asked the Minister for Lands if he will introduce legislation to ensure that not more than five acres of land may be purchased by any non-national, except for industrial purposes.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Land Purchasing by Non-Nationals.
78.
I do not accept that a situation has arisen which would warrant action being taken on the lines suggested in the Question.
Surely the Minister is aware of the rate at which non-nationals are buying land. He has only to look at the advertisements in the daily paper, even at the back page of the Sunday Independent of 19th May last. There is only one way to stop it, to introduce legislation. I would ask the Minister to reconsider the matter.
I do not mind the hysterical allegations being made in this connection by the Deputy or others. I have given the actual figures here and elsewhere. The average figure over a number of years in respect of these transactions is between 4,000 and 5,000 acres a year, and the picture is not as the Deputy suggests.
Would it not be far better if the Irishmen who are now walking the streets of Dublin or working in Birmingham or elsewhere were given farms of 40 or 50 acres instead of allowing people who come in here with paper money to purchase Irish land?
In contradistinction to the policy of the Deputy's Party, we are doing something to provide viable family farms for the people of Ireland. The Deputy is a long time away from his native Waterford and it appears to me his knowledge of rural Ireland is diminishing with every year he has been resident in the city of Dublin.
I am not a native of Waterford and I know as much about land as the Minister does.
That is no compliment to the Deputy.