Therefore I wish to deal with these amendments as they are and with what is proposed in them. In actual fact, this House has already refused to accept these amendments which are simply lifted from a Fine Gael Private Members' Bill introduced in 1961 on this issue. These are the very same proposals as those rejected by this House on the Land (Regulation of Acquisition) Bill, 1961 when that Bill was debated here. Speaking on that Bill at column 1693 of the Official Report of 4th May, 1961, I had this to say:
I propose to inform the House now in more detail, following the statement of the Minister for Finance, of the measures proposed to be taken by the Government in the Finance Bill, which will shortly be before the House, to deal with this matter in so far as the Government, on the information before them at present, consider it should be dealt with. I want to give in broad outline the steps we propose to take in relation to the acquisition of agricultural land by non-nationals. The Minister for Finance announced that the liability for 25 per cent stamp duty will not apply to urban property. It is, of course, intended to continue the existing arrangements whereby it does not apply to residential holdings containing less than five acres or to land which is used for industrial purposes.
I went on to give the details about the proposals that would be contained in the 1961 Finance Bill to set up a register to deal with this matter and I said:
Finally, the Finance Bill will include adequate provisions for ensuring the effectiveness of any new measures by imposing severe penalties for such matters as the furnishing of false information as to the ownership of land, the constitution of companies and so on. As I said, under the previous law any type of declaration could be made. Even the provision of the Statutory Declaration Act did not, in my view, apply to such declarations. Outside certain penal provisions in respect of duties in case of any false declarations in deeds, there will be further provisions, including imprisonment, for any such fraudulent return or any such fraudulent declaration in any such document. From the foregoing, it will be apparent that the Government are ready to implement effective measures to control the tax evasion which is the crux of this matter. The Bill goes no further——
Deputy Dillon asked:
Does the Minister think tax evasion is the crux of the matter? My feeling is that it is the alienation of the land.
I went on:
I think I do. I shall deal with that proposition when I finish what I have to say on this issue. I suggest that the Bill is an innocuous measure that goes no further than to require the Land Commission to set up a register of information about alien purchases. Under the Government measure, it is proposed that the Revenue Commissioners shall keep the Land Commission informed of purchases by non-national interests. In this way, the Land Commission will be in a position to assemble essential information about such transactions. This will be achieved without the irritating and superfluous machinery proposed in this Bill. Appropriate particulars will be made available to members of the House by way of replies to Parliamentary Question or in response to inquiries addressed to my office.
Now, that legal provision, which I foreshadowed then, was duly enshrined in the Finance Act, 1961, and one of the relevant provisions of that Act dealing with this particular issue is subsection (12) of section 33 which provides:
The Revenue Commissioners shall furnish to the Land Commission particulars of all conveyances and transfers coming to their notice where stamp duty is chargeable at the rate provided for by subsection (5) of the 1947 section or where the case falls within subparagraph (i) of paragraph (c) of subsection (4) of that section.
Again, subsection (12) of section 34 provides:
The Revenue Commissioners shall furnish to the Land Commission particulars of all leases coming to their notice where stamp duty is chargeable at the rate provided for by subsection (6) of the 1949 section or where the case falls within subparagraph (1) of paragraph (c) of subsection (4) of that section.
In section 35, the following provision occurs:
Where the Revenue Commissioners are of opinion—
(b) that the passing has resulted from any arrangement or arrangements the main or one of the main purposes of which was the avoidance or reduction of liability to stamp duty under the Stamp Act, 1891, at the rate provided for by subsection (5) of section 13 of the Finance Act... 1947,
the following provisions shall have effect—
The provision then goes on to recite that where this attempt is made to avoid the penal stamp duty laid down under the Finance Act, 1961, section 35 comes into effect; and section 35 enacts in terrorem provisions providing what the Revenue Commissioners can do in such circumstances and the penalties that will follow for those who, by fraud, misrepresentation, or otherwise, have broken the law as laid down.
Under the statutory provisions to which I have referred, the Land Commission get regularly from the Revenue Commissioners particulars of all transactions concerning the transfer of land to any alien. Let me make it clear, because it has been suggested otherwise here, that not alone do the Land Commission get particulars of the cases in which the penal 25 per cent. stamp duty is payable, and has been paid, but they get particulars also of all other cases in which land for any purpose, industrial or otherwise, has been transferred to aliens. The Land Commissioners have certain powers, with the Minister for Finance, to exempt in certain circumstances under their certificate from the penal 25 per cent duty. Every single acre of land sold to any alien is duly registered. When the transfer comes up for stamping, let it be under lease, under conveyance, or any other form, the Revenue Commissioners send particulars to the Land Commission and the Land Commission enter those particulars in their register. The particulars registered comprise (1) the number of transactions involved; (2) the consideration or the purchase money which passed in respect of these transactions; (3) the acreage and extent of the lands; (4) the situation of the lands.
Deputy O.J. Flanagan and others are well aware that from time to time since 1961 I have regularly had questions addressed to me here asking for particulars from this register, the register kept under the statutory provisions I have already cited to the House. I have been asked to give the latest details or information as to the amount of land concerned in these transfers to aliens. Deputy O.J. Flanagan knows quite well that that register is there. Everybody in this House, everybody outside it, knows that that register is there. I do not know how many times in this House, including the last two days, I have had to refute the Deputy's allegations that there is no register in the Land Commission and that nobody knows what amount of land is being transferred to aliens. I do not know what the Deputy's purpose is. Perhaps it is that, if he keeps repeating it often enough, some newspaper will eventually report it and, if it is not contradicted, then someone will assume that what the Deputy says is true.
The fact is this House, in its wisdom, provided in 1961 for the setting up of this register. Month by month we get from the Revenue Commissioners details of all these transactions. If some people try to evade the law, and they are discovered, there are methods of dealing with them under section 35 of the Finance Act, 1961, and the other penal sections, just as there are provisions in the law to deal with lawbreakers of different sorts. Those who allege that this register is not accurate, or that the law is not being observed, should give me particulars of the cases for investigation. I have asked time and again for particulars and, at the moment, I have got some information about two particular cases in which I suspect the law may have been broken. These are under investigation. That is not to say, however, that any legal device has been discovered to get round the law as laid down by this House under the Finance Act of 1961.
I do not know what Fine Gael policy is on this matter. Perhaps we shall have a more general discussion on what it is when we come to the Labour Party amendment dealing with land being acquired by foreigners. Let me say in passing that in regard to a few of the larger deals I investigated of transfers of land to foreigners, I wound up by finding that the vendors were members of the Fine Gael hierarchy.
I do not accept for a moment the suggestion by Deputy Flanagan that stamp duty is being avoided by foreigners having children here and putting the land in their children's names. There must be something salubrious about the Irish climate if a foreigner can arrive here and immediately produce a child in whose name he can purchase Irish land. Furthermore, I challenge the Deputy's legal knowledge when he asserts that, if a Russian couple are grounded at Shannon for a fortnight and the Russian wife gives birth to a baby, that baby becomes an Irish citizen. In drawing on his imagination as to how this 25 per cent stamp duty is being avoided, the Deputy had better think up a more acceptable proposition than foreign children being used for the purpose of evading it.
The expressions of Fine Gael policy made by Deputy Flanagan, Deputy Donegan and Deputy Dillon differ vastly in so far as these Deputies have given their views on this issue. Deputy Donegan assured us they had no objection at all to foreigners except where they bought land inside the congested districts. He said that foreigners he knew buying land in his area were doing a very good job and giving a great deal of employment. He was expressing Fine Gael policy on that issue. Deputy Flanagan stated here today that he welcomed foreign capital and that Fine Gael had no objection to foreigners buying building sites and purchasing land for industrial purposes. On the other hand, both inside and outside this House, Deputy Dillon bemoans the influx of foreign capital into this country. He suggests we would have a balance of payments problem here were it not that Irish land and businesses were being sold to foreigners. He said there was foreign money coming in buying up old-established businesses and that was a very bad thing.
However, these Deputies expressing all these different views on this issue conveniently forget that it was Deputy Sweetman, their Minister for Finance in the inter-Party Government, who in a Finance Bill provided for the removal of the 25 per cent penal stamp duty on the sale of property or business with less than five acres of land. It would appear, therefore, that the Fine Gael Party think this matter has changed drastically since Deputy Sweetman opened this gap to enable any foreigner to acquire an Irish business or Irish land comprising less than five acres.
I do not know which is the official view of the Fine Gael Party on this. I do not know whether they have changed their minds in regard to the 25 per cent stamp duty which they bitterly opposed when it was introduced by this Government and which Deputy Dillon described as another piece of Fianna Fáil codology. My difficulty in regard to Fine Gael policy is, as in the case of the thimbles and the pea, to find out under which thimble the official pea is.
These amendments are lifted directly from the Private Members' Bill which was introduced and defeated in this House away back in 1961. For those who have any interest in the matter, let me say I went through that Bill at that time section by section including these amendments and pointed out how unworkable it would be and that it would be useless for the purpose it was expressed to serve.
The main purpose of these amendments is to set up a register. I have pointed out, first, that there is already a register there, set up under the law passed by this House in 1961, and I pointed out the details that are kept in that register.
Secondly these proposals would not make one more acre of land available for the land reform programme. That appears to be admitted and that point was made by Deputy McQuillan and others here last night. Thirdly, these amendments would not increase the Land Commission's powers to acquire land; fourthly, every purchaser of land would have to insist on the vendor proving his nationality to ensure that he was not a non-national whose initial purchase of land was void and of no effect; and fifthly, the proposals are indiscriminating inasmuch as one of these amendments covers property in a street. I have already referred to the provisions made by Deputy Flanagan's Party for the relief of property purchased by aliens in towns or streets.
Finally, the provisions about companies would be unworkable. It would be a complete nuisance to companies with a large number of shareholders. When the 1961 Bill was before the House, I gave an instance of how impossible the situation would be for a firm such as Guinness who would be required to provide a list of their shareholders, and if they had a subsidiary for growing grain or for any other purpose, the same procedure would be necessary. For all these reasons, these amendments are completely unworkable, would serve no purpose and I fail to appreciate any of the arguments used as to why the House should accept them.
Let me say, although I suppose this will be more appropriate to the discussion of the amendment dealing directly with the purchase of land by non-nationals—that, as the Minister for Transport and Power has said, there are many sections in this Bill that will be of very important value to the Land Commission in dealing with non-nationals. There is, for instance, the provision that I expect the House will pass — the residence provision. The Land Commission can immediately move in in any case where the individual does not reside on or in the immediate vicinity of the lands and, under that provision, any of these people who, it has been suggested to this House, merely purchase land here and go away and come back once in a blue moon would be caught.
Again there are provisions in the Bill enabling the Land Commission to buy land by public auction for any purpose, not for the restricted purpose that was the law before this Bill was introduced, but for any of their purposes. Again, there will be freedom under this Bill to purchase land for cash where such an operation is the more desirable. Where they hear of land for sale or where land for sale is reported to them that provision would enable them to step in quickly and lively before some of these aliens would have an opportunity of purchasing.
There are all these other provisions that I will deal with more fully when we come to discuss this direct issue on an amendment before the House whereby this Bill will be of the greatest assistance to the Land Commission in dealing with that aspect of the problem in so far as it is a problem, as well as the many other aspects of the land congestion problem.
I, therefore, for all these reasons and, in particular, because of the fact that in so far as we require a register we already have a register established by the law of this House, suggest that the House should reject all these amendments.