the past 12 months, as well as during the past couple of years, the Land Commission have allowed farms, which could have been availed of to resettle these congests who were not far from these lands, to go up for public sale and to be purchased, not always by natives or by people of Irish extraction, but in some cases by foreigners who came in and took over these lands which are so badly needed by the local people.

The Minister and the Land Commission, probably through the Minister, will indicate that nothing like that has happened and that they keep their eyes well open, but I know that it has happened and if they want any further information on it I can give it. I have had occasion in the past to give the Minister, and I am sure, through the Minister, the Land Commission, information about lands for sale, lands in the midst of congested areas, and, despite the fact that they were given notice by me and that there was public notice given in the Press and posters displayed throughout the district, the Land Commission allowed that land to be bought up by somebody who came in from outside. That is not the manner in which the land problem can be settled.

Neither can we regard the present situation, where so much rundale is in existence, as satisfactory. There is still quite a number of holdings held under this rundale system and the Land Commission, in my estimation, could do more, and do it more quickly, to rearrange these holdings. They would thereby not only make the bits of land on the small farms of these people worth something, but, by abolishing the rundale system, by rearranging the holdings and making them compact, they would very often prevent a situation of which many of us in rural Ireland are aware, the situation under which people holding land in rundale are not on good terms, for the reason that it is impossible for them, on mixed holdings, with one bit here and another bit there, not to trample on their neighbours' toes. That could be avoided and much harmony could be created where it does not exist to-day if the Land Commission were a little bit more lively and active in regard to this matter.

I want to bring to the Minister's attention, in regard to the division of land and the giving of land to the different people who qualify, the question already mentioned by Deputy Tully. He spoke of landless men not getting consideration. He spoke of the farm labourer who has worked on an estate that is later taken over by the Land Commission; new farmers or migrants are brought in and the farm labourer is left without any means of livelihood. In the east of my county particularly, in the Lagan Valley, we have a rather unique situation. Not only had we got there, over the years, farm labourers working on estates, which have since been acquired by the Land Commission, who later found themselves without employment, but we also have had—and we still have— some conacre farms. That may seem a queer mixture, but it is the truth.

We have farmers working land in the Lagan Valley for generations, land which their fathers, and in some cases their grandfathers, worked, but they never owned that land and had it only on conacre or year by year letting. Some such cases have arisen, and the Land Commission have come in and taken over that estate and divided it, without giving any consideration to the people I have described, the conacre farmers of long standing, who not only have been working that land but have built up farmsteads of their own and have bought machinery to work the land under conacre. They have found themselves without land since the Land Commission came in and they are no longer in a position to get land by ordinary lettings because the Land Commission has taken the only land available in the locality.

I have raised the matter repeatedly and I am raising it again now. I suggest that, where such men exist as do exist in the Lagan Valley, they should be regarded in the same way as small landowners, and the land they had been working in the past should not be taken from them, without recompense being made to them on some part of the estate. It is entirely unfair and it is creating congestion in the Lagan Valley just as bad as the congestion the Land Commission and the Minister have been trying to relieve in other parts of the county. I see no good purpose being served in taking in congests from the western seaboard of the county and placing them in the eastern parts of the county and in so doing creating unemployment among the residents there. That has happened, and some of the former residents have since had to emigrate.

The Minister and his Department, despite the fact that the case has been repeatedly made to them, still seem to ignore the significance of what it may mean to the people in that part of the country. We still maintain that if the Minister were fully informed, or if he fully realised the situation there, he would not allow the present system to continue but would take in as congests in these localities those who have been tilling the land which their fathers before them tilled but never owned. The Minister should go into this matter once and for all and give these conacre farmers of the Lagan Valley some consideration when these estates come to be divided in the future.

The Minister has in the past talked of rural Ireland as he said, "slipping away from us". He has also said that, if the flight from the land continues, the towns of rural Ireland will become as ghost towns. While the Minister was pretty well right in his statement two years ago, before he became Minister, I should like to say that to-day he is doing very little to remedy the situation which he deplored, and this flight is still continuing. It is not being helped in any way by the slow methods being adopted by the Land Commission and his Department in reallocating or resettling lands in the congested districts of the West.

There is another matter which the Minister, when he was a Deputy, spoke of a couple of years ago. He said that when the Land Commission was taking over land it was never intended to be let in order to help the Department of Finance. If that is so, and if he really believed it then, I should like to know why it is that, under his Department and the Land Commission to-day, land which has been acquired by the Land Commission is still being let year by year, until it has reached the stage already described here earlier when it is no use to the migrants who eventually get that land? It has been tilled year after year, the heart taken out of it, nothing put back, and, by the time the new owners or tenants arrive, they would be better off if they had stayed where they were.

That system is still going on despite the fact that the Minister, when he spoke as a Deputy two years ago, criticised it and said it was never intended it should operate. Yet, under his jurisdiction, and under his own Department, it is still going on, and land is being spoiled for those who will come to tenant it later on. It would be far better, in the case where the land cannot be divided the year after it is taken over, that it should lie derelict rather than be misused by those who take it to exploit it for 11 months of the year. The Minister should give heed to his own criticism of two years ago, now that he is in a position where he can stop that letting of land held by the Land Commission. He should put his foot down, if he believes to-day what he then believed —that there should be no more lettings.

Candidly, I do not think that the long term lettings that are evident throughout the country under the Land Commission are necessary. The Land Commission will hold on and will explain to the House that they have got to hold on to one bit of land in order to get several other bits or parcels to try to do a good job. In the meantime, those waiting for that land, the sons of the small farmers nearby, have got tired waiting and have left the country. The only people who will be looking for that land will be the old men who were young men when they started looking for it. That is not a policy that is going to help this country in regard to its land resettlement problem. It will not help a number of people to find a living on the land, and it does not very much improve the system of many years ago, when it was the landlords rather than the Land Commission who held the land.

Candidly, the people I have mentioned earlier, the conacre farmers of Donegal, were much better off before the Land Commission took over. Many of them have now gone away and are not coming back, because there is nothing for them to come back to, as the land has been taken away. They have much to thank the Land Commission for, but they must remember, and I am sure they will remember, that it was the working of the Land Commission that deprived them of the land which their fathers and forefathers had worked.

The Minister should listen to this side of the story and not regard it as just a fairytale. The facts are there and I am sure, if he inquires from his local inspectors in Donegal, he will find out what I have said is true. Unfortunately, I have had occasion to say this to the Minister last year and I said it back in the previous period of Coalition Government, but it had no effect. I am hoping, as this is the last chance I will have with the present Minister as Minister for Lands, or Minister for anything else, that he will make an effort to do something for these people before he leaves office.

The position that is created by bringing migrants from the West of the country into the Midlands has been discussed by the last speaker in a critical manner. While we have land in my county for division, we are also one of the counties from which many of the migrants have gone to the Midlands, and all I can say, having met them and talked to them and to members of their families since they have gone there, is, as has already been said, that they have been well received, generally speaking, in the Midlands.

It is true, as the Deputy said, that there are local men who are deprived of a livelihood as a result of the farms or estates being taken over. Those men in the Midlands, just as the men in the east of my own county, should be given consideration, even though it may be that to some extent I am talking against the number of migrants of my own county in regard to the better lands. I think that, if people are deprived of their livelihood, those are the people who should be given first consideration. There is no point in relieving congestion in Donegal, Mayo, Galway or Kerry, if you are going to create a similar situation in the Midlands. Satisfy the local demand first and, when you have satisfied that demand, you can tackle that other problem.

I should think that the people living along the seaboard, with their tradition of little land down through the years, are in a better position to carry on than will be the new congests created when they move into the Midlands and displace those people who have been working the land. The Minister should deal fairly with all concerned.

I should like to point out to the Minister that at the moment in one district alone, where there is very great congestion, in the west of my county, no fewer than seven people with very small holdings have their applications before the Land Commission for a considerable time for two or three farms that are available in the east of the county. Those half-dozen people are willing to give up the smallholdings they have and take the farms available in the east of the county, but months and, in some cases, two years have passed and those people are still asking whether they are going to get the farms in the estate or not. Should they emigrate, as they are now being forced to do, or wait on for another while?

The situation is really becoming critical so far as those people are concerned. They are waiting for the promised land and the promised land is not being given to them. Their own holdings are there. There are very bad houses which they would be tending to-day if they knew they were not going to get any improvement in their farms. They have not been building all those years because they were waiting for the farms which were promised them in the east of the county. Yet, in spite of all that, we hear of the scarcity of land and here we have this situation in our midst at the moment.

I ask the Minister to take particular note of the applications of several farmers from a district known as Aughterlinn in the north-west of Donegal. I think there are six applicants for a farm in the east of the county, in the Lagan Valley. They have been kept on a string for six months, 12 months and, in some cases, two years. It is about time the Department or the Land Commission made up their minds whether they are going to have these farms or not. If they are not, the people can find their own methods for dealing with the situation; if they are, they should have been put in them long ago.

The Minister, so far as I can gather, goes to greater length to justify everything that is done by the Land Commission than he does in regard to getting something worth while done. Day after day, questions are put down by Deputies from all parts of the country in regard to whether such and such a holding is to be taken over or not. No matter what the question relates to, the one stock answer is that the Minister has no function in the matter.

Apparently the Minister has no function in the matter and yet, when he goes down the country and gets down to his own constituency at the weekend, we read pronouncements made by him about how all-powerful he is as a Minister and the great work that he, as a Minister, has done in this Government and did in the last Government of which he was a member. I suggest that the power he says he has on a Sunday should be taken back by him to Dublin on the Monday and used. If it is his business to decide the policy of the Government in regard to the acquisition and division of land, then he cannot sit back day after day and repeat the same answer that that is a function of the Land Commission and that it is taboo, so far as he is concerned.

That is what the Minister has been doing and nothing he may say on Sundays or at week-ends can relieve him of that blame. He is to blame to a large extent because he allows the Land Commission to do as they like. I am afraid that what they like is not what satisfies very many of us in this House. The Minister's pronouncements are much different from the policy pursued by the Land Commission. The policy pursued by the Land Commission is much slower than the policy the Minister says he stands for. If he is the boss, then he should let the Land Commission know he is the boss and get on with the work.

I can see no future for the speeding-up of land division in this country while we have a Minister sitting across from us on the other side of the House who says one thing on a Sunday and swallows it all for the remainder of the following week. If he is going to dictate his policy to the Land Commission and get them to do the job quickly, expeditiously and economically, then he should lay down the law for the people in the Land Commission. I am sure that the Land Commission would be only too glad if they could get a lead from the Minister.

I am coming to the conclusion that one of the reasons why the Land Commission are not getting on more quickly with the job at the moment is that the Minister blows hot and cold. He says one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow. The Land Commission have not got a direct lead from him. If they had, they might go a little quicker. Maybe it is that their whole outlook is the outlook of the Civil Service generally: make haste slowly, lest you might do any damage. I cannot blame them for that, and I do not blame them, but I blame the Minister.

I suggest to the Minister that the placing of landless men who have been working land on an estate is something he should take full cognisance of. The rundale system which is still being operated is something that must be got rid of, for the various reasons I have already stated. If we are to do anything about the congestion on the western seaboard particularly, it should be done now. The amount of relief that we are giving by migration and the resettling of migrants elsewhere in the country is not sufficient to make itself felt in these badly congested areas. We are not doing enough quickly enough in that respect. If we do not do it, we are going to find, as the Minister, when a Deputy, said a couple of years ago, that the towns of the West will become ghost towns and rural Ireland a depopulated desert, with a return to the ranchers and decay. I think those were his own words a couple of years ago, and they could be well applied to the situation existing to-day.

That situation has not improved. If anything, it has disimproved. There are fewer people on the land to-day than there were two years ago. If the present situation continues, there is no question that, in another two years' time, there will be still fewer and, in a very short time, the Minister's own prediction, made in 1954, will become a fact. The towns in the West will be without population and will become ghost towns, with the grass growing up through the streets. The Minister, as Deputy McQuillan said, is the one man in the Government who can do a good day's work in regard to this matter. We on this side of the House consider that he is not doing it.

Nothing he may say by way of a speech outside this House is going to relieve him of that burden. He is not doing his work as it should be done, he is not fulfilling the function of the Minister for Lands in this Government, he is not giving direction and dictation to those under him who should be the servants of the people. He is not showing the way and, since he is not, it is very difficult to expect those servants to do the job as well as they should if he were directing it. He does not appear as if he wished to do his work.

There was a typical attitude taken up by the Minister here to-day when a Deputy made a suggestion that might be helpful. The suggestion was made by Deputy McQuillan, who said that in future nobody should be allowed to hold more than 300 acres of land or land of a greater valuation than £120. What does the Minister do? He accuses Deputy McQuillan of saying that in future no holding should be taken over of less than 300 acres or of a valuation less than £120. He took that useful suggestion of the Deputy and turned it around; instead of taking heed of what the Deputy had said and what might be helpful to him in future, he tried to score some political point against someone, who appears to be his opponent in the western counties, by reversing the entire idea of the whole suggestion and pointing out that this suggestion, as turned around by the Minister, would in effect retard land acquisition. That, I think, is typical of the Minister's attitude. The sooner he gets away from that idea of trying to twist ideas and never accepting new ideas from anybody except someone from his own Party, the sooner he will learn how to manage his Department and the Land Commission, and get on to do some useful work.

I have nothing further to add except to say that we here, from rural Ireland in particular, are sick and tired of the Department of Lands and the Land Commission and the manner in which they handle this question. We feel that some change for the better is definitely called for. We are asking and even hoping, though it is a rather forlorn hope I know, that even under this Minister we will get some action and get the land divided and resettled in reasonable time. It is the hope of every Deputy who ever came into this House to see this problem solved in his time, but I am afraid that many of us are becoming rather cynical and forced into the view that this problem will never be solved in our time. I, for one, am one of those people who, coming from a congested county, feel that with the present set-up and lack of direction from the present Minister the Land Commission is ineffective for the job it was set up to do. It is swaddling itself around with so much red tape that it is settling down slower and slower, and the Land Commission and the Department of Lands and the Minister for Lands are no use.

The Minister might as well still be examining the growing of trees across in Scandinavia as sitting in this House. He is just as useful there as he is here. No direction comes from him when he is at home, and I am sure we would not say a word to him if he had stayed there still longer if, perhaps, he could learn something from the Scandinavians that might be useful in the future. We would be very satisfied if those people could have got something across to the Minister, because everything we have tried to give him here of a useful nature is always regarded by him with a smile as something to be turned around until it appears to be useless or worthless or ridiculous. This attitude of the Minister is of little use in solving the problem which is becoming desperate throughout the West—the problem of congestion.

Captain Giles

This is certainly a most important Department, the most important we have in the country, and I am satisfied that it does valuable work. There is no doubt about it that the Minister has one of the most thankless tasks of any Minister, because no matter what he does he will be criticised. Valuable work has been done under the Land Commission, but much of it could be better done. Undoubtedly, taking a review of the last 25 or 30 years, we must say that the resettlement of the people on the land is advancing stage by stage, but, though a great deal of good has been done for the country, the rate of advancement of the Land Commission is too slow. This resettlement of land should have been completed long ago. It should have been completed in the course of 20 years.

I come from one of the areas in the very centre of the land of the Pale where Cromwell and his followers did their foul deeds. Standing there to-day and looking round on the new holdings springing up there over the years, I feel quite happy that in my part of Leinster we are undoing the conquest. As Deputies know, a vast amount of the migration from the West and the North and the South comes into County Meath. We have our grievances, but we are satisfied, to be honest, seeing these people in our midst settling down and working their new homes. We are quite happy as they are a national asset and working wholeheartedly in co-operation with the Meath people to make the best of their holdings. We are proud of them, and of the Meath men who have settled down also.

Mr. Killilea

That is a bit of a conversion.

Captain Giles

It is undoubtedly, and 15 or 20 years ago I would not have made that statement, because I believe that we had a Meath situation to settle first. I do say that at the present moment, although the Minister is doing good work, he should give more attention to seeing that the uneconomic holders of those counties into which migrants are brought should get first consideration. There are many uneconomic holders passed over, and I do not know why. There are good and useful men with seven, eight or ten acres of land and there is no reason why they should not have got 25 or 30 acres and the same chance as the people coming in.

Taking it all in all, the Land Commission is doing good and useful work. It makes no difference whether Governments come in or go out. It is my belief that the same policy operates right through. There is no use in lambasting this or any other Minister. I lambasted the Fianna Fáil Minister when he was in power, and the present Minister, but at the same time I find that they are working within the Acts we have given them from this House, and as long as they work within them there is little we can do or say.

Only a few days ago, we read on the papers of the census taken, and were alarmed at the emigration of our people from all areas. That is an alarming situation which this or any other Government must face. Something that I would call big and gigantic must be done. I believe that one of the things that can be done is speedier work in land resettlement. It may be that we have not the money from term to term to carry out a bigger programme of resettlement, but the Land Commission, from the time they take over an estate, hold it too long. I know estates in my county which the Land Commission took over, four, five or six years ago, and I count that criminal, because it is criminal to see them setting them in some cases in conacre for wheat. Perhaps a great conacre rancher comes in and takes that land, works the very heart out of it for three or four years, and leaves it like a dust bowl. Those people who get it afterwards are expected to bring it back to full fertility, sometimes with very little in their pocket by way of capital. It is criminal when that happens. I ask the Land Commission when they take over a holding to divide it and have proper resettlement in the speediest possible way.

I and other Deputies from my own county have year after year been drawing attention to the many men who come into this country and buy, perhaps by telephone, large tracts of land—estates of anything from 500 up to 1,000 acres. The Land Commission should be more alive to that situation. In County Meath, there are many men who came in here—speculators, if you like, some of whom came from Pakistan and some from England—and bought large tracts of land. We were told, when they came, that they were in the bloodstock industry and would be an asset to the country. They certainly brought a few old nags with them, but we find that they stocked the land with whitehead bullocks. I do not believe in that sort of thing.

Beside where I live, 200 to 400 acres are being worked by about two men. It is criminal. There is the Drumlargan estate at my own door. Four years ago, that estate gave employment to two men and a boy. There are about 250 Irish acres of perhaps the best land in Europe in that estate. It changed hands a few years ago, notwithstanding the fact that the Land Commission inspectors walked it and re-walked it. The people were happy that it was to be taken over and that resettlement would take place. That was not the case. A bigger man from some other part of the country came in and offered almost twice what the Land Commission were offering and got that large estate. I would not worry about that, if employment were given. The position is that there is one herd employed. The people who bought the land never come to see it from one end of the year to the other. I regard it as criminal on the part of the Land Commission that they allowed that to happen. That estate could have provided holdings for 12 farmers. It would make all the difference in this denuded, unpopulated area if that estate were taken over and divided amongst people, irrespective of where they came from. I would ask the Minister to take a special note of that estate.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy should not mention individuals by name or in such a way that they might be recognised.

Captain Giles

Right beside that estate there is another estate of 300 acres where there are about three people employed. There is not the slightest hope of a man working a plough on these estates. Green grass is growing there and the whiteheads are grazing on them. At the same time, our young people are emigrating to England.

There is no reason why that should be allowed to happen. It is no wonder that the census showed what it did. Big speculators are being allowed to come in here and take over these vast tracts while there are boats going in the other direction taking scores of farmers' sons who are emigrating to earn a living in another land. These people are entitled to a living in their own land, and they can get that living in their own land if we do the right thing, that is, divide the land amongst the Irish people and let the people settle down and marry and be of some use to their own country.

The same thing happened in Dunshaughlin. A body calling itself a limited company bought 300 or 400 acres of land. They were not satisfied with that. Every holding for miles around that was put up for auction or in respect of which the owner was glad to get a good price was bought up by this limited company. They bought up practically the whole area of land half way from Dunshaughlin to Navan. That is a crying shame. We will be told that it is good for the cattle trade, that these people are exporting a vast amount of cattle. They are, but I would like to know what they are doing with the money they are getting in return. Is it being invested in this country? Is it being ploughed back into the land or into the area from which a large number of young men have to fly? It is not. It is invested in every part of the world, except Ireland.

I ask the Minister to concentrate on seeing that those large estates are immediately taken over and divided. I do not want any of those estates wiped out. When I see a man with 500, 600 or 800 acres which is not half worked, I realise that there is work there for the Land Commission to do.

I raised the question of another estate here last year by question in the Dáil. I also interviewed the Minister. It is the Dunsany estate.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy should not mention estates by name.

Captain Giles

I mentioned it last year. I am not afraid to mention it. It is in the public Press.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It is not the practice in this House to mention individuals. Individuals have no way of replying.

Captain Giles

I am quite satisfied that this estate has been walked by an inspector of the Land Commission. That inspector went back and made a report to the Land Commission that it was worked with good husbandry and that there was no waste land on it. I am quite satisfied, and so are the public, that there are at least 300 acres of this estate that can be immediately taken over in the interest of this country, because it is almost derelict. Since I raised that question in the Dáil, a vast amount of that estate was set in conacre, and about 300 acres of wheat are being planted on it by a man who owns almost as much land as is comprised in that estate.

I regard that as a crying shame, when at the same time in County Meath the Land Commission are prying into other people's affairs. Where a man has 50 or 60 acres of an outlying small farm, they are doing everything they can to acquire it. Why do they not pare down the large estates? They must realise that the owners of these estates were put there by Cromwell. You can trace their ancestors right back. In every ditch along the estates, there are the bones of our ancestors who had to fly or suffer the holocaust. It is only right and fair, now that we have our national freedom, that we should undo that conquest.

It seems to be the position that any decent Irishman who has an outlying holding must surrender it. Why are we afraid to face these things? These people cannot squirm at what happens to them. They will get the full market value. I will not be satisfied until I see these large estates, which were Cromwellian settlements, pared down to reasonable dimensions. I say: Leave them 300 acres, but, after that, take all the outlying land they have and divide it amongst the people. There should be no quibbling about it. Are we afraid to do those things? If we are, we are not worthy of being Irish freemen. It is a problem that has remained unsolved for scores of years and, as far as I see, the Land Commission will skirt miles away from these large estates before they will do anything.

I ask the Minister, who has his heart in the resettlement of our people, to get after the job immediately and not to take any answers when his inspector comes along with a report which I would say was a false report. I do not mean that the inspector made a false report, but I know he was led up the garden path in many cases. It was very unfair that he had to make that report.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy should not charge an inspector with making false reports.

Captain Giles

I said that I did not. It was not he who made the false report, but he was led up the garden path when he went in to inspect these estates.

Mr. Killilea

Who led him up the garden path?

A Deputy

The Minister?

Captain Giles

No, not the Minister. The inspector who was sent down to get the report was led up the garden path. Perhaps he was led into the lounge and got a good glass of wine. I expect these things do happen.

Mr. Killilea

That is a worse charge.

Captain Giles

In connection with North Meath, Deputy Tully raised the matter of the Beltrasna estate and he almost said here—he had to withdraw it—that Deputy Hilliard and I were quite satisfied with the division of that estate. We are not by any means satisfied with it. The Oldcastle area is a very congested area and the Beltrasna estate should have gone to the relief of congestion in North Meath. What was the position? The position was that a fair number of men got allotments of land, but migrants got a vast slice of that land—I think about 150 acres.

I know the man who got the last settlement. I do not blame him for getting it. I think he came from Kerry. I am satisfied he is a splendid type of man and that he will make good, but surely the Minister could have placed him in South Meath, where there are tens of thousands of acres of land. It is criminal that that fine young man was brought to the Beltrasna area and given a holding there. The local people have nothing against the man personally, but four or five people already in the area wanted land and were not given it. That Beltrasna estate could be eaten up by congests.

The Minister should proceed cautiously in this matter. North Meath is almost as congested as many parts of Mayo, where he lives. That should not have happened, and it happened only a few short months ago. The young man in question is a fine type, but you know what the position is like when he is not wanted. There is bitterness there, not alone against the man, but against the Minister and the Deputies. If the Minister had placed that young man in South Meath, where there are thousands of acres and where there is room for him, he would be well received and he could live in happiness amongst his neighbours. The area in which the young man was placed is congested. In future, the Minister should bear in mind that the North Meath area stretching roughly from Athboy to Drumconrath or Meath Hill is a congested area. The Minister could carry out much resettlement there. There are men in that area holding three or four small fields scattered here and there and surely there could be a resettlement there, so as to make the people happy and comfortable.

Fifteen or 20 years ago, I think the Land Commission used to give 22 statute acres of land. That was a shortsighted policy. I saw that happen all around me. I saw people getting land, and from 19 to 22 statute acres were the limit. It is criminal to expect a man to live on that. The result is that such men are neither farmers nor workers. I know thousands of them. They are not able to make a decent living out of such a small acreage and all they can do is watch for the first work they can get. They are working for the Forestry Department and the county council practically the whole year round, and not working on their holdings.

That is a most unfortunate state of affairs. A man who gets a farm of land should get enough to enable him and his family to live there and, if possible, to give employment to a neighbour. In some areas where there are large colonies of migrants—there are about 12 beside myself—trying to eke out on 19 statute acres, it is obvious that they are finding it impossible to make a living on their holdings. Up to now, they were able to avail of the 11 months system and take perhaps 15 or 20 acres that might have been going in the area. However, as land division is closing in on them, and no 11 months system, they have to go to England or try to get work on the roads, or at forestry, and so on. A farmer should work his own holding and it should be big enough to keep him there.

In the past five or six years, the size of holdings has increased to, I think, 35 statute acres. In my view, they are not big enough yet and it is unwise to adopt as a pattern a unit of 35 statute acres. There should be a new and original idea in land resettlement. There should be large holdings, middle-size holdings and small holdings and the small holdings should surround a large holding. I understand that in Italy they had a scheme some years ago whereby large estates were divided up and there was a 300-acre holding in the centre, with smaller holdings surrounding it. The larger holding was able to buy the produce of the smaller holdings and there was a satisfactory economy there. With a pattern of 35 statute acres, or thereabouts, you will have a slum or congestion in the area in a few short years. It is a bad system.

I hope that in the future the Minister will tend to increase the size of the holdings. I believe such a step would be in the interest of the country as a whole. It is shocking to think of a man whose holding is such that he is neither a farmer nor a labourer. We have enough unemployment in the country without letting those people get into the pool of work. They should have enough work to do on their own holdings, but they will not do that with 22 statute acres.

In Meath, you must live by the land and the land alone. There is nothing else there for you. Something should be done about landless men and farmers' sons. Some of these men are fine types, but, under the Land Acts, there is no hope for them. Nowadays, many farmers send their sons to agricultural colleges. They give them a fair amount of education on the technique of agriculture. It is unfortunate to see these young men leaving the college after they have been trained and having to go across the water to earn a livelihood as there is nothing here for them. The Land Commission should keep some of these students— not all of them—in mind and should give some of them a holding on the large estates. These students could apply their knowledge of modern agricultural methods there and set an example to the people on the remaining holdings. They could settle down in the area as agricultural instructors. They would be an incentive and an example to those living around them and much good work could be done by having the right men in the right place.

In County Meath, we Deputies have a hard time. Scores and scores of the finest young farmers' sons living on 30 to 40 acres of land must get out. There is not the slightest hope that either they or their parents will be able to purchase a farm of land there to-day, because the highest they would be able to go would be £1,000 or £1,500, and they would have to raise the most of that. In County Meath, the first bid now for a farm is about £3,000 and these people have not a hope from the very start. They are leaving the country by the score. Twenty or 30 years ago, it was almost unknown that a man would migrate from County Meath. An old person might go to America, and that was all. At present, however, the emigration from my county is just as large as it is from Connemara, Mayo or Kerry. That is a very serious state of affairs. These men in my county are completely excluded from anything that is going. I am not against bringing in migrants, because I realise that that is national policy, but I feel that something should be done to cater for the people who are already there and who need help.

Land division is national policy; we must accept that fact and we do accept it. I would, however, ask the Minister to bring a little vision into this whole matter and see that something new is done. After 30 years of native Government, what is the position? Changes of Government do not seem to make any difference to the vast number of the best types of our people who must leave our country to seek a living elsewhere. Bear in mind that frequently it is the manliest type who seeks his living abroad. He says: "If I cannot make a living at home, I will make a living abroad" and, rather than remain idle at home, he emigrates. There is a living for thousands of such people in County Meath, if we would spend the money there and tear down the large estates and give them full market value. Then no one would whimper. Think of an estate of 1,500 acres. At least 500 acres of that are waste, growing nothing but furze bushes, blackthorn and sedge grasses of all kinds that not even an ass would eat. Why should the men who own these estates worry? Most of them are what we call the "gentry". Some of them have British Army pensions and some of them are getting their shares from gold mines and every other kind of mine abroad. They live on that. They are lords of their big estates, 500 or 600 acres of which have gone wild. I say it is criminal to leave these lands untouched. This is a small country in which we cannot afford to waste a single acre, even the land on the roadsides.

What do the Land Commission think they are doing, flying around the country looking for small bits of land here and there while there are these big tracts going wild? It is hard on the small farmers who have spent their lives working hard for their country to see this kind of thing happen. We cannot go inside the gates of these big fellows, but I hope to see their gates open before long and the large acres done away with. It is my belief there is a Masonic influence at work somewhere and that it is at work in high circles and low circles, making these "gents" immune. These lads live in their mansions while their estates are immune from confiscation. I should not use the word "confiscation". We do not believe in confiscation; we pay for the land we take to the last penny.

My advice to the Minister is that he should take this land and have a proper resettlement. There is too much hugger-mugger going on. It went on during the reign of the first, the second, the third and the fourth Governments we have had. It is nothing but cowardice. As I said, there is a Masonic influence at work which must be smashed. These people came in here and, by telephone, were able to buy their 1,500 acres. You will see them coming on horseback or in their big high-powered cars once a year. The decent, hard-working farmers have to raise their hats to them. The day is gone for that kind of thing. It is in the province of the Land Commission to change that position, but they are not doing it. They are cowardly about it. I ask them to do it in future and give our farmers a chance to enjoy the freedom that was achieved by such great sacrifice.

There is one matter which I have been raising for the past three or four years. It concerns the exchange of an old I.R.A. man named Patrick Mulvaney who lives in my constituency. He was listed for exchange and was allotted a farm in the Ashbourne area. He was told to be ready to go there, but, when he eventually went, he found another migrant in possession of the farm allotted to him. I ask the Minister to go fully into that question and to give justice to this man. He is fully entitled to the exchange which he was promised. His exchange would do a lot of good in the area in which he lives, because there is considerable congestion in the vicinity. He is a man who gave splendid service to his country, a man of fine physique, a good farmer and an excellent worker. Three or four other farmers in the locality were fortunate enough to get exchanges. They were Fianna Fáil supporters and I suppose they had more influence than this man, because Fianna Fáil were in power. This man belongs to our side and I want the Minister to see that justice is done for him. The other three got good holdings.

Mr. O'Leary

Do not copy their policy.

Captain Giles

There is no copying about it. It is only justice. This man has all the credentials. His land is needed in the congested area in which he lives. He is a good man. He lost about £400 waiting for the exchange. He was told he would be given the exchange in April or May. He did not plough his land that year and when he went to the other holding he found it was already allotted. Consequently, he lost all his crops for that year because it was too late to plough.

In connection with vested cottages, the Minister told us he would reconsider the whole position. There are many very good men living in vested cottages who are entitled to a full holding or to accommodation plots. Many of them have cows which they keep either on the sides of the road or with neighbours. When they live on the boundary of a divided estate, they are surely entitled to a piece of land. If they got seven or eight acres each, it would make all the difference in the world to their comfort, to the happiness of their homes and to the economy of the country. I do not expect the Land Commission to give land to every cottier because there are many of them who would not work it. I suggest, however, that when the commission comes across good, thrifty, honest men, who will be in a position to stock and work seven or eight acres, they should not be passed over. There are three or four of them living beside me and I ask the Minister to pay particular attention to them. They live beside an estate to be divided. It will be unfair and criminal if they are passed over. They are rooted there for generations.

In conclusion, I say to the Land Commission, though I have struck hard at them, that the problems facing us are big ones. They must be faced up to and the Land Commission should not be afraid of attacking the estates bought by telephone by Indian princes and maharajahs of all types. I would like a good man with 300 acres to be allowed to keep that land. Such a man must work in order to keep that land. He is not a man who will be skedaddling around the country to every race-and dog-track. But the people who own the large estates never see their land at all, even though they may live in a mansion within the estate. They have stewards and assistant stewards. The man living on 300 acres will need no steward. He will not be a man who can afford to take time off. I tell the Land Commission not to delay about this matter any further. If the Minister has not the money, let him come to the House and we will give it to him in order that proper land resettlement may be carried out and that our country may be stocked by people living in happiness and working in the interests of Ireland.

Mr. Maguire

The burden of the debate on this Estimate has veered very strongly towards the question of the division and the sub-division of land. Much emphasis has been placed on the apparent neglect of the congested areas in the West. It is a difficult problem to find land to meet the reasonable requirements of all the people in Ireland who are applicants and who can show good and justifiable reasons why they should be considered. All applications for land cannot be met since the acreage available is limited. I suggest the position could be alleviated somewhat by an alteration of the present policy in relation to the acquisition of land for forestry purposes. A good deal of the land taken over for forestry could be rendered suitable for agricultural production, if well prepared, drained and manured. Many such areas have in the past maintained quite a dense population at a time when the cultivation of land was nothing like as scientific as it is to-day. If that land could be put into proper condition, surface drained and fenced, many people would be prepared to work it rather than migrate or emigrate.

I think the Minister realises that the anxiety to procure land for afforestation is in excess of reason. Down in my own county, the Forestry Branch took over a large tract of land. Representations were made to the Minister and, so impressed was he by the case made in support of utilising that land for agricultural purposes, that he insisted upon the Land Commission resuming the land for the enlargement of uneconomic holdings in the area. Seeing that the Minister himself has had experience of that inordinate desire on the part of the Forestry Branch to acquire land, thereby taking it out of agricultural production, I suggest that he should go further and insist on the exercise of greater caution in the taking over of land for afforestation, land which can be used for agricultural production.

The experts of the Department of Agriculture are available to advise in that respect. They are also available to advise the farmers in the different areas as to the best method of utilising second class and third class land for agricultural production. That would be a much cheaper policy to implement than the present policy of wholesale migration from one area to another. Since there is not enough land available to meet the requirements of all the people, the present unsatisfactory position can, I suggest, be alleviated to a great extent by putting this poorer land into good heart and making it fit for agricultural production. I speak with personal knowledge and practical experience of the lands in question.

There is another matter which I should mention at this juncture. Many smallholders are living in very poor circumstances — families where the fathers are dead, where there are only a few girls or perhaps aged people unable to use the land to its best advantage. They have not the necessary funds with which to provide themselves with proper living accommodation. They are not numerous, but there are a few in practically every district. The Land Commission should step in and provide these people with suitable houses, making the houses a charge upon the lands. I see no reason why that scheme should not be put into operation. The labourer is entitled to a cottage at the expense of the ratepayers; the farmer, who is in reasonable circumstances, can get substantial grants; and even the business man and the professional man are catered for. These people to whom I refer, living in the most pitiable conditions, have no one to come to their rescue. I think the Land Commission should step in. They control the lands and they are the best people to handle the situation. It is in that spirit I make the recommendation.

Listening to the points of view expressed in relation to migration, one realises that the Minister is faced with a very difficult task, because every speaker speaks with his own interest in view. The views expressed are, indeed, very contradictory. We had Deputy James Tully here this evening talking about the congestion in his area and saying that it was not right to bring in outsiders. Who are outsiders? I suggest to Deputy Tully that, if he studies the record and the heritage of the people he has in mind in County Meath, he will find that their title is very, very short indeed as compared with the title of those who come from the West of Ireland.

Nobody has a claim to the land of this country. The fact that one lives on a farm does not mean that one is the owner of that land. No man has an absolute ownership to land. It belongs to the State.

Mr. Blowick

I could not agree with that.

Mr. Maguire

What is wrong with it?

Mr. Blowick

The Deputy is looking for my concurrence in something he has said, and I am not giving it.

Mr. Maguire

The Minister is not very generous in many respects. As a Christian Minister for Lands, he should know that it is the law of the Church as defined by the bishops that no person has absolute ownership in land. It is given by God to the State to be used for the needs of the people and no man has an absolute right to it in the same way as he has to the suit of clothes he wears or the pair of boots on his feet. It is to be maintained from generation to generation and used for the benefit of the nation only. Therefore, no man living in a particular county has any greater claim to the land in that county than the man living in some other part of the country. It belongs to the nation. No individual claim exists, and the fact that a man lives in closer proximity to land than others living some miles away does not give him a greater claim to that land. The Minister should know these elementary things, seeing that he is in charge of such a responsible office. He should know and there should be some test applied to men in your position——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

In the Minister's position.

Mr. Maguire

——to you, anyway, to see that you have some qualification for filling the job you have, as otherwise you will not shoulder your responsibilities in a proper way and in a Christian manner. Again and again, I had cause to complain about these things. I asked the Minister some time ago to give me the figures as to the number of migrants taken from each county over the period during which he was in office, and he refused to give me this information. He said I was trying to create bad feeling and unpleasantness between the different counties.

I would draw the Minister's attention to a diagram that he has on the wall of this building—a map showing the conditions in parts of Mayo two or three years ago and the conditions today, since his new scheme of readjustment of farms has taken place. Undoubtedly, there is a great improvement there and the Minister must be complimented on it; but, by way of contrast with the improved conditions in Mayo, he shows us another country, Switzerland, where similar sized farms still remain the same.

Mr. Blowick

I showed a rearrangement scheme in Ireland and a rearrangement scheme in Switzerland.

Mr. Maguire

A rearrangement scheme in Mayo—that was the only county I saw. I would ask the Minister to learn that the whole of Ireland is one unit and that Mayo does not constitute the whole of the country.

Mr. Blowick

I must learn that. It is a most profound piece of learning.

Mr. Maguire

Why not show, side by side with Mayo, what is being done in every other county, instead of giving us a contrast with Switzerland and leaving out neighbouring counties for which the Minister has done nothing? That is the most vexatious, nonsensical and idiotic thing that could be done by any man with any sense of responsibility in any country.

The Minister has refused to give the information which it is his duty to give. He has no right to withhold information about the spending of public money. The Minister is not the owner of the money, no more than he is the owner of any farm of land, although he thought he was. The Minister now thinks he can use public money for the individual interests of Mayo and to his advantage, as far as he may seek to get advantage from the work done. I give the Minister credit for effecting a big improvement in Mayo. Occasionally when I take up a paper, I am met with a photograph showing a number of migrants being taken at the expense of the Land Commission to some place in the Midlands. Nearly always they are Mayo men. There is not a man from the West of Ireland who has spoken here this evening who has not condemned the Minister and the Minister's system because it is an outrageous reflection that the Minister should concentrate public money to the benefit of the people of Mayo and to the disadvantage of other counties.

Mr. Blowick

That statement is not correct.

Mr. Maguire

Did the Minister not refuse to answer the question I submitted to him to give me figures in regard to migration and the amount of public money spent in other counties besides Mayo? Why did the Minister not give me the figures I asked for? Is he not the Minister in charge of lands? I am entitled to know what he intends to do with public money in respect of his Department. The fact is that we have reached a position where something must be done to stop this abuse and squandering—I will go as far as saying misappropriation—of public moneys in so far as the Minister has refused to give a public account of this expenditure in this House to which he is responsible. There must be some reason why the Minister is withholding these figures.

Deputies from the congested areas know that nothing has been done by the Minister to improve their lot. I have no desire to be unpleasant to the Minister. He is a nice, cheerful man, with good intentions, but his attitude in his capacity as Minister for Lands is something that is intolerable. Again, I ask him could he tell me what are his plans for migration, if any, for people from the West of Ireland, county by county? There is no use telling me that it will create disturbed minds and bitter feelings if he gives me figures for any county in the West of Ireland.

Mr. Blowick

The reason I cannot give the Deputy figures out of my head is that I am not a prophet. I am just an ordinary individual like anybody else and I have no powers of prophecy.

Mr. Maguire

The Minister is two years in office now and surely he must know what he has done in the last two years?

Mr. Blowick

I will give the Deputy any figures he wants in regard to work which has been done.

Mr. Maguire

The Minister must surely have some indication of what he is going to do in the future? One does not commence work without a plan.

Mr. Blowick

Our plan is to relieve congestion; but how many tenants will accept what we will offer them next year is something I cannot tell the Deputy.

Mr. Maguire

That is no answer at all.

Mr. Blowick

The Deputy will have to do with it.

Mr. Maguire

There should be a degree of broad-mindedness and frankness, but I am afraid the Minister has not measured up to that. There is no use in answering me with a short, quick, witty answer——

Mr. Blowick

It is not a witty answer.

Mr. Maguire

It is not an answer to my question.

Mr. Blowick

It is not intended to be witty; it was intended to be the truth.

Mr. Maguire

My question was a clear and direct question and it should receive a similar answer. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of applications coming in to the Land Commission year after year for exchange of holdings, migration or otherwise. These people have their plans to make for their future and the Land Commission should be able to say to these people when they make application: "Our commitments at present will not allow of your being dealt with in the next 12 months or two years." Let them make their own provision if they wish to remain on; but to refuse to say in advance that there is no prospect of dealing with them is not the proper way of dealing with people planning for their future.

The Minister's method is not conducive to any hope and I do not see there is much we can do about it. It has reached an intolerable position. We in the West will have our duty to do and I, for one, will take the opportunity of telling the people in my constituency that I can see no prespect for an improvement in, or an amelioration of, their condition. If they tell me that they see other people being migrated, I will say that I have done my best, that I have spoken to the Minister about it and all I can say is: "Get busy and see that that Department is properly managed and is run in the future on a more just and equitable basis than it has been in the past." I will tell them the circumstances and let them judge.

From a selfish point of view, this may react very favourably on the Minister in regard to his own constituency; but in a general way there will be a reflection on the Government because the Government are ultimately responsible for the Minister's action. That being so, there is a responsibility on the Minister to let the people in the congested areas know what their prospects of migration are. I definitely assert that the bulk of migration in the past two years has been from Mayo. I would say that there were not five migrants from County Leitrim in those two years, and the need for migration there is just as great as it is in Mayo.

From what I hear stated here by the Meath Deputies, migration is still alive and going strong. I thought it had ceased; but it is going on steadily in a big way. I would ask the Minister to be more careful and more tolerant in his manner of dealing with these affairs, and not to consider that Mayo is the one and only county that has to be dealt with. Deputy Giles stated that the migrants who came from the West of Ireland were a credit to the part of the country they came from, that they were doing great work and showed an example to the people in the area to which they were migrated. He mentioned other estates there of sizes ranging from 300 to 3,000 acres that had been bought by foreigners and used by them for the purpose of ranching, and said that side by side with those were a number of congested farmers who badly needed land. That is an extraordinary statement and one to which I am sure the Minister will reply when he is concluding the debate. If that statement is correct, it will have a very disturbing effect on many farmers who are content to carry on as best they can if they feel that no land is available but who, if they hear that land to which they have a claim is being bought up by foreigners and used by them for the purpose of making money, while they themselves are in an extreme state of need, will demand that strong measures be taken to combat that and bring it to a close.

Quite a number of farms of moderate size and otherwise have been offered to the Land Commission by farmers in Leitrim, who are becoming tired of the constant struggle, who despair of the future and are emigrating. They have offered their land to the Land Commission and while there are many small-holders in the area who would gladly avail of portion of this land the Land Commission have made no attempt to acquire it. Consequently the land is left vacant because the farmer leaves it and the adjoining holders are deprived of its use. Where land is offered for sale to the Land Commission and where there are suitable holdings around it, or, if not immediately around it, not far distant, it should be availed of, and all the land in the country, first, second, third and fourth quality land, should, as far as possible, be put into production. It can be kept in production if there is somebody in charge of it and responsible for it. It will not be in production if it is left derelict, and that is what has been happening in recent years in respect of a great many farms in Leitrim of which I am aware. The Land Commission have failed to acquire these lands and utilise them for the natural purpose for which they should be used.

Some remarks were made by Deputy Tully about the unsuitability of people brought in to farms and he wondered why they were brought in at all. They are brought in, I suppose, because they are entitled to be brought in. But if the farmers of Meath were the energetic and capable people they should be, there would be no need for anybody to come in. As a matter of fact, down through the years and long before the Land Commission started the division of land at all, these farmers were unable to carry on their business and run their farms, without the assistance of the migratory labour from the West of Ireland. Even without the division of land at all, these people were unable to do their work and had to take advantage of migratory labour at harvest time and during other periods, and these people from the West of Ireland did that work. It is only natural that, when land is available on these farms on which they worked, it should be offered to them. If Deputy Tully thinks that he and his people in Meath require the land, I would remind him they showed bad example down through the years in not cultivating it as they should have, and whatever cultivation was done was achieved by the labour and the energy and knowledge of the western holders.

Let me say, in a general way, that Mayo and the Land Commission now seem to be synonymous. Indeed, the Mayo people and the land of the Republic are synonymous. As far as we can see, over the past few years, land is taken to be synonymous with Mayo. That state of affairs is morally wrong and cannot be tolerated. It is the duty of the Government to see that whoever is responsible for this misappropriation of public funds is brought to book and that ordinary decent administration is put into operation. In spite of the individual interests that I may have in my constituency of Sligo-Leitrim, or that any other Deputies may have in their constituencies, let us have justice and honesty, so that whatever decisions are arrived at will be in the interests of the community as a whole.

Mr. S. Flanagan

Some time ago, when speaking on this Estimate, I said publicly that I thought the Land Commission had failed hopelessly in the performance of their task and that they should hand in their gun. I suppose that I said that at the time out of interest in the solution of the problem that was given to the Land Commission in 1923, in succession to the Congested Districts Board, and because of our failure as a Legislature to bring this problem sufficiently near a solution as to see the time coming when the Land Commission would no longer be necessary. However, I feel now that, the problems being still there, the necessity for having some body to solve them being still there, the Land Commission should be given another chance.

I feel that in some respects the fault lay with the Legislature in not giving the Land Commission in 1923 sufficiently clear directions as to the scope and nature of the problems which they had to solve, and that, at the time when the Land Commission was reconstituted, the Land Commissioners should have been obliged to undertake a proper survey of all the requirements; that they should have been obliged to obtain the number of congested holdings that needed enlarging, the area and valuations of the holdings that would have to be acquired by them for such a purpose; the area and valuations of untenanted land and the area and valuation of land retained under the 1923 Act or other land available for the relief of congestion or other purposes. It is an extraordinary thing that even now there appear to be no data in the hands of the commission relating to these basic questions and problems which we are here to solve.

As a result of the many opportunities for acquiring untenanted lands which were missed up to the time after the last war when outsiders with big money, and people in this country with big money, rushed into the market for untenanted land and took away the Land Commission's monopoly, there was a system of fixing prices which was said during the Minister's first period in office to be no longer applicable. It was in the light of circumstances that arose with regard to the rush for untenanted land after the last war that the Minister found it necessary to introduce the 1950 Land Act. One of the results of that Act was that the Land Commission was given power to bid for land up to a certain value. It is most disappointing to the people in the West of Ireland and elsewhere that the Land Commission had been so very sparing in the use of the powers that were conferred on them by that 1950 Act. Indeed, so far as this aspect of the matter is concerned, Deputy Maguire was certainly completely wrong in saying that the Land Commission was run for the benefit of the people of Mayo. As regards land acquired by the Land Commission by public auction, nothing has been done for the benefit of Mayo or anywhere else. No effort is made to use the powers conferred in the 1950 Act.

I should like to know from the Minister whether it is proposed to extend those powers or whether he proposes to try to get the Land Commission to use those powers more frequently in future, particularly at a time when there are hundreds of holdings throughout the country which have become vacant and which are lying idle and unproductive, remembering it is a basic principle of the policy of the Clann na Talmhan Party to which the Minister belongs that the land should be put into maximum production. In his own constituency the Minister should know that there are areas——

Mr. Donnellan

It is yours.

Mr. S. Flanagan

If the Parliamentary Secretary is going to continue like that, a Cheann Comhairle, I must ask for your protection. I am trying to make a speech——

Mr. Blowick

You always wanted that.

Mr. Donnellan

You are not on the touch-line now.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Flanagan will get the protection of Standing Orders just as every other Deputy will.

Mr. S. Flanagan

I want to get through to the Minister the fact that, in his constituency and in mine, there are large areas where lands are completely untenanted and where the people have locked up their houses and gone away to England or America. It is bad enough that the lands themselves are unused, but it is even worse that taxpayers' and ratepayers' money which has gone into the erection of new houses and the reconstruction of houses and farm buildings, and so forth, should be completely wasted when these houses and out-buildings are allowed to deteriorate, as they do very rapidly when left untenanted, and when this land and these buildings which have cost the people so much are allowed to go into a state of disrepair and ruin while the Land Commission sits idly by. I do not have to tell the Minister the areas concerned in his own county, but, being a man of the people and a sensible person——

Mr. Donnellan

As he is. He knows it all.

Mr. S. Flanagan

——he will realise the amount that we are losing through the fact that these lands are being left there idle at a time when the need for increased agricultural production is greater than it ever was in the history of the State.

The present Minister for Lands is not to be blamed in any way for the fact that the standard economic holding, in the opinion of the Land Commission, is placed at a valuation of approximately £10. It is possible that in 1923, or even in 1933, that was a good-enough target, and, in any event, the Land Commission had to have some target. It was felt at the time—reasonably, I think—that a valuation of £10 would represent a proper basis to go on for the purpose of deciding what was an economic holding. I submit that time has passed and that we should concentrate in future on a standard holding of £20 valuation. Judging by the way in which the people are leaving the land of this country at present, I believe it would be possible to concentrate on this without very great effort by the Land Commission because the holdings will be there, and certainly, in many areas in the West of Ireland, they are already there. It is a sad thing, as I say, that these should be left vacant and that, when many of them, as they do from time to time, go up for sale, the Land Commission either do not have the power, or do not use the power they have, to purchase the lands in what is certainly the quickest way they will get land—that is in the open market by public auction.

I have several grievances with regard to my own county. I should like to refer the Minister back to a time in 1953 when questions were raised here about the division of the Nally Estate in Mayo. There was an interesting adjournment debate at the time during which the Minister, then Deputy Blowick, made various interesting statements about Deputy Michael Moran and myself. In the course of his statement at that time —I am quoting from Volume 141, column 1458—the then Deputy said:—

"The Land Commission have statutory powers to acquire and resume land for the relief of congestion. Under the 1950 Act, they have power to buy land for the relief of congestion. These Acts, and particularly the 1923 Act, oblige the Land Commission to dispose of any lands on their hands with the minimum of delay. In other words, they are not allowed to purchase land and hold it in their hands for the purpose of taking in grazing rents and of making money for the Department of Finance at the public expense. I know, of course, that the Minister cannot interfere statutorily with the Land Commission in certain matters which are clearly set out, but he should keep an eye on the Land Commission, as a whole, to see that the law is not violated, either by omission or commission. I say that it is entirely wrong for the Land Commission to take land and hold it indefinitely, thereby securing such huge amounts in grazing rents —almost £3,000 in approximately two and a half years.

"The Land Commission took possession of that farm about mid-March, 1951, shortly before the change of Government ..."

As I said, that was in July, 1953, and very nearly three years have since elapsed, for two of which Deputy Blowick has been Minister for Lands. He has therefore been in charge of the Department while extra grazing rents were being taken in. Deputy Derrig, who was Minister at the time, pointed out that, in fact, the Land Commission had not made any such profit out of the Nally Estate and that they had a relatively small profit on their outgoings on the rents and other things they got in. The fact is that three years have since elapsed, during which no further progress has been made towards the division of these lands.

If the Minister was sincere about what he was saying as a Deputy in 1953, he had his opportunity during the past two years to push his Department to see that this estate was divided. He is perfectly well aware that the local people are dissatisfied that the Land Commission should let out these lands in conacre and grazing for the past three years, in addition to the two and a half years during which Deputy Blowick was complaining about the situation in 1953. One is bound to have some misgivings as to what is going on in the background when one gets nothing by way of concrete information, either from the Land Commission or the Minister, with regard to the proposals of the Department in respect of the division of this estate. We on this side of the House will certainly watch the development of the situation with regard to the Nally estate very carefully and will oppose any attempt on the part of the Minister to interfere with the Land Commission in the way we have very good reason to believe he did before.

Mr. Donnellan

For instance?

Mr. S. Flanagan

We hope that, when this estate is divided, it will be equitably divided.

Mr. Donnellan

For instance?

Mr. S. Flanagan

In regard to the Tooronin estate, that was another estate about which the Minister himself raised a question when he was a Deputy some three years ago and which has been divided since he came into office. He is perfectly well aware of the case of a man with a very large family who was living adjacent to some of the lands which were left vacant after the four tenants were migrated.

An Ceann Comhairle

I do not think the Minister is responsible for the selection of allottees. That is purely a matter for the Land Commission. Neither is he responsible in the matter of the particular lands to be acquired.

Mr. S. Flanagan

He is not supposed to be, I agree, but there are grave doubts in the minds of many whether the Minister has not succeeded in interfering with the Land Commission in connection with some of these estates.

Mr. Donnellan

That is in the Deputy's mind.

Mr. S. Flanagan

The Minister would be quite capable of so attempting to interfere and cut out people who, to ordinary lay people, appear to have much more valid claims than some of those whose claims have been recognised. If the Minister wants to get examples of the type of behaviour I am speaking about, he will get plenty.

An Ceann Comhairle

I have already ruled that the selection of allottees is not a matter for the Minister, nor is the Minister responsible in the matter of the particular lands to be acquired.

Mr. Blowick

The Deputy knows that except——

Mr. Donnellan

Bring in Deputy Moran.

An Ceann Comhairle

Deputy Flanagan, on the Estimate.

Mr. S. Flanagan

I am perfectly well aware of what the position is and I am warning the Minister that, when this estate in particular is divided, we will watch very carefully for any signs of his attempting to interfere in the way he has done before and which I can prove he has done before.

Mr. Donnellan

It is breaking the Deputy's heart.

Mr. S. Flanagan

Another matter to which I wanted to refer was the question of people being put to cost as a result of minor mistakes made by the Land Commission—mistakes which are quite understandable in regard to very complicated matters such as the rearrangement of estates. It has happened in my experience in a few cases that, as a result of mistakes made in the identification of parcels of land which people were given on the rearrangement of estates, some tenants found years afterwards they were not recorded officially as being in occupation of the holdings which in fact had been allotted to them. It has happened in my experience in a few cases that they have had to make representations to the Land Commission with a view to having the mistakes rectified and the holdings which in fact belong to them duly and properly recorded in the Land Commission as being theirs.

In my experience, the Land Commission have refused to pay the costs involved by these people in having these mistakes rectified. There is no fault to be found with anybody in regard to these mistakes, but I feel that the individual tenant should not be responsible for any cost or expenses he incurs in having himself duly noted as the owner of the lands which in fact he was allotted. It is unfair to him that the Land Commission should not bear the cost of rectifying the mistakes which were theirs originally.

Another matter referred to before was the scandal about the present price of land bonds and the fact that people whose lands have been sold to the Land Commission are forced to accept four-fifths of the value which the State agreed to give them for their lands. As somebody pointed out, this can amount to £1,000 or £2,000, depending upon the value of the lands acquired. I believe that is shameful behaviour which would not be tolerated, unless it had the backing of a Government Department behind it.

Another matter is one which is more a matter of evidence than anything else, but it shows the power given under this system to the Land Commission and courts, whereby, when an appeal is heard as to the value of land, the evidence given consists of the evidence of an auctioneer on behalf of the appellant, the person whose land is being taken, but no evidence is offered by the Land Commission. The only way in which the auctioneer's evidence on behalf of the appellant is questioned is by cross-examination by counsel in the court. I claim, and I have always thought, that, when the Land Commission do not bring in evidence on their own account and submit it to the court, the court should be bound to accept only the evidence before it.

An Ceann Comhairle

I understand that the Land Court has the status of the High Court.

Mr. S. Flanagan

It has, Sir.

An Ceann Comhairle

And no proceedings of the High Court may be canvassed here.

Mr. S. Flanagan

I am not canvassing them, a Cheann Comhairle. I am merely pointing out that peculiar situation which arises—and perhaps other barristers here in the Dáil may support me in this—whereby the only evidence given in that court about value of land is evidence given by the auctióneer on behalf of the appellant.

Mr. Blowick

That is not true at all.

An Ceann Comhairle

I am not concerned with whether it is true or not.

Mr. Blowick

For a legal man, the Deputy is showing a deplorable lack of appreciation of what is happening in the Land Court.

Mr. S. Flanagan

It very often is true.

An Ceann Comhairle

I am not concerned with that. What I am concerned with is decisions of a court being discussed here, which is never right.

Mr. S. Flanagan

It very often is.

An Ceann Comhairle

A decision of a court?

Mr. S. Flanagan

No. It very often is true that the only evidence is by the auctioneer on behalf of the appellant. I am aware personally of cases in which it happened.

Mr. Blowick

The whole court procedure has been changed.

Mr. S. Flanagan

I am aware personally of cases where the only evidence was by an auctioneer on behalf of the appellant. However, I am only speaking of cases of which I have personal knowledge, and it may not be standard procedure, but it is a matter I would ask the Minister to look into.

Another matter which I should like to ask the Minister is if it is still the policy of the Land Commission not to give land to a person living with his family on a holding where he does not have a separate dwelling-house of his own. I am speaking of a case where a father, a householder, secures a small holding of land, maybe ten acres, and puts down his son's name, but the son remains in residence with his father. I understand that the policy of the Land Commission always has been that the son or any other person is not recognised as being qualified to get an addition or an exchange of holdings unless he has his own separate dwelling-house on the land, in which event he will be recognised. I should like to know if that is still the policy of the Land Commission, because I consider it should be, and I have some reasonable belief that there may be some cases where it has been departed from. God knows, the problems of the Land Commission are difficult enough without allowing this chicanery, which is all it would be, to enable people to get away with dividing land like this and creating more problems.

There are a lot of other matters of one kind or another which arise in this debate, but many of them have already been touched on, and I do not wish to go over the ground again, but I do want to say to Deputy Maguire and other people who say that County Mayo is getting too large a share that at all times the problems there were more acute and complex than in any other county, and at all times, whether Fianna Fáil or the present Government were in power, the number of holdings rearranged in County Mayo would have exceeded the number in any other county, for the simple reason that the problems there were more complex and greater in number than anywhere else. I am not afraid to support the present Minister in saying that I do not think for a moment that he is administering his Department solely for the benefit of the people down in County Mayo. I wish there were a Department that would administer it solely for our county, but my grievance against the Minister and against successive Ministers for Lands and the Land Commission is that the problems we had when the Land Commission was reconstituted in 1923 in Mayo very largely subsist to the present day, and that our attitude at the present time to those problems is that the Land Commission will last for ever and, just like the poor, will always remain with us.

The conception originally was that the Land Commission was a temporary organisation set up to relieve certain problems, to deal with and finish with congestion, and that, when that part of their work had been completed, they would be disbanded. I do not think we can say, without blaming the Land Commission or otherwise, that we are in any way nearer to the solution of the problem of congestion in the West of Ireland than we were 20 or 30 years ago. Fine strides have been made in the matter of rearrangement on some estates like Kilvine, and the Land Commission local officials are to be congratulated on the work they have done. If they speed up the division of the Nally holding, perhaps another milestone will be passed in the progress of the Land Commission in the area.

All this time land has been left vacant and untenanted, unproductive, and it is vital for the economy of the country that we should acquire these lands with the minimum of delay and divide them up into, if possible, economic holdings of £20 rather than £10 valuation, and in that way give an incentive to the young people to remain at home and to put the land of the country into production for the benefit of the country, as well, of course, as of themselves. In that respect, it is hard to ask for greater powers, but it seems a pity that some of the best land in the country is being absolutely wasted, while small tenants in my county, and particularly in certain parts of it, who are crying out for land and still being asked to live on nine or ten acres of rock and scrub, are denied the opportunity of having even a £5 valuation holding, never mind a £10 or £20 valuation, while other people are making no reasonable attempt to produce a livelihood for themselves or a future for the country from some of the best land we have, not too far away from the unfortuate people I am talking about.

I am hoping that, in the near future, we will tackle the solution of these problems with greater vigour than we have ever shown before, because, if we do not do it, still more of these people will be lost to us, and our County Mayo in particular, which has already lost so much in emigration, will lose even more heavily in the future.

Mr. Lindsay

I suppose that the Department of Lands is the one Department in this country where Deputies of all shades of opinion seem to find an outlet for grievances that seem to irritate them annually. Before going into the main portion of the speech I intend to make on this Estimate, I want to refer to the last Deputy's references to the Appeal Tribunal and its procedure. Up to little less than a year ago, what Deputy Flanagan has just described in relation to the procedure on evidence was in fact the practice. Last year, speaking on this same Estimate, I made the point which Deputy Flanagan has made to-day, that the court should act on evidence before it, and, that being so, of course, should act on the evidence of the valuer for the appellant against the price offered by the Land Commission.

Since then—I can never make up my mind whether it was due to any point made during the debate on the Estimate last year or to a particular case in which the point was made by myself actually in the Appeal Tribunal that the tribunal would have to act on the evidence before it and nothing else— the Land Commission, I am glad to say, have altered the practice. Now the position is that the Land Commission put up evidence of value on their side after the valuers for the appellant against price have given their evidence. It is true, of course, that the evidence that is put up by the Land Commission's is the evidence of the Land Commission's inspectors and it is arguable whether they can give evidence as valuers or not.

Mr. S. Flanagan

Is the Deputy satisfied that that is auctioneers' evidence?

Mr. Lindsay

I am coming to that. As I say, it is arguable as to whether the evidence of a Land Commission inspector would be regarded as evidence on valuation by somebody competent to judge. On the one hand, of course, the Land Commission inspector has certain fixed duties and included in those duties is the picking up of the ordinary knowledge that one picks up in the course of one's business and profession and that would include, in their case, attendance at auctions and the study of prices at auctions. The Land Commission inspectors are very closely in touch with the sale of lands and, if they know their business at all, and I am quite certain that they do, they must have some knowledge as to the correct valuation of lands. Until somebody successfully challenges the valuation qualifications of Land Commission inspectors, I am quite satisfied that the procedure now is certainly much better than it was hitherto and, I think, much more satisfactory.

Mr. S. Flanagan

Does the Deputy think it is ultimately satisfactory?

Mr. Lindsay

I am prepared, as a practitioner in the Appeal Tribunal, to give the present practice a fair chance, having regard to the fact that for so many years there was no evidence at all and now, for less than a year, we have been having that evidence. I think it should get a fair trial. That trial will best be judged on the prices obtaining as a result and it gives the tribunal a better chance of being able to decide between two figures.

So much for the Appeal Tribunal. As I am on that point, I think that possibly, from the point of view of policy, the Land Commission could do a little speeding-up between the first visit of the inspector to the lands, the notices to acquire, the actual hearing of the acquisition proceedings, the ultimate appeal against price and the decision of the Land Commission to take the lands at the price fixed, or otherwise. The time spent in that process is somewhat too long. There are isolated cases, of course, and there will be cases of that kind, where delay is unavoidable but there are other cases, I am sure, where the matter could be speeded up somewhat because upon that speed depends to a very great extent how the local Land Commission inspectors can pursue their work, particularly if they are waiting for, say, two or three holdings, one after another, in order to have an effective resettlement scheme. The delay impedes their work considerably and subjects the local inspector to a considerable amount of trouble from people who hope to get land on the ultimate resettlement and, I am sure, to a considerable amount of trouble from public representatives who keep harassing them.

Another suggestion that I would venture to offer to the Land Commission is that, when they are refencing or restriping or striping for the first time any village or place, or building roads, they should make these roads wide enough, at least wider than they have been made in the past, and take steps to improve roads which have been made on the narrow side in villages where their work has not been completed.

I am extremely interested in a scheme in my constituency that was started by the Land Commission as far back as 1931, in Ballygarwan in Ballycroy, where a completely new village was created in valleys between the mountains on the North of Mulranny, on the Ballycroy side of Blacksod Bay. The people there seem to have benefited considerably, both from the capacity to till what was made tillable for them and the fine outlet that there is from these holdings.

The Land Commission have in hands in my constituency, as I am sure they have in other constituencies, vast areas of such land, of the character of mountain slopes, semi-arable, that could be made fertile and productive. I said last year in the debate on the corresponding Estimate, that the people before us did a considerable amount of reclamation with the ordinary three-rivet spade and I see no reason why heather-land and moorland adjacent to that reclaimed land could not now be done much faster with all the modern amenities that people have at their disposal.

In that way, in my view, particularly in the congested areas, there could be new villages created where people would have ample opportunity to work, to care and bring up live stock and to have that degree of independence that is so necessary to the ultimate wellbeing of a family.

I am inclined to think, from personal experience, in isolated cases only, I must say, that, when the Land Commission acquire lands, large tracts of land are kept too long in hands, particularly when there is no other land in the locality the acquisition of which the Land Commission have in view. There is an estate near Ballina, the Belleek estate, which has been acquired almost seven or eight years. I do not know the reason for the delay but there are in the area around Ballina many people who would work these lands to much better advantage for the district particularly, and for the country generally, than having them let from year to year to dairy people and graziers from Ballina town.

Of course, every year in this debate, some references are made to the migration of people from my county of Mayo to the lands of Meath and Kildare and such like richer counties. References are made to their unsuitability for such holdings. I have taken the trouble—and, indeed, "taken the trouble" is only a phrase, because it has been a pleasure — to visit these holdings and these people and to see how well they have done. However, it seems to be a feature on this Vote for Deputies, from the County of Meath in particular, to deem it a solemn obligation on them to the people of Meath to rail against the migrants who come in, so as to keep the "have-nots" on their side when they are doubtful about the "haves."

I deprecate very strongly the references by Deputy S. Flanagan to interference by the Minister with the Land Commission. As a lawyer, he should know that the Land Commission is a statutory body, and, as such, certainly ought not be interfered with and ought not allow any interference. From my short experience as a Deputy, and from previous experience of dealing with the Land Commission in another capacity, I am quite certain that interference in the allocation and the division of land must be a very rare occurrence. I should like to see approaches to Land Commission inspectors becoming more rare as time goes on. There can be nothing more degrading than to have a Deputy, a county councillor or some other public man visiting an area prior to the division of an estate or prior to the allocation of land, thereby giving the impression that whatever happens when the Land Commission inspector ultimately comes to divide the land it is as a result of that visit. There are many ways of doing it, but that is one way in which the faith of our people in our public service can be damaged, and damaged to a degree that some people do not seem to realise.

Mr. Blowick

I am sorry Deputy S. Flanagan is not here now to hear that.

Mr. Corry

How about Deputy Giles?

An Ceann Comhairle

Order! Deputy Lindsay.

Mr. Lindsay

I think the remarks I have just made can well apply to Deputies on all sides of the House. I am not applying them to the Opposition Deputies alone. I am stating it as a matter of principle and I think it is extremely important in the administration of the public service.

I have a proposition to make to Land Commission inspectors. I think it is reasonable and I hope they will accept it, so far as they can. If it is unreasonable, or if it will not fit into their scheme of things, I will certainly accept their rejection of my proposal, because I believe they know their business best, and particularly when it is fully explained to them. Reference has been made to derelict houses and lands. There are not very many of them, but there are some. It might not be a bad thing if the Land Commission directed their local men to pay some regard to derelict houses and lands— to take the necessary steps to have them acquired, or to find out if the owner is living somewhere else in the locality. It very often happens that old people, living without younger help, are brought to a neighbour's house, either in the same district or in the next village, and their land does not appear to be worked and very often ceases to be worked at all after a time.

The suggestion was made that a £10 valuation holding, which was regarded as an economic standard of holding, should be increased to a £20 valuation holding now. I do not know how people can make statements of that kind and not steel themselves to face the facts. This country is not as big as France or Germany, and, accordingly, it has not got the same amount of arable land to give holdings of £20 valuation to everyone who wants one. That type of statement will, however, go down well with unthinking people. They will say: "That is the man who would do the job properly if he were in control." The fact of the matter is that he is not in control and that it is very easy to make certain statements when you are not in control.

In my view, the legislation dealing with the Land Commission and land generally from 1923 to date is adequate and gives adequate powers. Some Deputies have asked that the Land Commission be given more power and direction and that their scope be defined. The ownership of land in this country has been closely identified with our national struggle and the proprietorship of land is a sacred thing. The Land Commission have very wisely, in a great many cases, not used the power they have and in other cases I have often been irritated because they have not used their powers. For instance, in the resettlement of a village, one man can hold up the whole show until some petty irritation has been removed either from his mind or from the resettlement scheme.

In my view, the administration is adequate. The Land Commission is doing its work. If there is any degree of slowness about the manner in which that work is being done, it is due to the fact that the Land Commission have not got enough men in the field. I have first-hand experience of the work being done by Land Commission inspectors. When we relate that work and the area in which they work to one man's capacity to survey, to visit villages, to travel, to come back and do the equivalent of office work, to make submissions to his next superior or to his headquarters, we should be very slow to criticise.

To sum up, I should like a direction, as a matter of policy, that roads will be of adequate width. I hope there will be more fencing, so that a village will not be left without fencing. Trouble can be caused later because of that. It can cause rows and spite and trespass actions. That type of trouble should not arise in a village and adequate fencing would lessen the occurrence of such trouble. I feel that the Land Commission should not keep lands too long and I respectfully ask that attention be paid to my suggestion for the reclamation of moorland adjacent to holdings already showing good productivity in the West of Ireland. The same would apply to other mountainous areas. In order that proper results may be obtained, the Land Commission and the Minister must be given the best of co-operation and every constructive suggestion that can be given from all sides of the House.

It was contemplated at the beginning that the Land Commission work would not go much beyond ten to 15 years. In the course of any business where planning problems arise, exceptions occur to delay the best-laid schemes. For that reason, we all make our suggestions in a constructive manner and play our full part to help the people who handle the legislative and administrative side of this Department. Above all, public men should avoid giving the impression to our people that men who deal conscientiously with our work can be brow-beaten, bribed or threatened. Let us try to put an end to all that practice throughout the country. Then we will probably be at the beginning, at any rate, of the journey towards the real Ireland, the Ireland the people envisaged long ago—the Ireland where men and women would play their full part as wage-earners and as workers, where merit would have its just reward and where political prejudices would not be allowed to retard progress.

Mr. Corry

I want, in the first place, to compliment the Land Commission on the manner in which they are doing their work. We were always led to believe that it took two generations to get anything done by the Land Commission. If you go to any member of the legal profession down the country you are immediately told: "Oh, that is above with the Land Commission. Sure, you know what they are." That was the first reply you got. I had occasion during the past few months to take up at least five or six different cases in regard to subdivision where the unfortunate men had been with solicitors who were pretending to do the work and not doing it and who blamed the Land Commission for the delays. I want to say that I found the officials courteous. They were able to get those cases fixed up in record time. I should like it to go out to the public generally that subdivision work in the ordinary way, going through the Land Commission at the present time, is done in three weeks. If it is not done in three weeks, it is because the lawyers whom the unfortunate client is paying are not doing their jobs.

It is just as well to make these things clear and let the public know them, because up to now the legal profession have turned the tables on the unfortunate officials and blamed them for their own negligence. Up to recently I was of that opinion. I am glad to say that most of the work in the subdivision department of the Land Commission has been done expeditiously and well. When it comes to the land registry afterwards, I find that the same speed and attention is present. I like to praise each bridge as I pass it.

In regard to the division of land, I should like to say that there are definite rules laid down for the guidance of the Land Commission in the division of holdings. I would suggest to the Minister that he would be doing a very good day's work if he put a copy of those rules in the hands of every Deputy. Who has first claim on a holding to be divided? Who comes second, who comes third and who comes in at the tail end? If Deputies were given that information, I think it would relieve a lot of misapprehension.

The first claim on any holding to be divided is held by the uneconomic holders in the vicinity of that farm or estate. The Minister's duty is to see that the claims of these uneconomic holders are satisfied before any outside people are brought into that land. I do not care where the land is, in what constituency it is. You will find surrounding those holdings to be divided a very large number of uneconomic holdings. I do not know where Deputy Flanagan here or the other legal gentleman, Deputy Lindsay, got their idea of the £10 valuation holding.

I have been in this House 29 years and I never heard of that line about a £10 valuation holding being regarded as an economic one in the eyes of the Land Commission. In my constituency, away back some 20 or 25 years ago, we maintained that when an estate was being divided any holding with a valuation under £18 was entitled to be included and its owner entitled to portion of the estate. That was the minimum laid down, and I can remember having had serious quarrels with the Land Commission because land in my area is valued at from 25/- to 30/- per statute acre. A very small holding indeed would be one with £18 valuation. I had tremendous sympathy with that last apostle of Fine Gael left in Deputy Giles' area who did not get an exchange holding. Deputy Giles did not make it clear who promised that man land. Was it the Land Commission?

Captain Giles

It was signed and arranged between the Land Commission and the man.

Mr. Corry

Was there an arrangement made between the Land Commission and the man?

Captain Giles

There was.

Mr. Corry

Why did he not get it?

Captain Giles

That is what I want to know.

Mr. Corry

The Deputy is very late in the field. Deputy Giles said the Fianna Fáil fellows were fixed up, but this poor devil, who took his car out and worked for Deputy Giles in the election, and who was told that he was going to get this farm after the election, was left there. I have terrible sympathy with that man.

Captain Giles

Before there was ever an election, four men were picked for farms. They were all turned down at that time. Subsequently, three Fianna Fáil men were fixed up. The other man was not fixed up.

Mr. Corry

I have great sympathy for the poor devil, after the petrol he used in the election and after he worked so hard for Deputy Giles. He has my sympathy and I suggest to the Minister that, since there is only this one poor farmer left in Deputy Giles's area who believes in Fine Gael, the least the Minister can do is give him the land.

Captain Giles

He is not a Fine Gael man at all. He does not bother about elections.

Mr. Corry

Did the Deputy not tell us that he is the only supporter the Deputy had left and, after promising him the farm, that the Deputy could not get him into it? It is very hard. I have a great deal of sympathy for him. I appeal to Deputy Blowick now, the Minister for Lands, to make that a special case and see if something cannot be done, even if the Minister has to take him up to Mayo—he is bringing so many of them down—and give him a bit of land up there, one of these estates about which there are complaints because they are not being divided.

Mr. Blowick

Anything can happen now that Deputy Corry has become tender-hearted.

Mr. Corry

I would even be satisfied to give him a bit of that 500 acre farm belonging to the Smiths at Finure which the Minister allowed an Englishman to buy in my constituency.

Mr. Blowick

Why does the Deputy not give him a bit of his own? I am told Deputy Corry has a very good farm.

Mr. Corry

I will guarantee to Deputy Giles and I will convert him—

Captain Giles

You look after your own and I will look after mine.

Mr. Corry

I would be as good as a missioner and I would convert Deputy Giles.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The question of conversion does not arise on the Estimate for the Department of Lands.

Mr. Corry

Down in my constituency a farm of 500 acres was put up for sale. The unfortunate people who had been evicted from that estate were living outside in Guileen in holdings of £5 valuation and £15 valuation, within three miles of this farm. But the Minister very coolly let that farm be sold to an Englishman who came over and bought it.

Mr. Blowick

And the Deputy was 19 years sitting beside his own Minister and he did nothing.

Mr. Corry

That farm of 500 acres was put up for sale, unfortunately for the tenants in the area. But, by Jove, I will see that it will be divided, I promise the Minister that.

Mr. Blowick

The Deputy will do everything now when he cannot do anything. The Deputy cannot do anything over there.

Mr. Corry

The point remains that Deputy Blowick——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister for Lands.

Mr. Corry

——the Minister for Lands was, I take it, specially picked for that office because he comes from a congested area and should appreciate the problem that exists of finding land for migrants and for uneconomic holders.

Mr. Blowick

Did the Deputy ever mention that to Deputy Moylan when he was Minister for Lands?

Mr. Corry

I went on three occasions to Deputy Blowick, Minister for Lands, and I asked five questions of him in connection with it.

Mr. Blowick

Why did the Deputy not go to his own man? He was sitting over here for 19 years.

Mr. Corry

It was Deputy Blowick who was Minister during the three years that this was happening and it was Deputy Blowick, Minister for Lands, who allowed an Englishman in. It was Deputy Blowick who was in charge of the Land Commission when the consent to the sale of that holding to that Englishman was given. Let us be clear on these things.

Mr. Blowick

That is an awful confession.

Mr. Corry

I do not know whether he was asleep, or lazy, but whatever he was doing, he was not there anyway.

Mr. Blowick

Did the Deputy know he had a Fianna Fáil Minister for Lands at all?

Mr. Corry

It is no good denying it. The land was put up for public auction and the moment it was put up for public auction the three Deputies in that constituency were called in by the unfortunate people whose families had previously been evicted out of it. Those three Deputies, irrespective of Party affiliations, came up here and called on the Minister and appealed to him. They brought him lists of the people whose ancestors were evicted out of this farm. Then we are told about the migrants. We are told about the people who have to flee the country because there is no land available. I have seen the officials of the Minister's Department down digging around an unfortunate Irishman who had 70 acres of land, trying to get him out in order to divide his land. But an Englishman can come in and get 500 acres with a poor law valuation of 30/- per acre. That will show the kind of land it is—land growing 28 to 30 tons of beet to the acre.(Interruptions.)

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order! Deputy Corry on the Vote.

Mr. Corry

Will the Minister try to conduct himself?

Mr. Blowick

The Deputy was 19 years over here and he did not even know he had a Minister for Lands.

Mr. Corry

I object to the Minister having this conversation. I suggest it is the Minister's job to listen when I am speaking. The Minister will have plenty of time to tell us all about these things when he is concluding. It is my job at the moment to put the case to the Minister. The last reply I got from him in relation to that holding was that, even if it had been sold, the Land Commission could take it over. But it was sold. The Englishman came in and he is still there.

Mr. Blowick

And Deputy Corry let him in.

Mr. Corry

God knows, we had trouble enough getting them out before without the Minister letting them in again.

Mr. Blowick

What the Deputy should do is resign and let somebody in who will manage the affairs of the county. Such a confession of failure.

Mr. Corry

I have stated what the position is. I should like now to deal with the Rosstellan estate. The Land Commission divided up that estate and built fences, leaving an unfinished road almost the breadth of this House. I have approached both the present Minister and his predecessor in connection with that road. The unfortunate tenants along that road are in the position that no lorry will go in there for milk; no lorry will go in there for beet and no lorry will go in there with artificial manures. But the tenants must pay their annuities to the Minister.

Mr. Blowick

Do they pay rates?

Mr. Corry

They certainly do.

Mr. Blowick

It is a wonder the Deputy did not get the Cork County Council to make an offer to us.

Mr. Corry

The Minister's head now is as grey as my own. The Minister is no baby. The Minister was a member of a local authority and he knows that a local authority cannot just go in and take over a road.

Mr. Blowick

Of course they can. We would have given £700 if the Cork County Council would put up so much.

Mr. Corry

There was an offer by the local authority that, if the road were put in a passable condition, they would take it over and maintain it afterwards. That offer was sent to the Minister's Department. The Minister has another Department—the Forestry Department—which is using portion of that road.

Mr. Blowick

And why not?

Mr. Corry

Why would the Minister not think that the Department of Lands is under some obligation to the unfortunate people they have put in there? The annuities are high enough and the poor law valuation is pretty high on it. The least they might have is a road.

It was not the Minister who was in office when the land was divided. I pressed his predecessor in connection with this and his predecessor before him again; but I must hold the Minister responsible to the people who are living there, and he must face up to that responsibility. That road is now in such a condition that nobody can travel it; it would even wreck a tractor. Unless the Minister is going to do something in connection with it, I will have to take steps to protect my constituents——

Mr. Blowick

The Deputy should have taken them long ago.

Mr. Corry

The first step will be to stop the annuities to the Minister. We will repair the roads with 12 months annuities. The Minister can work away then.

Mr. Blowick

Will the Deputy withold his own annuities?

Mr. Corry

The Deputy will do what he considers right at any time; and he never shirked showing the road.

Mr. Blowick

He will not withhold his own annuities.

Mr. Corry

He had not got people out in blue blouses while he was sitting down at his desk telling them what to do. Whenever I told anybody to do something, I showed them the road myself, and I took whatever knocks were coming out of it, either from the Tans or the Green and Tans. I do not want to import any heat into this. I am telling the Minister he has a definite responsibility to those people and I ask the Minister now to see that that road is put in proper condition. If the Minister would even fix up the road now, he would get rid of a very grave difficulty.

We passed special legislation in this House to enable the Minister to take over the Kilworth estate from the Department of Defence; but has our Land Commission gone to sleep on it? I suggest that the Minister, when he is considering the large number of congests alluded to by Deputy Maguire and the large number of congests in his own constituency and in other constituencies, should take a walk around the plains of Kildare and have a look at the Curragh. As I said, legislation has been passed to enable State lands to be taken over by the Land Commission for the purposes of division. I forced it through here as well as I could because I was interested in some 700 or 800 acres in Kilworth, Fermoy. The Minister for Finance assured me that they would be the subject of the first action to be taken under the new legislation.

What is the Land Commission doing since? I suggest that the Land Commission could very well get busy on that and carry out the legislation passed here. The Minister should take steps to take over the thousands of acres lying idle in the Curragh and Kildare and put the migrants from Mayo and Leitrim there. If he does that, he will get the blessing, not alone of the people of Mayo and Leitrim, but of the whole country. I can never pass through the Curragh—and it was particularly so during the emergency period—without a blush of shame at the Departments that were urging on the people the necessity to till their land when we had thousands of acres lying idle there. If the Minister, instead of taking that trip to Scandinavia, took a trip down to the Rosstellan road which I mentioned here, I can guarantee it would do him more good. The shaking up he would get going down there to see his forests would be good for him.

Mr. Blowick

Good for the liver!

Mr. Corry

I would be delighted to show him around for the day and to point out to him the number of matters his Department are responsible for and which they have entirely neglected.

Mr. Blowick

The Deputy is the soul of kindness.

Mr. Corry

It would be worth the Minister's while, if he did it, and it would be worth his while also if he took a few trips down to County Kildare, which is not so far away, and had a look at the land I am talking about. When he goes home, he could have a look around him and see the number of families living there in small uneconomic holdings and just picture how happy those people would be with 40 acres of the Curragh and a lovely house.

Mr. Blowick

When did the Deputy discover the Curragh was there? Was it since the inter-Party came in?

Mr. Corry

The poor unfortunate Minister, when he was a Deputy, did not come in to us at all. He did not know what was happening then. If he had been interested, he would have seen that I had asked about 35 questions in connection with the Curragh—

Mr. Blowick

The Deputy has great fun asking questions.

Mr. Corry

——but the Minister never bothered when he was a Deputy. Now he has to come in and sit in the corner. How far his responsibility goes, I do not know. Even yet, I have not heard from him that he is going to do the road. I am putting up a very constructive point to him: that we have legislation passed for the taking over of State lands and that the way is now clear. I am pointing out to him something I would be delighted to have pointed out to me, if I were in his boots.

In regard to the Rosstellan estate and the Finure estate, the Minister has the consent of the Land Commission; he has a good staff—

Mr. Blowick

It is up to the Deputy now to get the job done and I will help him out.

Mr. Corry

Two months ago, when I was in the Minister's Department, I asked him to deal with this, and there has been no move since.

Mr. Blowick

The Deputy is a member of the Cork County Council.

Mr. Corry

The Cork County Council will take over the road when the Minister puts it in proper order, and that is the Minister's job. I went down to the Minister's room and asked for even part of the cash and said that we would help him out. He would not agree to that.

The next point I wish to raise is in relation to portion of the Gaskell estate, Garryvoe. For some reason or another that no sane man could ever understand, when this estate was taken over by the Land Commission, there was a strip of land lying by the seashore that was left in the hands of the landlord. The landlord, as soon as he realised that the larger this became the more valuable it was for letting, that the more land that was under water there the more cash he would get every year as rent for it as a duck shoot, let the sluice gates governing the water coming out through that estate get into disrepair.

The complaints made by the tenants in that estate went unheeded. No demand was ever made by the Land Commission on that landlord to keep that sluice in proper repair, or to keep it open to let the water through. The result was that year after year that land deteriorated acre by acre, and went back into bog. It meant that the owner of that duck shoot was able to get an enhanced rent every year, due to the fact that there were more duck coming in and because more of the farmers' land had gone back to marsh and bog.

The poor law valuation per acre of all the land in the Gaskell estate is not less than 32/- a statute acre. On that land, those unfortunate people have to pay rates, which, with the combined assistance of the State and the guardians of the rates, are jumping up tremendously every year. In fact, these people will have to pay this year an increase of 5/2 in the £ or nearly 10/- an acre more for the bog. They have served notice on the county council that the lands are derelict, and that they are unable to till them. We all know how very dry the weather has been, but, when I went down to inspect those lands only last week, I found the potato furrows full of water. I came up here to contact the Minister for Local Government in this regard. He switched me on to the Minister for Lands who switched me on to somebody else. I wonder who is going to carry this baby, who is going to be responsible?

I hold that the Land Commission have a responsibility to the State in regard to the deterioration of land for which public money has been advanced. Public money was advanced for the purchase of those holdings. Surely there should be sufficient Land Acts passed now to enable the Land Commission to take over that strip lying outside those farms in Garryvoe. They ought to have power enough to compel the man who owns that strip to repair his sluice gates and keep them open and in such a condition that the water can leave the holdings. Is it that the Land Commission has got a feeling of laziness in this respect?

I have taken this matter up with the present Minister in the past two years. I took it up with our own Minister when he was in office and I also took it up with Deputy Blowick when he was previously Minister for Lands. We will hear many complaints later on when those tenants, in despair, decide on taking certain action themselves, but I think it is the Department's responsibility. They are not doing their job if they drive those tenants into taking this type of action. The Minister ought not to let to-morrow pass without taking steps to compel that landlord to keep the sluice gates in order and to keep them open. He has derived a fairly substantial income every year out of his duck pond.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Has the Minister any such power of compulsion?

Mr. Corry

Certainly. If not, what the dickens are they doing there and for what are we passing Land Acts here for the past 29 years if they have not got that power to protect the land that has been purchased by the money of the citizens of this country? There is no use in burking a question of that description. Let us get to work on it and see that it is done. I am tired of bringing it up here year after year and month after month, and asking questions here every three months about it and finding that nothing is done. I cannot see any reason why a man should pay an annuity for land which is constantly flooded for many years. That is the position that the farms of those people are getting into through pure, downright, damned neglect.

There are a few other matters with which I would like to deal. There are lying here and there throughout the country what we would call unfortunate holdings, holdings of which the tenants for some reason or other have been evicted. I suggest to the Land Commission that where reasonable offers have been or are made on behalf of the tenants in connection with those holdings, those offers should be accepted. It is always better to see land in production than derelict. I would like to know when was the last annuity received out of Mulcahys' of Gurranes, Carrantwohill. I know that the reverend parish priest of that parish wrote to the Land Commission some two or three years ago making a decent offer for the reinstatement of that tenant. Is it pure downright cussedness that makes the Land Commission say: "We would rather see the damn place there with the roof off the house", or what is wrong?

The same condition of affairs prevails in the Smith Barry estate at Watergrasshill from which a man named Murphy was evicted some years ago. That man's son, to my personal knowledge, is a good young lad who worked hard trying to scrape together a few pounds and he endeavoured to settle up with the Land Commission for that holding. I saw the offer made by the Land Commission to that unfortunate boy and it would not be made by a Jew. That holding is going to be left there a burden on the ratepayers and on the State. Surely there must be some common sense in the Department of Lands that would ensure that those holdings would be kept as short a time as possible in that condition and that some arrangement would be reached whenever a decent offer was made on behalf of the old tenant or the old tenant's family. One would think that an offer would be accepted and the matter straightened out and the land put into condition again.

I know that Mulcahys' farm at Gurranes has been in dispute in that manner for the last 15 or 16 years. I know it is 16 years since there was 5/- of annuity collected out of it despite the fact that the Land Commission put half a dozen grabbers into it from time to time. They came in and they went out, and quick, too. That holding is still there and I know that a meeting of the parish council was called in connection with it in order to stop the outrages that were being committed. I know that a decent offer was made some two or three years ago. Why is that land still there derelict?

Those are questions we would like to have answered. I should like to see a bit of common sense shown by the Land Commission so that these running sores around the country could be healed up as decently and as fairly as possible. I have done my part to heal quite a few of them. With an effort on our part here, let us see if we cannot heal the balance. To endeavour to grind out of existence young fellows who come up and make what I consider to be a very decent offer to the Land Commission will not help the situation. The suggestion made by the Land Commission in one of these cases would not have come from the worst rack-renting landlord in the country. I suggest that those two matters I have mentioned should be taken up, looked into and settled up. We are a peaceful people if we are left alone but God help the fellow that comes in to take anything from us. He will be in a bigger hurry out than he was in.

I dealt at the start of my remarks with the rules of the Land Commission and I pointed out that the first rule was that holders in the vicinity of a holding that was taken over should have first claim. That rule is not always observed by the Land Commission. I would not be the one to say that it was the Fianna Fáil Cumainn, the Fine Gael Cumainn or anybody else who came in and did it. I believe that the Land Commission are a fairly upright body of men who play fair so far as they can but as a matter of interest I mention the Creaghbarry estate at Leamlara where matters could be settled up very easily and decently for, in fact, two uneconomic holders at one stroke, but that was not done and those two uneconomic holders are left there.

We all know that it is only once in a generation that an opportunity arises for the clearing out of uneconomic holders in any district. The chance of purchasing a farm to make other holdings in the district economic occurs only once. If all the uneconomic holders in that area are not looked after then, they will never again get the opportunity of being looked after. Any uneconomic holding left uncared for then will be left for at least another generation, if the commission are ever able to get around to it.

I sincerely suggest that the Minister insist on the ruling of the Land Commission being observed in that respect. I do not think I am asking for too much in that. The rules are there, and, if they are not being observed, it is the Minister's duty to see that they are. A couple of years ago I interested myself in the question of the Flavin estate in Gortroe, near Youghal. We succeeded there, but only because the man who purchased that farm was a decent man. As soon as he found what the circumstances were, he pulled out.

I say it was the duty of the Land Commission, once they had served notice on the auctioneer and on the solicitors when they saw the place publicly advertised for auction, to see it was not sold. Their representative should have been present at the auction. It was unfair of them to allow an unfortunate man to come in and purchase the holding, not knowing the circumstances, and leave him holding the baby afterwards. However, thank God, that farm was eventually taken over by the Land Commission and it has relieved a large amount of congestion in that area. There is still pretty considerable congestion there.

This land lies between three and five miles from the town of Youghal. About 30 per cent. of every holding in that area is intensely cultivated, growing early potatoes, cabbages, beet; 90 per cent. of these holdings are under the plough. It is a pleasure for anybody who loves the land to go down and see the manner in which these holdings are worked. At the moment there is still another holding advertised for auction in that district. Notification has been sent to the Minister's Department in connection with that holding and I would suggest that he purchase it and end congestion in the district. If that farm goes, some 20 smallholders will be compelled to continue living on farms of five, six and seven acres. Now is the time, and I suggest the Minister should make his move.

There should be in every divisional inspector's office a map showing where there is congestion, so that, whenever a farm offers for sale, the commission could step in and purchase it. Difficulty is being met in that regard because of the purchase prices being paid in land bonds. I know because I came up against it in the Flavin estate. If a farm is put up for public auction to-morrow, the commissioners come in and put a valuation on it. That valuation later comes before the judicial commissioner on appeal, and he fixes the amount to be paid. I hold that the owner of the holding is entitled to get land bonds to the cash value put on the farm by the judicial commissioner, not bonds to the nominal value. If that system were adopted, there would be more peaceful taking over of a large number of holdings. If a man is offered £5,000 in land bonds for his place, he knows that these bonds are worth only £4,000. That is very largely the reason why that problem exists. If my system were adopted, legal expenses would be done away with in the purchase of these holdings. Of course, if there are any legal gentlemen in the Land Commission, they will want to look after their brothers outside and keep them working. If I might come back to the position in Kilworth——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy already referred at length to that question.

Mr. Corry

I want to deal now with another aspect of it; I want to deal with the aspect of the large number of people who are anxious to till that land. I would like to know why that land is being let on the 11 months' system.

Mr. Rooney

One minute to go.

Mr. Corry

I am not worried. If the Deputy is here to-morrow, he will have two more hours of me. I am only a quarter way through this job yet.

Mr. Blowick

The Deputy makes good fun.

Mr. Corry

If the Minister kept quiet, we would get along fine. He kept quiet a long time. He should know that interrupting me never paid anybody.

Mr. Blowick

It did not even pay the Deputy.

Mr. Corry

That is the position in Kilworth. I would suggest that the Minister should take immediate steps to see that these people who want to till that land will be allowed to do so.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on 7th June, 1956.