Deputy Corry has made a strong appeal to the Minister to exercise a very careful eye on those engaged in conacre letting. I am not quite sure what Deputy Corry means by that appeal to the Minister. I do not know to what extent the Minister is supposed to exercise his eyes or in what way the Minister might exercise a careless eye but Deputy Corry appeals to him to exercise a careful eye in regard to conacre lettings. I am glad Deputy Corry mentioned that subject because I find myself somewhat confused as to what is meant by the provisions of the section which Deputy Corry had in mind, the provisions of section 12 of the Bill.
That section provides that an agricultural holding shall not be let, sub-let or sub-divided without the consent of the Land Commission. There does not appear to be any definition of what letting or sub-letting may mean. It seems to be the law at the moment that a conacre letting is not a letting or sub-letting of a holding. If that still is to be regarded as the legal position, section 12 of the Bill, to my mind, appears to be meaningless because it does not prevent or prohibit conacre lettings of land and, if that is so, I cannot understand what the object or purpose of the section may be.
I understood the position to be that under our existing law if any person made a lease or letting of agricultural land then, automatically, under the Hogan Act of 1923, the land so let was vested in the Land Commission and, for that reason, since 1923, there has not, in fact, been any leasing of agricultural land in this country because the person who effected a lease achieved a position which obviously he did not desire—the freehold of the land passed from him to the Land Commission. Perhaps the Minister in closing the Second Reading will explain what, in fact, is intended by the provisions in section 12?
I should like to go back to an earlier section—section 10—of the Bill. section 10, if the marginal note is to be accepted, is a section which is designed to exonerate the Minister for Lands and the Land Commission from certain obligations and liabilities and these obligations and liabilities are stated to be any obligation to cleanse, maintain, repair or restore any works on land which has been divided or under the care of the Land Commission. These works are referred to as drains, embankments, and so on. I should like to know from the Minister why it is proposed that the Land Commission should be relieved from any obligation in regard to drains or rivers or embankments of that kind. In fact, where an estate is divided or where a number of allottees get land, if it is necessary to build ditches or embankments or if it is necessary to provide a proper channel for drainage, and so on, it would appear to me that for so long as the Land Commission continue to exercise responsibility for land divided and continue to control that land in relation to subdivision, sale, and so on, they should certainly continue to exercise responsibility for the upkeep and maintenance of the works they had carried out. That, in my view, is particularly essential when we consider that through other Departments of State a vast capital investment has been made in land reclamation and in improving the quality of land. If we permit a section of this kind to pass unchallenged it may mean that what is the responsibility of no particular person becomes a problem affecting everyone and the drain which is not maintained very rapidly will cause a flooding problem over a divided estate and nothing, in fact, will be done because there will be no authority to point to.
Also in section 10 there is an indemnity given to the Minister for Lands and the Land Commission in respect of any act or omission of an officer, servant or agent of the Minister or the Land Commission which amounts to a tort or a wrong in relation to the construction of any drain or the making of any of these embankments. Why should that kind of section be passed in a Bill of this kind? If, in fact, the Minister for Lands or the Land Commission or any of their officers so carried out any works in relation to the division of an estate that they left behind for the unfortunate tenant a heritage of flooding or some other difficulty by reason of negligence, why should the Land Commission under a section of this kind be exonerated from responsibility?
We are far too prone in our legislation here to legislate preferentially for the big bodies in the country, to exclude them from a liability, giving them an exclusion which would not be available to any other individual in the State. I would suggest that to exclude the Land Commission from being amenable in the ordinary courts of this land for any negligence or carelessness on the part of their officers and servants in works of that kind would be legislating in a very wrong way.
I should like also to refer, if I may, to section 13 of this Bill. Section 13, as I understand it, is intended to ensure that after a notice has been served providing for the inspection of a holding, then that holding may not be sold, transferred, let, sub-let, or sub-divided without the consent of the Land Commission. I should like to say in relation to that section here in this House: quo warranto? By what authority do we legislate in that way? We have a Constitution in this country and the Constitution, so far as I understand it, protects the rights of private property. On what basis do we propose in relation to land not owned by the Land Commission, owned by some citizen of the State, to say that he may not sell his own land ? I do not want to be prophetic but I would hazard a guess that if that section is contained in this Bill when it becomes an Act, very quickly it will be declared to be unconstitutional by the courts. I cannot understand on what basis it can be suggested that the Land Commission should have power to prevent the sale of lands which they have not acquired, in which they have no particular rights except that they have given a notice that they propose to inspect. I think the section, if it is contained in the Act, will be clearly held to be unconstitutional.
It is well to bear in mind that that section—section 13—must be considered in this Bill with the provisions of section 27, under which power is now given to a senior inspector of the Land Commission, by a letter posted by registered post, to give notice of an intention to inspect anyone's land. There are, I understand, according to the White Paper, four senior inspectors who are officers of the Land Commission. Each of these four senior inspectors, presumably, is an ordinary, frail human being. Any one of these now, if this Bill becomes law, may serve— not with the seal of the Land Commission and not in any formal way but by ordinary registered post—a notice to an owner that his land will be inspected. Once he does that, for the next 12 months, that person's land, under the proposal contained in this Bill, cannot be dealt with by him as owner of that land. If he was considering selling his land and was balancing the probabilities between two or three possible purchasers and if one of these purchasers for some reason known to himself could achieve the service of a notice of that kind and if it had any validity in law, then that person's land and his possible bargain just disappears as far as he is concerned. This is a most reprehensible provision.
Section 27 is a proposal which takes from the Lay Commissioners a right which, under our existing law, was exclusively a right of the Commissioners themselves. We have had in this country, in the years before the State was established, experience of land division. We are aware of the problem in this country of the necessity for the division of land which has to be balanced against the rights of property, however those rights may have been acquired. In that regard, we should now be able to legislate with experience.
It is worth recording that, after the first Fianna Fáil Government came into office in 1932, an amendment of the Land Acts was proposed and passed by this House. Those who proposed and passed those amendments very shortly afterwards realised they were in error and they proceeded to undo what they had done. Eventually, a stage was reached, which is now represented by our present Land Acts, that the Lay Commissioners had certain exclusive rights. They decided and are entitled to decide under our present Land Acts what lands should be considered for acquisition and division. That was an excepted matter, taken out of the political field and taken out of the control of the Minister, peculiarly a right of the Lay Commissioners themselves and, in addition, the Lay Commissioners have the exclusive right of deciding who should get land.
These excepted matters—there are others, of course—were excepted to the Lay Commissioners in the light of actual experience earned in this country in the early 1930s. It was found undesirable that political considerations should enter into decisions affecting what land should be selected for division as it was equally found undesirable that political considerations should enter into a decision as to who should be allotted land. I should like to put on record my appreciation of the fact that a Fianna Fáil Government in the early 1930s saw the necessity for these provisions, having, in fact, proceeded in another direction before that.
Under, I think, the Land Act, 1936, the charter of the Lay Commissioners was laid down. Since that, the Lay Commissioners have operated as a very worthwhile stabiliser so far as any Minister for Lands might be concerned. While the Minister was entitled to lay down policy so far as land division was concerned, the Lay Commissioners—and only they—on the other hand, removed from political pressure or political considerations, were entitled to take the first step with regard to the division of any particular land or any particular estate. In this section, this is proposed to be changed? Why?
Are we now to go back to the mistakes of almost 30 years ago? Are we now to go back to a situation in which pressure groups can grow up in the country and the Minister for Lands, as the political chief, can direct a senior inspector of his Department to serve a notice of intention to inspect on a decent farmer in this country? We have no more big landholders. We now have no absentee landlords.
The people who will be affected by this Bill are all citizens of this country. They are all men who have land which they themselves or their fathers probably acquired initially as a result of land division—the Ashbourne Acts, or whatever it may be. Are these people now to be put under the thumb-screw of political pressure? There is a danger in section 27 that that can happen and the threat of its happening could cause considerable concern and dislocation throughout the country.
If a notice is now served under section 27 there will be no quiet appraisal of the merits by independent people, by a judicial or semi-judicial body. There will merely be the decision of a senior inspector who may be a Johnnie-jump-up for all we know—a fellow who possibly may have conceived a dislike of some farmer. Just by dropping a letter into the post office, he now can serve a document on that farmer which will, if the Bill is enacted, destroy that farmer's right to let, transfer or deal with his land for the following twelve months. This is an atrocious provision. I cannot understand the necessity for a provision of this kind. I urge the Minister to have second thoughts in that regard.
I am concerned that a proposed amendment of this kind should be associated with a decision by the Government to appoint as one of the Lay Commissioners the Secretary of the Department of Lands. The Secretary who is concerned in this appointment is a man for whom personally I have the highest possible regard. He has been an excellent officer and a first-rate civil servant. I think it is embarrassing for him and for everyone who knows him that associated with a proposed change in the law of that kind, we are to have as one of the Lay Commissioners, the permanent head of the Department of Lands. Where are we going? Is there to be an end of any independent examination of ministerial decisions with regard to the Land Commission? Will we have a situation that, on a Minister's orders, a senior inspector may go into a farmer's land, serve a notice and destroy his right of dealing with his own land for the next 12 months, and if the action has to be called in question, one goes before the court of the Irish Land Commission to arraign that inspector before the person who is the accountable officer, the permanent head of the Department of Lands? It is quite reprehensible that a provision of this kind should be contained in this Bill.
I mention these matters perhaps strongly but this is a good Bill which is destroyed by provisions of this kind. The Minister could achieve and would have achieved everything he seeks in this legislation without including sections of the kind I have mentioned, section 13 and section 27. I do not think the Bill would lose any of its merit if on the next stage the Minister agreed that section 13 and section 27 should be deleted. If that were done, I would feel the appointment of the Secretary of the Department of Lands as a Lay Commissioner would lose much of the very undesirable implications it carries with it. It was done before and it was objected to by many people but certainly to associate that appointment with these proposed changes in the land code is very hard to understand or to appreciate.
I wish to say a word or two with regard to what has been said in this debate in relation to the purchase of land by foreigners. This is a matter about which one can become illogical and, perhaps, unreasonable. I have endeavoured to keep a balanced view on this problem. Nevertheless, I feel myself in entire agreement with what Deputy Blowick said earlier in this debate. I cannot understand why we in this country permit foreigners to purchase our land. I believe quite sincerely that, irrespective of the amount of land purchased by aliens at the moment, whether it is a problem or mounting towards a problem or whatever way one qualifies or describes what is going on, it is absolutely essential that we, by our legislation, should prohibit the purchase of any Irish land, particularly agricultural land, by non-nationals.
I am certain that if we do not provide for a prohibition of that kind in our land laws, in a few years' time, we shall regret very bitterly the lack of such a prohibition. At the moment arable or agricultural land on the continent of Europe fetches, in terms of our money, something approaching £750 or £800 an acre. At present the best barley land in the midlands would fetch £120 or perhaps £130 an acre. If in the foreseeable future we join the Common Market, that is an investment very well worth making by continental purchasers, when they can buy up the best agricultural land in this country for £130 an acre. Certainly in the midlands there is very big money chasing good land.
I know this has not become a prolem yet. Of course it has not because most people prefer to hold on to the land. Most Irish farmers fought hard enough to own the land they stand upon and they will not lightly or easily sell it. However, slowly, bit by bit, their understandable pride in their own land and their natural reluctance to sell is being eaten away. It may not be a problem but it will become one. In certain other parts of the country our coastline is being bought away. In parts of the country with which perhaps you, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, should be familiar, the north-west of Ireland, there is an influx of money in buying large tracts of the seaboard and we are permitting this country to be sold bit by bit.
I would regard this Bill as being excellent if the sections I have mentioned were not in it and if instead, a provision were contained in it prohibiting absolutely, without, say, the consent of the Land Commission, the purchase of land here by any person who is not a national or a citizen of the country.
I do not know—I am sure the Minister knows—but I would be surprised to learn that in any country on the continent, there is such a freedom of purchase of land as is emphasised here. I would imagine that in most other countries some form of control is exercised and that they are very careful to ensure that no one may blow in with a bag of money and just buy whatever his eye happens to fall upon.
Generally speaking, the Bill is a good one and I congratulate the Minister on its introduction. However, it is a Bill which is affected adversely by the sections I have mentioned and by the deficiency that it does not contain any provision with regard to alien purchase.