asked the Minister for Lands the expenditure per acre on lands divided over the last ten years, taking into account all expenses, including buildings, purchase cost, and salaries directly attributable to land division, as well as a fair apportionment of the general and overhead expenses of the rest of his Department indirectly attributable to the land division sections.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Expenditure on Divided Lands.
23.
The official statistics are not recorded in such a form as to make the precise information requested readily available. Moreover, as land settlement activities embrace widely-varying qualities of land—ranging from undeveloped bog through inferior grazing and right up to prime arable—I feel that any attempt to express the outcome of land division generally in terms of expenditure per acre would prove quite unrealistic. I would suggest that a more acceptable assessment of the financial implications of land settlement may be reflected in the provision and equipment of a standard holding for a migrant. Perhaps, therefore, it would meet the Deputy's purposes to know that, for the financial year 1961-62, the approximate average cost, including administrative expenses, of creating such a holding—for that year, 39 acres —was £5,400 of which £1,150 is subsequently recovered.