I dealt last week with the position regarding not alone agricultural land but of all types of countryside in Ireland and with the lack of interest shown by the Government in holding on to those lands for the benefit of our native population. The argument is used by the Government against anybody like myself who protests against this sale of land to non-nationals, that this is a narrowminded, bigoted attitude and is contrary to the international outlook of the Government.
I would say to the Minister and to his Leader that the people have become bewildered and bewitched by the fuss that is being made of the Taoiseach by bigger nations. It is a well-known fact that if somebody in power, some wealthy individual, wants to impress an ignoramus, he wines and dines him and pats him on the back. I do not suggest the Taoiseach is an ignoramus but I submit he is far too big for his boots, and the fact that he was allowed to look at this famous wall in Berlin has given him the idea that he is now a world leader instead of the leader of a very small country.
One has begun to wonder whether his idea of Ireland is that we have as much land here as there is in the prairies of America and that we can satisfy the demands for land not only of our own people but of all the foreigners who wish to come in. It is time an end were put to the gallop of this firm of auctioneers, which is how I would describe the Government. They have hawked the land of this country all over the world. When a foreigner comes in here to set up a factory under our industrial development programme, why is it necessary for him to bring in five or six of his colleagues to buy land as well? I do not think that is necessary.
The grants and other incentives made available by the Government to attract industrialists should be sufficient in themselves, without also allowing those people to buy up all sporting and amenity rights as well as the best agricultural land in the country. It has been suggested by the Minister that the 25 per cent purchase tax on land is enough to keep away those people. However, is it not a fact that the price of agricultural land in Germany today is three times what it is here? On that basis, is it not an attractive proposition for a German to buy Irish land and pay the 25 per cent purchase tax?
Is it not also a fact that much of our undeveloped land is being sold to non-nationals, that they have been availing of our grants under the Land Project to develop those lands and that they have then been selling again to their compatriots or to other foreigners, thus making a considerable profit? Is it not a fact that because of these transactions, there is an insufficiency of land to meet the legitimate needs of small farmers and other poor people throughout rural Ireland?
The Irish Independent of 17th February, 1961, carried a report of a speech made by the Minister at a Fianna Fáil comhairle ceanntar meeting in Dublin. According to the report, the Minister pointed out that there was a minimum of 60,000 to 80,000 small farmers still trying to derive a subsistence livelihood from uneconomic holdings and that those farmers had a strong and reasonable claim for the enlargement of their holdings. That was the Minister's view in 1961, and in the past two years, we have extracted from him figures which cannot be contradicted.
According to figures given to us, 14,000 acres of land have been purchased here by non-nationals since the new land register came into operation. If we take those 14,000 acres and the Minister's estimate of 50-acre economic holdings, these 14,000 acres now in the hands of foreigners would have given economic holdings to 250 families. Which would have been the better—to let this land get into the hands of foreigners or to settle it on 250 families who would then have economic holdings?Which would be the greater benefit to the State? Yet we have still got the small farmers pulling up their roots and clearing out of the country.
During the past 12 years, I have been told on many occasions by this Minister, and by his former Leader, the present President, that the pool of land was drying up and that it would be impossible to give economic holdings to all the people in the country who should have them. I should like to know if that situation has come about because the Land Commission were overworked in the creation of new holdings or because the Land Commission have done so little that the pool of land was allowed to get into the hands of non-nationals.
As I have stated, in the past two years, 14,000 acres of good land with which the Government could have created 250 new holdings have found their way into the hands of foreigners. Consequently, 250 families have had to get the boat. Of course, that figure of 14,000 acres is a reduced figure by comparison with what took place since the end of the war in 1945. I gave the figures here last week and I do not propose to trouble the House with them again, but Commissioner Mansfield, a man of the highest integrity who had been in the Land Commission for years, gave figures towards the end of 1950 to prove that more than 100,000 acres of the finest land in Ireland had passed into the hands of non-nationals between 1945 and 1950.
In the period from 1950 to 1961, there is not the slightest doubt that at least a further 100,000 acres of good land were purchased by non-nationals, making, for the entire period since the war, a total of at least 200,000 acres purchased by foreigners. If you break that figure into lots of 50 acres, it would mean that more than 4,000 families could have been given economic holdings in that period. Having considered that figure, if we then examine the number of new holdings created each year by the Land Commission, the number of people taken from the congested areas, we find that the Land Commission and the Minister are clapping themselves on the back if they take 80 people from the congested areas and give them new holdings in the midlands or elsewhere. That is their record in the creation of completely new economic holdings whereas the amount of land that is going into the hands of people who have no right to it would create, on average, 250 new holdings annually of 50 acres each.
I cannot understand why this Government should try to pretend any longer that they are interested in the welfare of the small farmer. The very fact that they have suggested an increase to 50 acres in addition to allowing the foreigner complete right of purchase in this country is proof positive that they want to get rid of the small farmer and the congest, not by giving them economic holdings but by putting them on the boat for England. That is the answer because the Government cannot suggest that they are serious about ending congestion and creating economic holdings of 50 acres if all the good land in the country is being purchased by non-nationals and what is left is purchased by ranchers within the country.
I am precluded under the terms of the motion from dealing with the second group that I have mentioned and must concentrate on the amount of land that has been allowed to pass into the hands of non-nationals. The Minister's statement that we have to have reciprocal arrangements, due to the 1934 Aliens Act, that we must allow foreigners to have the same rights here as citizens have, is something that the public should consider very seriously. I am trying to find out in what country similar rights are available to foreigners. Take the six countries that are members of the EEC. Has a German, for instance, the right to walk in and purchase any amount of land he likes in France? Is it contained in the laws of these member States that a non-national has the same rights as a national to purchase agricultural land? I have asked this Government and a former Government to produce evidence to that effect. It has never been produced. We seem to be one of the foolish little nations who say it is all right; that if the foreigner wants to come in here we will allow him because of reciprocal arrangements.
If this country were as big as America, Russia or China and there was plenty of land to spare, I do not think there would be any objection at all to an influx of people who would help to develop the land but the amount of land available in Ireland is very limited. It is not suggestive of a parochial mentality to assert that the first right to that limited pool of land is vested in the Irish people who have waited for years to get land. I am told that we should respect the right of free sale. I want to say that free sale of land to non-nationals makes nonsense of free sale. I do not object to any Irishman selling his land within the State provided that that land is made available to other Irishmen. The laws made by the State should be for the protection of the agricultural community.
I have no hesitation in condemning inside this House and outside it the suggestion that a farmer should have the right to sell his land to a non-national.Apparently, the view taken by a number of people is "Good luck to a man if he can get £20,000 or £10,000 for land from a non-national". My view is that that temptation should be removed; that it should not be possible to reach the stage where a man might be tempted to sell his land to a non-national. If the sale of land to non-nationals were justifiable, could not every acre of Irish land be purchased by non-nationals?
I do not think the value of land should be allowed to be inflated to a point that would harm the agricultural community in general and, therefore, in the long run, harm the country.
As far as this motion is concerned, I am speaking to it because I should like to be on record and so that whatever Minister occupies the Front Bench in six weeks' time may be aware of the views expressed in this House. Even though the present Minister is now beginning to realise that the path pursued by himself and his advisers on this question of land has been the wrong one, it is rather late in the day for him to change; he will not be in a position to do much about it after tomorrow night.