This Resolution is designed to introduce a new procedure where aliens purchase a house with land not in excess of five acres annexed thereto. Whatever the merits of this new procedure here envisaged are, I am quite clear in my mind that not-withstanding anything that has been said from the Government benches, a serious social problem is arising in rural Ireland connected with all these transactions in land. I have pointed out here before that it is a generally agreed policy and that it is a good thing to induce foreign capital to come into this country to establish industrial enterprises but several countries in Europe and elsewhere have experienced the embarrassment of foreign capital being invested in the purchase of land. It is not a problem peculiar to Ireland but it is interesting to observe that almost every other country in which that problem has arisen has taken energetic measures to control it. Take Denmark. This problem began to cause considerable embarrassment to the Danish Government and I understand that the law in Denmark has now been amended to provide that nobody, not even a returned Danish emigrant, can purchase land in Denmark, without having first established five years residence in Denmark.
The present position in Ireland is that a variety of devices are being operated to transfer the ownership of land to non-nationals. The argument is made that in many cases the land is more of an amenity than agricultural land in the full sense of the term. We do not know the facts about that because there is no means of finding them out. We have set up some rather inadequate machinery providing that where non-nationals purchase land and come within the provisions of the 25 per cent. tax referred to in this Financial Resolution, these transactions shall be recorded in the Land Commission; but the plain fact which is known to us all is that there is a great deal of land being acquired by aliens which does not come within the grip of the Commission. All the people in the country know it to be so.
An argument can be made that this competition for land from abroad is improving the price of agricultural land and that may be true but you can purchase affluence at too high a price. Here is the danger—we want foreign capital for the promotion of industry; if promiscuous purchasing of agricultural land goes on by non-nationals, there will grow up in this country, as it has grown up in every other country where that has happened, a strong prejudice against all foreign capital. That, in my opinion, would be a most unfortunate development.
However, I want to suggest to the House in considering this Financial Resolution, which is designed specifically to exempt from the 25 per cent. purchase tax houses and amenity grounds surrounding them, that we should not make any such exemption without at the same time effectively taking measures to ascertain the real truth about the acquisition of agricultural land by foreigners and the declaration by the Government of their resolve to control that process so as to avoid any general impression arising in the country that there is a wholesale transfer of land to non-nationals.
I do not think we can stop at agricultural land per se. We have got to see that if coastal land, that is, properties on the seashore, come into the hands of non-nationals the traditional rights of people living in the vicinity will not be abrogated by the new owners. That is not an easy thing to do for this reason—that those who have owned property, particularly property controlling access to the seashore, have in the past readily facilitated their neighbours in permitting them to cross the land to reach the seashore and sandy land adjoining the seashore for picnics and the like.
That friendly relationship has existed between the neighbours without ever being positively legally defined. You now get a non-national acquiring such a piece of land and putting up notices warning all and sundry that trespass of any kind will be prevented and legal action taken against any person engaging in such trespass. That sort of thing gives rise to acute local misunderstanding and bitter resentment amongst people who believe that strangers are acquiring rights in land to the grave detriment of the ordinary people living in the neighbourhood.
I believe the appropriate method to deal with this problem is, first, to devise machinery, if necessary placing upon the legal profession an absolute obligation of notifying the Land Commission or some other appropriate authority of any transfer of land in which they engage which involves the transfer of beneficial ownership to a non-national. If we could get that effectively done, we would at least have before us constantly a true picture of the size of this problem. I am obliged to tell the House that in my considered judgment the true picture of this problem shows a much larger problem than the official version would have us believe. I think it is folly for Parliament or for the Government to stick their heads in the sand and say: "There are the official figures of the land acquired by aliens and that is the size of the problem", when all of us in the House know that it is not the size of the problem and that the continued growth of the process is raising, possibly not serious economic problems, but undoubtedly serious social problems in the anxiety and malaise that is being created throughout the country.
Having set up effective machinery truthfully to reveal where the beneficial ownership of land has passed into the hands of non-nationals, we should then consider whether certain legislation analogous to that which is being passed in Denmark is not necessary here, bearing in mind that we, of course, have certain resources at our disposal that other countries may not have. We have in Ireland, under the Land Acts, powers to resume or compulsorily acquire any land whether it is in the hands of nationals or non-nationals if it is required for the relief of local congests or for the other purposes set out in the land code.
That gives us in Ireland here a very solid basis of reassurance that this problem of the acquisition of land by aliens cannot get completely out of control but we should not allow it to reach a point where a large part of our people begin to feel that it is getting out of control because if we do the prejudice understandably generated by the investment of foreign capital in Irish land will spread to the investment of foreign capital in Irish industry, which would be a most unfortunate development.
Some people may ask why is there this tendency for foreign capital to be invested in Irish land. I think there are two reasons. One is that the price of land in Ireland, compared to the price of land obtaining in Germany, Holland and Belgium, appears relatively low. The second reason why foreign capital is invested here as far as I can find out is that certain residents in Germany and on the Continent are desirous of removing part of their capital from Continental Europe into what they regard as safer surroundings either in Great Britain or in Ireland. That is a very understandable reaction but it must be brought home to everybody concerned with this business that it is producing reactions here and that they are of an extremely dangerous character which could give rise to the most unfortunate public opinion in Ireland. It is our duty to take effective measures to prevent a thing of this kind arising rather than wait until it has developed as a major problem and then attempt remedial steps when the damage has been done by the excitement of a strong public feeling on the subject of the investment of foreign capital in this country.
