Has the Minister anything to say on the section?
Land Bill, 1963—Committee Stage (Resumed).
Question again proposed: "That section 11 stand part of the Bill."
I explained the section on the last occasion. It arises because the existing law does not fit in with the operations of the Land Commission dealing with local authorities for rating purposes. Under the law as it stands, to get exemption from rates from a local authority in respect of buildings, the owner must prove that he let the buildings or made an attempt to let them and that they were vacant. Obviously, this would be impracticable for the Land Commission to do. They have these buildings for only relatively short periods. The lettings would give rise to preferential treatment claims in resale schemes. It is for this purpose this section is introduced. The local authority will not lose revenue, in as much as immediately the scheme is prepared by the Land Commission and the tenant moves into the holding and takes possession of the portion allotted to him, he would be liable for rates to the local authority.
That is much the same as the individual?
Yes.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 12.
Amendment No. 23 not moved.
I move amendment No. 24:
In page 8, line 29, after "Land Commission" to insert", and such consent may be either general or particular".
The purpose of this amendment is to allow the Land Commission in suitable cases to issue a general consent to a particular type of sub-division. There is, for example, an existing procedure under which local authorities acquiring sites for labourers' cottages may act under a general consent given to them by the Land Commission so that, within certain reasonable limits, they may carry out their own sub-divisions. I want to make sure that this sensible piece of administrative co-operation can continue. In this way we hope, while maintaining the essential features of control, to eliminate mere red tape as far as practicable. That is the purpose of this amendment. Where, for instance, somebody buys a portion of building land that would entail consent to several sub-divisions, we can under this amendment give general permission.
Amendment agreed to.
I move amendment No. 24a:
In page 8, line 29, after "and such consent may be either general or particular" (inserted by amendment number 24) to insert the following:
"and may be subject to such conditions (if any) as the Land Commission think fit."
For many years past, it has been the common practice of the Land Commission to attach appropriate conditions to sub-division consents, such as partial redemption of annuities and consolidation with other lands as circumstances require. Up to the present the power to attach such conditions to the giving of consents has been implicit in the various statutory provisions in the Land Acts. Section 12 is intended as an up-to-date comprehensive provision and it seems advisable to take this opportunity of legislating explicitly on this point of attaching conditions to consents to sub-divisions.
What are the conditions likely to be?
The usual conditions: for instance, partial redemption of the annuity. Often times they make it a condition of these consents that, where permission has been given to subdivide a small portion of a holding, the annuity in respect of this portion, which works out to be something very small, would be redeemed by the vendor or purchaser.
Will there be conditions other than the usual ones imposed in the past?
In certain cases of the sub-division of small holdings, it is a condition of the consent that the purchasers of these divisions be landowners and that these portions be consolidated with their holdings.
That is all right. May I inquire what has become of amendment No. 23 in my name?
It was not moved.
As I was out of the House collecting my papers, perhaps the House would agree to allow me to move it now?
I cannot agree to go back on a decision the House has made.
Very good.
Amendment agreed to.
I move amendment No. 24b.
In page 8, after subsection (1) to insert the following subsection:—
"( ) The powers of the Land Commission under this section shall be so exercised as to prevent the creation or continuance of holdings which, in the opinion of the Land Commission, are not economic holdings."
It has been suggested to me that landowners might fear that this sub-division control could be used arbitrarily against them. While I do not concede there is any evidence from past experience to justify such fears, I am prepared to write in a statutory criterion based on the avoidance of uneconomic holdings. The effect of this amendment will be that the Land Commission will be unable, for example, to prevent a man dividing his land between his two sons if he gives each of them an economic holding. It is in relief of landowners; otherwise, the law could be interpreted as meaning that the Land Commission could arbitrarily prevent a man with 300 acres of land giving 150 acres each to his two sons. In other words, under this provision, at law the Land Commission could not withhold their consent unless the effect of consent would be to create uneconomic holdings.
Running through this whole section is that fear of the Land Commission in regard to the creation of uneconomic holdings. Might I suggest that that day is completely past? Who wants today to create an uneconomic holding? Even holdings that by some people's standards would be adjudged economic are being deserted all over the country. Anybody thinking along those lines about the danger of the reestablishment of small, uneconomic holdings is years behind the times. The picture I see emerging in regard to land occupation is that holdings are being sold to such an extent that either private individuals or the State will have to step in and purchase them on a big scale for the purpose of consolidation or creating larger farms. I believe we are at the commencement of an era where we are reverting to the situation that existed during the early years of Grattan's Parliament when a farmer farmed a whole townland and there was nobody but the one family there. The Minister must be as well aware of that in his locality as I am in my part of the county.
The small holding is no longer able to produce the income that will keep the youngsters on the land. It is the youngsters we want to keep on the land. The old pattern was that, whether a man had two, three or ten sons, all of them emigrated or found a job elsewhere except one who was kept for the land, in most cases the youngest. Now what we Deputies are hearing from all over the place is: "I reared three sons and I cannot get even one of them to stay on the land." Only recently I heard of a man in Ballinrobe who has a very comfortable, well-stocked farm with a valuation of about £30, if not more, and who could not induce any of his four sons to stay on the land. They told him the land was not worth bothering about, that they never saw anything but their mother and father in slavery on the land and that they did not intend to go in for that kind of life.
There is no need, therefore, for the Minister to push this amendment. There is no danger in the world of sub-division that would call for the intervention of the Land Commission in regard to the creation of uneconomic holdings. All we are doing here is locking the stable door after the horse has gone.
This amendment is an addition to a list of amendments which has already been submitted to the House. I do not know whom the Minister and his Department think they are deluding by producing this smokescreen of amendments seeking to suggest they will help in any way to remedy the serious situation that exists today in rural Ireland. Is the Minister seriously putting before the House an amendment to put an end to sub-letting where there is a danger of creating uneconomic holdings? Is it not a fact that at the present time what the Minister should be doing is trying to prevent the gobbling up and the grabbing of all the holdings in a locality by local gombeen men. Instead of hitting the gombeen man, the Minister pretends to this House that he is protecting the small farmer. Deputy Blowick is quite right when he states we are reverting to the situation as it was in years gone by when one farmer farmed a townland. At the rate things are going, it will not be long before one rancher will farm a parish and there is nothing whatever in this section to prevent such an occurrence. The Minister is bringing in an amendment that seeks to suggest that a farmer of 25 to 30 acres of land is likely to be such a dangerous lunatic as to attempt to divide that between two or three sons.
Does the Minister suggest that if a farmer has 300 acres and wants to divide them between his two sons, giving them 150 acres each, this amendment will make his passage easier in that regard? In what way is it difficult at the moment for such a farmer of 300 acres of land to divide that between his two sons and give them 150 acres each? In what way is the Land Commission geared to make it awkward for such a farmer to carry out that purpose? There is no impediment in the Land Acts that I know of that would hinder a farmer with such a desirable intention. I do not pose as an expert on the Land Acts but if there is any section in the Land Acts that makes it difficult for a large farmer with 300 or 400 acres to divide such a holding into economic units, I should like the Minister to let us know in what Act that section is to be found.
I have listened to the two previous speakers on this amendment and if they are not very badly informed or innocent people, they must come from an extraordinary part of the country, if we are to believe what they have said. I come from an area in which the land is not of the same quality as that of the areas from which the other two Deputies come. Were it not for the fact that some regulations exist to prevent it from happening, every farmer, no matter how small, would have his holding divided. Some regulation must not only be made but must be strictly enforced if we are not to go back to the old days which immediately followed the Famine when everybody carved up his holding into all the pieces he desired and his sons and daughters tried to exist on these little parcels of land.
I know it is perfectly fair that anybody who wants a site for a house or a holding should get it. That right should be retained for everybody who wishes to take advantage of it but I cannot stand idly by and accept that a holding should be carved up into three or four acres, because, bad as the position is now, that would make it two or three times worse. I do not agree that people are running away from these lands either in Roscommon or South Mayo and certainly not in North Mayo where land was never one-quarter the price it is now. If the land is so valueless in Roscommon and South Mayo it is a wonder they are holding it up until they get a colossal price for it.
I am completely on the side of the Minister in this step. I see no reason for preventing any farmer from dividing his land into two or even five economic holdings provided it is shown that they are holdings which will maintain the people on them and not that they will be holdings which the people will have to maintain. It is quite possible that a 40-acre holding could be divided into two holdings and that the persons obtaining them could have economic holdings but it is also possible that a 500-acre holding would not be worth dividing into two holdings. The matter has to be treated in a commonsense way.
Does the Minister agree that a farmer with, say, a 400-acre holding, can subdivide that into four or five suitable portions to provide economic holdings for each member of his family? The problem I see is that where very small portions of land are made available there is usually one extensive farmer in the area who is likely to buy up all the small portions. That is likely to have a serious effect on the local small uneconomic holders who are anxious to purchase but are not in a position to compete with the well-off extensive farmer with very considerable financial resources. We have many owners of uneconomic holdings of 12 or 14-acres. Such an owner may have 10 acres around his house and four acres a mile away. If he desires to dispose of the four acres he should be permitted to do so provided the purchaser is a local smallholder. That is to say that the purchaser will also be an uneconomic holder. I should like to hear more from the Minister in this regard because very great difficulties will present themselves as time goes on.
Would the Minister say if there has been any great number of applications for subdivision where the result would be the creation of uneconomic holdings? What I have in mind is the type of case the Minister has in mind in bringing in these amendments, to stop the creation of uneconomic holdings, where a farmer with £10, £12 or £15 valuation wants to make two holdings. Since I left the Land Commission in 1957 has there even been one application?
There have been several applications which would result in the creation of at least one economic holding if they were allowed to go through. Down through the years one of the fairly regular propositions was not alone in regard to a bit of land which was bought, but also if a man could get away with dividing a fairly substantial holding which would result in one of his own sons getting on the Land Commission roll. And that was done regularly down through the years——
That was a long time ago.
——to my personal knowledge.
I should like Deputies to consider this proposition for a moment. What is the point or sense of trying to enlarge uneconomic holdings unless at the same time you take corresponding control against subdivision? It is absurd to have the one without the other. Deputy McQuillan wants to know what law provides against sub-letting. This very Bill provides against it. Under this Bill all types of title are brought in, in the provision against subletting and subdivision, for the first time. In former cases, where the annuity was brought over, there was the right under the 1923 Act to split it up any way desired and where that was done uneconomic units were created. The purpose of this sub-section is to prevent that, although, as I pointed out to Deputies, this is in relief of the landowner. Deputy McQuillan may have the view that we are bringing these amendments in for fun but since the Second Reading of the Bill, I have received representations from different organisations, including one purporting to represent landowners. It is my duty to listen to every side of the story. It was pointed out that the section as it stood could be interpreted as giving the Land Commission power to refuse sub-division arbitrarily in any case whether there was sufficient land being divided or sold off the parent holding to create uneconomic holdings, or otherwise.
This amendment is put forward to clarify that position, to make it clear that the Land Commission cannot unreasonably refuse permission for sub-division where it will not result in the creation of uneconomic units. Deputy Blowick and other Deputies can be assured that the Land Commission have had quite a few cases during the last year in which congests were refused and in which if they had been granted uneconomic units would have been created.
So far as Deputy Blowick's suggestion about the desertion of the land is concerned, I can assure the Deputy —indeed, no assurance should be required by him or any Deputy representing a western constituency—that there is no dearth of applicants for land. There are 40 of them for every acre the Land Commission may be able to acquire throughout the length and breadth of the land.
In so far as the Deputy says that they are not prepared to exist on the smaller units on which their parents or grandparents lived, I entirely agree with him. The purpose of this Bill is to build up the units occupied by the people living by farming and to get them away from what we call subsistence farming.
As for Deputy McQuillan's gombeen man, if he is seriously concerned with him, he should support sections 12 and 34 of this Bill which are designed to deal with that problem and to strengthen the hands of the Land Commission in getting these lands into the Land Commission machine for the building up of these uneconomic units of which there are so many, particularly in the congested areas.
There may be a number of small holdings in an area, which are on the borderline between what might be described as economic and what might be described as uneconomic. There may be a group of farmers who are anxious to acquire a holding which might be for sale in the vicinity. Any one of them might not be able to purchase the holding on his own but two or three farmers might wish to combine to purchase it. I am sure the Minister has had experience of such cases. There may not be a big farm in the locality which could be acquired for the relief of their congestion and it would be most unlikely that the Land Commission would ever move into the area.
Having given that picture of the type of case I am speaking of, I shall come now to the case where one of the holdings becomes derelict and is put up for sale and two or three farmers combine to buy it for the relief of their own congestion at no cost to the State. These people should be assisted. I assure the Minister that the question that he has brought up now will frighten people from attempting to buy a farm in such circumstances. He is doing more harm than good. As far as the prevention of the creation of uneconomic holdings is concerned, I am all with the Minister and with the Bill, but I am greatly afraid that this section will do immense damage. The Minister should make it quite clear that where people propose to relieve their own congestion at their own expense, in an area to which it would be most unlikely that the Land Commission would come, they will get every encouragement. The Minister should make a firm statement here and now that such effort on the part of local farmers will be assisted by the Land Commission instead of being impeded.
I quite agree that if the power which the Minister says he needs is really necessary, we should give it to him in this Bill. I suppose there is no point in asking the Minister at this stage to withdraw the Bill and to reintroduce it?
That is the proper thing to do.
Any similarity between the Bill when passed, even with only the Minister's amendments, and the Bill as it is now will be purely accidental. There has never been a Bill in respect of which so many amendments were brought in by a Minister. I am not blaming the Minister. Representations have been made to him as a result of which he has tried to remedy the Bill where he thought that should be done. That proves that, no matter how long it took to prepare the Bill, the Bill was introduced too soon. The Minister should have waited until the Bill could have been introduced in some other form. I am sure the next printing of the Bill will be twice the size of this printing.
I do not know what shape the Bill will take.
We will only have to follow the Bill as we go along. If the Minister needs the power, we should not prevent his getting it.
I have a distinct recollection of a case where a person had a 64 acre farm. His son was getting married. He applied to the Land Commission for permission to give 14 acres of that land to the son. The son wanted to build a house on it. They were intensive farmers, engaging in market gardening, and so on. For a long time, permission was refused. I wonder if that is the way that things should be done or is it intended in future to refuse permission in cases like that. It was stated that it would be creating another uneconomic holding but that was not so. The boy proved himself, having got the permission, well able to live off the 14 acres by the use he made of it.
There is the case of a man who is, say, a farm worker, who has been working on a farm all his life and who managers to get enough money to buy a farm and a small farm comes up for sale in the locality. He will not be allowed to buy it. The Land Commission will not sanction the sale to him on the grounds that it will create an uneconomic holding. He is a landless man. I consider that that is a wrong attitude on the part of the Land Commission.
There is the other case, where people are in possession of holdings. I do not know how the Minister proposes to deal with it. There is a holding that I know of comprising slightly over eight acres. The county council carried out road widening and took one and a half acres of the centre of the holding. The farmer gave half an acre to the county council to build a cottage for his son on it. The father died. Last week an inspector of the Land Commission called to the widow, who was ill, to tell her that she was not working the land properly and that it would be taken from her. I do not know how the Minister would deal with that sort of case. If it is not possible under the Bill to prevent that sort of case arising, the Minister would be much better without the Bill.
Would the Minister consider as a fair question, put without antagonism or political motive, withdrawing the Bill in its present form?
Would the Deputy stop his codology and let us get on with the job we are here to do?
If the Minister adopts that attitude, I can assure him that I am not here for codology.
If the Deputy comes in at this stage for the first time and suggests that the Bill should be withdrawn, he is wasting the time of the House.
A Bill of 11 pages has now 13 pages of amendments.
The Deputy's arithmetic is bad, as usual, and inaccurate.
We are discussing amendment No. 24b.
On amendment No. 24b let me put this case to the Minister: very often in the past an addition was made to a holding. The addition might have been two or three miles from the holding. The person got it in days gone by, in the time of the Congested Districts Board. Now all his family have left and he with his wife are in the same position as they were when they got married, the two of them living alone. Very often the old person is not in a position to look after the addition which is at a distance from the main holding. In other cases he may want the price of it. He does not want to sell the entire holding, only the addition. He may wish to work the original holding. Would the Minister accept an amendment on Report Stage from me to meet that type of case? I can see the undesirability of the Land Commission allowing subdivision in that case because it is quite possible that a young man might buy the addition and build a house on it and create an uneconomic holding and the original holding could create a second one.
Where a local person buys the addition for consolidation with his own holding, would the Minister consider an amendment whereby a condition would attach to the folio that in the event of that holding ever being sold the Land Commission would not in any circumstances ever give a further addition to it? What would be wrong with such procedure?
It has become painfully evident that every effort is to be made to hold up the passage of the Bill. I could well understand such an attitude on the part of the people in the east of the country, but people in the west who are guilty of such an attitude would want looking after by their constituents. I have no doubt that when the chance arrives, those constituents will look after them in the proper way. This is a scandalous attitude to a Bill brought in to help people in the congested areas. While it is true there are more pages of amendments than there are in the Bill itself, with the exception of the few very good amendments put down by the Minister, all the others have been put down by auctioneers and their agents with the express purpose of holding up the passage of this Bill until foreigners have come along to buy up all the available land in the country.
The Deputy must address himself to amendment No. 24b.
I was referring to something which arose before you came in, Sir. I want to put one question fairly and squarely. Deputy Blowick stated before you came in that this Bill would prevent groups of farmers from buying land and dividing it among themselves. Would Deputy Blowick tell the House where and when in the West of Ireland or in any part of the country it has ever happened that a group of farmers have purchased land and divided it among themselves? What does he think we are?
To start off with, let me say that practically all the amendments brought in by me are to improve the working of the difficult sections. Many of them are drafting amendments to remove legal doubts. There is not one iota of principle change in the Bill because of these amendments which will improve it as a result of our study and experience and of representations made to us to make certain provisions quite clear to all and sundry concerned with the provisions of the Bill.
It is all right for Deputy Tully and others to pose a situation where somebody gets 14 acres and where he, because of his special skills, or because of the judicious use by him of machinery, has been able to make a good living on the land. Deputy Tully forgets what may happen to an individual occupying that land after the original holder is dead and gone. The Land Commission must look to the type of person who will succeed the original holder so as to avoid the possibility of the fragmentation of land. Perhaps a new person, a young married man who has not the same skills as his predecessor, may succeed to the holding. He might not be able to make the same good living out of the 14 acres.
It is necessary to provide overall control of subdivision. The whole effort of endeavouring to build up land units would be an absurdity if we did not, at the other end, control the fragmentation or subdivision of lands. If Deputy Blowick has read and understands amendment No. 24b, he would see its implementation would be in ease of the very people of whom he speaks. If, as he suggests, three people decide to buy a farm and divide it among themselves — I agree with Deputy Leneghan that co-operation has not got to that degree in the part of the country from which I come — the Land Commission would, of course, agree to a subdivision because it would build up the units of the group of farmers concerned.
That is the purpose of this amendment—to make it quite clear that the aim is to stop the creation of uneconomic units. In the case posed by Deputy Blowick, the group of farmers would not be creating uneconomic units. These three farmers would be building up their own units to economic levels. That is made quite clear in the previous amendment accepted by the House.
As far as the giving of additions to holdings is concerned, the Land Commission in recent years have been making the distance between the holding and the addition shorter. That has been my experience. While the Land Commission are very slow, and obviously they should be slow, in allowing people to sell additions which they have been given at very great expense to the taxpayers, if there is a special case to be made involving family circumstances, or if the disposal of the addition would help to consolidate another small holding in the area, the Land Commission would not withhold consent.
I presume they will continue with this attitude.
Yes, but every case must hang by its own tail. Naturally, the Land Commission must be very slow to allow somebody who has got an addition to go out on the open market and cash in by selling that addition. It is only when special family circumstances apply, or where the addition will help relieve the congestion of another tenant in the area, that the Land Commission will give consent. That has been, and I am sure, will be, the practice. The whole purpose of the amendment is as I have said: it is necessary because of the changes in the law that will take place under this Bill.
I should like it to go on record that from my experience over a number of years the Land Commission have been reasonable and have acted in a humane manner in giving consideration to special circumstances of individual families who have asked for permission to sell portions of small holdings because of ill-health or other changed conditions. In the Midlands, at any rate, the Land Commission have used very wise discretion. If I had a guarantee from the Minister that the sympathetic consideration shown by the Land Commission in the past in this respect would continue, I should have no objection to the amendment.
Amendment agreed to.
I move amendment No. 25:
Before subsection (2), to insert a new subsection as follows:
"() Subsection (1) of this section does not apply to any conacre or agistment letting or to any sub-division where the area of the plot proposed to be transferred does not exceed two statute acres measure, or to any subdivision of a holding within one mile of a town or village or within one mile of the urban boundary of a town or city."
This amendment is met to some extent by ministerial amendment No. 27a. Perhaps we could discuss both together, Nos. 25 and 27a.
It exempts certain urban areas. It is one the same lines as Deputy Blowick's amendment.
The Minister's amendment says:
...shall not apply to any holding which is not subject to purchase annuity or other payment payable to the Land Commission...
Does that mean land which has been redeemed free of rent or freehold land?
Yes, or where the annuity is redeemed and, in addition, either that the whole of such holding is situated within the boundary of a county borough, urban district or town or that the Land Commission certify that, in their opinion, such holding by reason of its proximity to a county borough, borough, urban district or town is required for urban development. In other words, my amendment would exclude this class of land within urban areas or any land near urban areas which the Land Commission would certify was necessary for development.
I think that meets my amendment. I accept that and I agree to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I move amendment No. 26:
In subsection (2), page 8, line 30, to delete "letting, subletting or".
The reason for this amendment is that the Minister has brought into the Bill a rather sweeping wording. I do not know if he intends that the Bill, if passed, shall apply as I have read it, but, as I see it, if passed without amendment, it means that all conacre lettings, all convenience lettings, even where one brother obliges another or a father obliges a son, are subject to the granting of Land Commission permission. This is a wholly unwarranted intrusion into the private affairs of every landowner.
From time to time I admit that we have Deputies here who were never any nearer to a holding than to pass by the road and look in, probably taking pity on the unfortunate serfs inside and pharisaically thanking God they were not in that class. I have heard Deputies of that type making an outcry about the letting of land without knowing what they were talking about and on a few occasions I had to correct them, both on the Minister's side and on this side of the House. It was rather pathetic to have them wasting the time of the House talking of something of which it was quite clear they knew nothing. If that kind of attitude has prompted this Bill, I think the Minister is very foolish to allow it.
First he is giving a power to the Land Commission which will clutter them up. They cannot possibly enforce it without putting a Land Commission inspector into every parish. Secondly, I do not see why the Minister is treating the farmers in this way. If a shopkeeper lets his shop or a tradesman his workshop, there is no outcry, but if the farmer lets his land, that is a different matter. If he meets with a run of bad luck, which very often happens through disease of stock, and his financial circumstances become poorer, he may find he has no way of getting an income from his land except to let it to somebody able to stock it. I see nothing wrong with that and it is nothing short of impertinence for anybody to criticise it. It would be different if he were wasting something but if Deputy Flanagan, for instance, has a holding which for some reason or other he is not able to work and asks me to take it and work it, I can assure you that, because I pay him a substantial conacre rent, that land will produce for me. Otherwise, I would not take it. Yet, I have heard Deputies making fools of themselves trying to build up an idea that any farmer who lets his land in conacre is some kind of criminal, worse than the Mau-Mau in Africa.
I am afraid the Minister has swallowed that nonsense because in this section he wants to give the Land Commission power to stop all letting, or perhaps he has not a grasp of the situation. It is impertinent for anybody to interfere in somebody's business to that extent; it is positively criminal for the State to take on that form of interference with farmers. The only place I have heard of that being done is in Russia where we heard talk of virgin lands since the time of that amiable character, Joe Stalin. It is completely wrong. One would imagine the farmer got the land from the State as a free gift and that he is prepared to sell the soil off it down to the rock when in fact he inherited it from his parents or bought it with his own hard-earned money. It is his own property. The word "impertinent" is not sufficient to describe it if the State steps in in this way, beyond what is called for in the public interest.
I was wondering how long Deputy Blowick could go on without bringing in Stalin or Russia or setting up a political Aunt Sally for the purpose of knocking it down. This section of this Bill does not control conacre letting. Conacre lettings were always outside the Land Acts since the Decies Act of 1860. They are not lettings. They are the giving of a temporary easement.
The Minister will not bluff me with that kind of nonsense.
I may not be able to bluff the Deputy but perhaps he will listen for a moment.
I shall listen but perhaps I read the Decies Act before the Minister.
According to Cherry's Irish Land Law and Land Purchase Acts, pp. 360-1, 3rd Edition:
A usage prevails in Ireland of letting small portions of land seldom containing less than a rood, or more than an acre in each lot, at a stipulated price for a single crop of potatoes or other tillage, called conacre or quarter ground. This creates no tenancy but is simply a sale of a profit out of the land and a temporary easement.
He then cites Dease v. O'Reilly which is followed by Booth v. McManus. I have no legal knowledge of any change in the law affecting conacre in the past 50 or 100 years.
The Minister is not suggesting that conacre is limited to a rood or an acre?
No, I am not—not for a moment. What I am saying is——
Cherry's definition is all rubbish.
It is no such thing. The practice was to let these small portions, but that does not take away from the legal principle of conacre lettings being outside the Land Acts as they have always been held to be. After all this Balaclava about the letting of land, it is surprising to me if Deputy Blowick is unaware that any letting of land subject to the Land Acts, for a year or more, without the consent of the Land Commission, is void.
Cod.
If the Deputy is setting up as an agricultural expert, or a fish expert on the subject of cod, let me now, without charge, inform him that any letting of land which is subject to the Land Acts, for more than a year without the consent of the Land Commission, is absolutely void.
I think the Minister has gone too far. It is voidable.
I will give the Deputy chapter and verse for that if he requires it. Indeed, down through the years there were many cases where, in fact, the consent of the Land Commission was sought and given to the letting of land, for temporary family reasons or purposes, for a period of perhaps three, four or five years. This section provides, as was the law before, that the consent of the Land Commission to the letting of land for more than 11 months will be necessary in the future. There would be no real reason for that except for the fact that under this Bill in addition to lands coming in under the Land Acts, land held under fee farm grants, and land in respect of which annuities were redeemed will be covered. In other words, this will cover all the agricultural land in the country. This section will make it clear that all land, no matter how held, with the exceptions provided in the amendment, will be subject to this law which has been there down through the years. This section does not deal with conacre lettings, nor is there any intention of interfering with conacre lettings.
Why does the Minister want the section if the law is already there?
I want the section for the purpose of controlling the type of land held under the title to which I referred and land coming in for the first time under this Bill. Formerly, as I said a moment ago on another amendment, if the annuity was purchased, the subdivision rule did not apply. In this case, land held under fee farm grants and other lands were not subject to the general rule to which I have referred. They are all being captured by this Bill, and it is necessary, in order to control them, to have this provision which is re-enacting what applied to practically all the lands——
It is not re-enacting anything. It is something new.
Of course it is.
It is controlling——
It is not re-enacting. Do not make false statements.
It is controlling new lands——
It is new.
——brought into the scope of this Bill. It is bringing under control lettings for periods of more than 11 months. That is all it is doing.
It is a new Tammany Hall racket.
How the Deputy describes it is a matter of terminology. I am asserting that at least 85 per cent of land purchased under the Land Acts was subject to this rule. Lands being brought in for the first time are being made subject to the same rule as was there before the introduction of this Bill.
The Minister tells us this was the law in the past, or words to that effect. It was no such thing, and furthermore I do not care what definition he has got out of Cherry. This subsection is most sweeping. It puts the lid on any court decision and on any legislation passed in the House of Commons or here. Subsection (1) states in very bald and ruthless terms:
An agricultural holding shall not be let, sublet or subdivided without the consent in writing of the Land Commission.
Does the Minister think he is talking to a crowd of fools when he calmly reads out a court decision from Cherry and asks us to believe that this section will not over-rule everything? The Bill is pickled through and through with sections which are doing nothing but making it quite clear that the decision of the Land Commission, regardless of previous court decisions given against them, will prevail. Even Lord Clanrickarde did not seek anything like subsection (1) of section 12. It is a most damnable and unwarranted interference. If the Minister is so concerned about conacre farms, let him accept my amendment, which does not interfere with the general purpose of the Bill and, at the same time, does not give the Land Commission this extraordinary power. It seems to me that the Land Commission want—if the Land Commission advised the Minister to include the subsection— to engage in work they were never intended to do.
They were intended to be wound up years ago.
They were started originally to make every tenant farmer the owner of his land. Down through the years, the relief of congestion was drafted on to their work, as added work. Now the Land Commission are going away from that, and they want to take powers of control which would almost turn them into a police force, with the Minister at the head, to regulate, drill and drum the farmers. We have seen the sorry plight which has followed on interference in their business, and neglect of their interests. Birmingham, Leeds, London and Manchester are full of Irishmen who——
The Deputy is getting away from his amendment.
If I read it correctly, Deputy Blowick's amendment seeks to delete "letting, subletting or"——
And no more.
This is a very serious subsection and a very serious section. It is a very important amendment we are dealing with, more particularly in view of the fact that the Minister states that this question of letting does not include ordinary conacre letting. The Minister has gone further—and I feel from my limited knowledge of the law that he is correct —and stated that if a person wants legally to set a portion of land, he cannot do so, in the present circumstances, without the consent of the Land Commission, if he wants to set it for a period of one year or more. Therefore, it is common practice in this country to set land for periods of 11 months. That is how the 11 months conacre system arose. If we want to set for a period of 12 months, we must have the consent of the Land Commission for such a conacre letting. In order to avoid that, the practice, in every part of the country today, is to set for a period of 11 months.
It is a very serious matter that the permission of the Land Commission must be sought in relation to land lettings. There is very little use in the Minister's telling us that conacre lettings are not covered by the Land Commission restriction on lettings. If a case is contested in the courts somebody may produce a copy of the Official Report of the proceedings here this evening and say to the judge or the justice: "Conacre lettings are not in any way restricted and here is a copy of the Official Report of Dáil Éireann which indicates the expression of opinion by the Minister." No judge or justice when administering the law will act on the opinion of a Minister or a Deputy but on what is in the Act.
There is nothing in this Bill to make it clear beyond all shadow of doubt that conacre lettings and temporary lettings are excluded from the terms of this section. None of us doubt the Minister but those of us who know the law are aware that conacre lettings are not excluded by this section and the sub-section to which Deputy Blowick refers may have a very serious bearing on the matter.
It may happen that the Land Commission may take serious action against a person who has conacred his lands. When such serious action is taken by the Land Commission it will be of no avail to quote what the Minister said here because there is nothing in the section excluding conacre lettings. I am inclined to agree with what Deputy Blowick and other Deputies who have spoken on this matter had to say. It is a very serious trespass and infringement on the rights of any farmer or smallholder or landowner to do what he or she please with his or her land.
For a long time, we have cherished the right of free sale in this country. We have cherished the right of a person to put up his holding, large or small, and to offer it to the public for the highest bid. There must be conacre lettings for the convenience of people who, because of financial or domestic circumstances, are not in a position to work their lands for their own use. If we set land for a root crop then the person who takes that land must manure it for the root crop and he expects to get the land the following year so as to get the benefit of the manuring for his corn crop.
How is the difficulty to be overcome? The ground must be set because of domestic or financial necessity. A person may pay up to £20 an acre for conacre. When he takes the land for 11 months he will put into it his work, his time and his seeds but, in addition, it will be richly manured at his own expense. He will want a good root crop—potatoes, beet, mangolds or turnips—but the reason he will richly manure the land for the root crop is to have the benefit of it for his corn crop in the following year.
A person will hesitate considerably before richly manuring soil if he has not any guarantee that he will get the land the following year. That is why it is common practice with auctioneers and with people setting land to set it for a two-year period. How is the problem to be resolved? The land can perfectly legally be set for two periods of 11 months each and the person gives clear possession of the land to the owner for two months of the two years. Not alone is the question of conacre lettings serious for the person who takes land but it is of the greatest importance for people who find it an absolute necessity to set their lands.
I suppose no profession more than the auctioneering profession has rendered greater service to people who must set their lands. They advise and co-operate with them and they get the best possible price for those requiring land by conacre. If the letting of land is to be prevented then the very small holder and the landless man will be very badly hit. This is a very important and urgent matter and the Minister should seriously reconsider it.
It is a very drastic step to prevent a person from setting his or her lands except with the permission of the Land Commission. Consider the shopkeeper. There may be certain covenants in his leases so that he may have to consult his ground landlord but if he is the owner of his shop he may sell it to whomsoever he wishes. A blacksmith may set his forge to whomsoever he likes when he retires.
They are nearly all retired now.
Take a carpenter who retires or who, through ill-health, cannot carry on his business. There is nothing to stop him from setting his workshop, his tools and his equipment, if he so desires. The same may be said in respect of a garage, a hairdressing saloon, and so on. A doctor may sublet his surgery to another member of the profession, if he so desires, as can also a dentist. However, the farmer, the smallholder, the main producer—those who are producing food for man and beast—may not do so. The rights they have enjoyed up to this are now being taken from them. The matter is left to a group of officials in Dublin who do not seem to have a thorough grasp of the situation or to have considered the significance of the manuring of conacre land. That is why I think that in principle this is a wrong step and that very serious consideration should be given to the question of the letting of these lands.
Can the Minister tell us what objection he has to putting in either Deputy Blowick's amendment or a short amendment of his own, and God knows he has put in enough. He has drastically changed the face of the Bill. Why then can he not put in a few lines of an amendment to clarify the legal position, so that the problem will not arise in court later on, when the Minister may be quoted, and when any justice will be bound to say: "That is not in the Act and I can only go on what is in the Act"? There is nothing in this Act which says that permission to conacre land is necessary, and I think it should be cleared of all doubts so that everybody will be satisfied and so that it will be very clear to the legal profession, to the auctioncering profession, and, above all, to the parties themselves.
We have the case of widows who are anxious to hold on to their land until their families come of age. It is absolutely necessary for such people to set land. This is something which we should very fully and very seriously debate. The Minister tells us that he has been receiving deputations and meeting parties interested in this Land Bill. I find it hard to believe that the Minister has met any deputation or organisation of landowners who would not mention to him the right to conacre or to set land without the consent of the Land Commission. The Minister has been very generous in his solemn guarantees by word that conacre sales are not included. We may take it then that if grass sales, meadowing sales and hay sales on the land are not included, the smallholder will not have to obtain permission to set his grazing, because a grazing letting for a period of 11 months does not, I am sure, require the consent of the Land Commission.
I can foresee difficulties arising when the Bill does not clearly state—and it does not clearly state—that for the purpose of this section, all 11-months conacre lettings and temporary lettings for domestic and other reasons, which must be undertaken by the owners, are excluded. In order to remove all doubts, I would ask the Minister to introduce, on Report Stage, an amendment which will make this clear. For the reasons stated, I make a very serious and genuine appeal to the Minister to make the Bill easy for everybody, to make it easy for himself, for the professions who will be dealing with this matter and for all concerned to understand the law in relation to this matter. As it stands, it is very clearly stated in the explanatory memorandum that letting and sub-letting of all agricultural land in the State shall be subject to Land Commission consent. It does not say "with the exception of conacre or temporary conveyances." For that reason, I would ask the Minister to be a little more generous and helpful in this matter. I am sure he can, and I am sure his advisers can, very easily advise him as to how this difficulty can be overcome, by the insertion of a short suitable amendment which will be very readily accepted by this side of the House, in order to clarify the position.
There is no good in the Minister trying to convince us that this section is a re-enactment of anything. I want to tell the Minister equally that the precedent he is setting in this section is all cod. If that section is let through in its present form, the Minister knows perfectly well, as a competent lawyer, that the section is sufficiently wide as to upset completely any precedent he may quote for it or any suggestion he may make in respect of the Decies Act. That section is broad enough of interpretation to include any type of letting, and no matter what was excluded previous to this Bill, let the Minister not try to cod a colleague in law anyway that this section is a complete change of power and a complete change of purpose.
I do not know what has happened to our thinking on Land Commission problems in this House over the number of years I have been in it. The Land Commission have a unique record. I suppose they are the longest sitting commission in any part of the world. They were designed for a purpose that was meant to be transitory and their main purpose was to get the title and the rights into the hands of the tenant farmers of Ireland. It was to get those rights on the historic basis of free sale, fixity of tenure and fair rent. We know that there have been so many deviations, variations, extensions and changes in the annuity system that we never know at what projected moment in the future any holder may hope to be a freeholder. But under this section, let the Minister not try to prevaricate. Under this section in its present form, the Minister is taking powers which I very much doubt he can constitutionally take.
Hear, hear.
I do not know whether the Minister has considered the constitutional implications of this bald and complete negation of rights just on the whim of the Land Commission. Our experience of the Land Commission and their whims is such that to give them any more power at all is only slowing down this cumbersome machine which we are trying to operate. I wonder has the Minister referred this matter to the Attorney General's office at all on the issue of its constitutionality or otherwise, because this is a complete invasion of basic liberty of the citizens of this country. Let nobody try to say anything else. Arbitrarily, the Minister is giving powers, and, no matter what guarantee the Minister personally may give, he is giving powers that can be twisted and most unscrupulously used by anybody who subsequently takes his place.
It is very easy to see that it can become a very strong, desirable political weapon and one that can be readily used in the best Tammany Hall tradition. There is no good in trying to say that conacre lettings are not included because the simple fact of the matter is that the phrase is "all lettings and sub-lettings". The Minister knows as well as I do, as an experienced lawyer, that you have no difficulty at all in arguing that the broad definition must catch all types of lettings, conacre or otherwise. All the Minister's talk about antediluvian cases tried hundreds of years ago is so much claptrap if this section becomes law in its present form because it will then be on the Statute Book for interpretation. The words of the statute are global and all-embracing, and well the Minister knows it.
I will not argue on the lines on which Deputy Flanagan argued. I argue purely on the merits of the section and the esoteric ill-conceived motive behind it. It is a shameless, ruthless invasion of private liberty. Nobody detests more than I do the man who will not work his farm properly in the best interests of the nation. I know, however, and the Minister knows, that a wide variety of causes or reasons can be involved in all this. The land may be in trusteeship or wardship or under some type of control which inevitably drives it into the market for letting. This bald power asked for by the Minister here will upset not only ordinary lettings but lettings and the administration of lands held in wardship of the courts themselves.
The Minister should have a very good look at this section before the Report Stage. If he wants to show his bona fides, there are two simple things he can do. He can, as suggested by Deputy Blowick and Deputy Flanagan, exclude all types of conacre or yearly lettings specifically. Further, as an earnest of his good faith, he can introduce a subsection making interference by the Land Commission in this arbitrary way referable to some tribunal for review as to whether or not such interference is reasonable or fair in the circumstances. That is one of the commonest principles we have in ordinary legislation. Where an arbitrary right is granted a tribunal is set up to which appeal against the arbitrary decision is referable.
If the section goes through in its present form, the Minister knows as well as I do that, if the strict legal interpretation is adhered to, he is taking rights away which are regarded as sacrosanct in the tradition of the Irish landowner, rights which were hard fought for and won, as desperately fought for as any of the liberties we enjoy. It is no good the Minister saying that while he is there —I do not believe he has any personal esoteric motive in this—the interpretation he has suggested will operate in the minds of the Land Commission. The Minister knows as well as I do that, once this Bill becomes law, the reply to any question about anything done under it will be that it is a matter for the Land Commission. Let the Minister come out into the open and tell us frankly that he wants these dictatorial powers or, else, that he is prepared to modify them in order to give expression to what is in the amendment and some right of appeal against any arbitrary decision as to whether people should be permitted to let or sublet.
No case whatever, I think, has been made, or can be made, in fact, for the inclusion of the words "let and sublet". Most of us would agree, I think, that subdivision is undesirable. Deputy O.J. Flanagan is not the only auctioneer engaged in the business of letting and subletting land who is seriously concerned about this section. This is not a branch of auctioneering which is particularly attractive to auctioneers. It involves a great deal of trouble of one kind or another. It is undertaken only as part of general auctioneering business.
Not only is this a serious restriction on the rights of ownership but it will impose considerable difficulty on auctioneers themselves. Deputy O. J. Flanagan is concerned that the amendment should be accepted in order to ensure that conacre lettings will be specifically and legally excluded. That type of letting is often far less desirable than period letting for three, four, or five years. Many excellent farmers are prepared to take land provided they are assured of having it for at least three or four years in order that they can set about doing a first-class job on the land, manuring it and putting it into good heart and, at the same time, getting some benefit from their labours. With the 11-months system there is always the danger of the land being mined; the man who gets it takes as much as he possibly can out of it. He is not concerned with what the land will be like the following year. On the other hand, if he takes it for three or four years, even for grass, he cares the land. Numbers of farmers are anxious to have period lettings of grass so that they can manure the land well for the first year or two. That, of course, is to the benefit of all.
As has been said, we are here restricting the right of the owner of land. We will not allow him any more to let his land over a period. If a man is engaged in any other business or has any other property he is free to let it for as long as he likes. I regard this subsection as wrong. We are anxious that the words "let and sublet" should be deleted. Deputy Blowick's amendment is a reasonable one. This is a matter of concern not only to landowners but also to auctioneers who have very considerable experience in this business throughout the country.
It is really an extraordinary situation to have the Minister bringing in this amendment and suggesting that this power should be given to the Land Commission. I think he will admit himself that even Cromwell was unable to do the things the Land Commission now seek power to do. Charles II was only interested in the larger estates. Apparently the Land Commission are interested in every acre.
This is Deputy Blowick's amendment.
We are dealing with subsection (1) of section 12 and the Minister cannot get away from that.
We are dealing with amendment No. 26.
The Land Commission are seeking powers to do these things. What is the position with regard to a large area of land in County Meath? According to an answer I got here today a good deal of land in County Meath has been in the hands of the Land Commission for a number of years. In regard to one estate which they acquired on 17/4/57, 203 acres are set for grazing and 27 acres in conacre.
By the Land Commission?
They took the land from those who owned it because they were letting it. We have cases of 70 acres taken in 1959, 182 acres taken in 1958 and 150 acres set in grazing since the Land Commission took the land over. I was told that it was not yet possible to indicate when the rest of the properties mentioned would be disposed of but that there would be no avoidable delay. Some time in 1961, when I asked the same question and included some of these estates, I was told there would be no avoidable delay. I do not think the Land Commission should have one law for themselves and another for everybody else.
I referred earlier this evening to the question of a person who had eight acres of land. That person gave the local authority permission to straighten a road through the land. The result was that one and a half acres were taken away, leaving six and a half acres. They then gave half an acre to the county council to build a cottage, for the son. That left six acres divided in two. When the local river floods, they have about half an acre because it comes up on the bank and the land is of very little use.
Approximately 12 months ago, the man who owned that land died. His widow was next-of-kin. She had three sons, one of whom has recently come to live in the county council cottage across the road. About a fortnight ago, a local farmer asked for permission to put a few cattle in on one of the fields not flooded until such time as the flood had subsided, because his own land was flooded. The following day, by a peculiar coincidence or by the long tongue of some neighbour, a Land Commission inspector arrived. They must have a fair amount of influence to be able to get an inspector on the spot so quickly. He went into that poor old lady seriously ill in bed and told her she was not dealing with the land properly. She explained the situation that her husband was less than 12 months dead and that the bit of land had been cut up badly. She had a cow and a couple of calves and her son now intended to work the land. Two or three days afterwards, a letter arrived telling her that the Land Commission proposed to take the land from her because she was not using it properly, that she was letting it. I have that letter in my possession if the Minister wants to see it. Is it the intention of the Land Commission to hound unfortunate people like that all over the country?
That is tyranny of the worst kind.
If the Land Commission want to go after the people with anything from 1,000 to 2,000 acres of land, which they set year after year, and take it from them and divide it among the local applicants or even congests, they will get the fullest support from me; but I will not agree that small farmers should be hounded and that unfortunate defenceless people should be treated in the way this old lady has been treated by officials of the Land Commission. I am prepared to stand over what I have said. I am not in the same position as Deputy Collins and I cannot quote the legal interpretation of the section. The Minister stated that conacre was exempted from the general terms of the section. He made a reference to conacre up to one acre. I agree there is a possibility that that type of conacre could be excluded. But I am not talking about conacre up to one acre. In my constituency the conacre is very seldom an acre or less than an acre.
I do not think the Minister can stand over asking for the powers he is asking for here—that the Land Commission should be entitled to go into every holding, no matter how small, and simply because the holding has been let because of the illness of the man of the house or for one of a hundred other reasons, should be able to throw out the person there. The Minister may say that what he says is that if land is let without the permission of the Land Commission, the Commission are entitled to claim that that letting is null and void. If the Land Commission have to be asked in every case for permission, then they must have an up-to-date record of everybody setting land. I assume that is the intention. I am not, however, as innocent as Deputy O.J. Flanagan and I do not assume everybody asks for permission from the Land Commission. We know they do not. The Minister is aware of it. However, circumstances alter cases.
They do not have to, if it is an 11-months letting.
The Minister is aware there are people letting much more land than the unfortunate old lady with the six acres. Some of them got it from the Land Commission and set it immediately. The Commission themselves have been setting land since 1957. In view of that case, there is no question that this section could bear the light of day.
(South Tipperary): The Minister has been consulting his legal catechism. He tells us that this does not include conacre. Would he tell us does he mean conacre under one acre or conacre or any acreage?
I said already conacre lettings, big or small, and I said already any agistment letting, any 11-months letting.
(South Tipperary): The Minister specifically states here: “An agricultural holding shall not be let, sublet or subdivided.” Can he assure me that a High Court judge will interpret this in this way and say that “let or sublet” does not include any form of conacre or grass letting?
That is the existing law.
The memorandum says that the Minister takes it as a global section.
It has been the law since 1860.
Subsection (1) very effectively wipes it out.
If it did, it should also wipe out section 65 of the Land Act, 1923.
(South Tipperary): I never heard of a judge when interpreting a section looking back to the Dáil Debates to find out what the particular Minister who piloted the Bill through the House had in mind and what opinion he expressed about it. They interpret it as it is written for them. There may be differences of interpretation as between one court and another, but they apparently never advert to what a particular Minister may have had in mind when introducing the Bill. It may not have happened in this Parliament but it must have happened in other Parliaments that when a Minister had certain ideas in introducing a Bill, he found afterwards those ideas were set aside when it came to interpretation by the Legislature.
The Minister seems confident in his own mind that this does not affect conacre. Apparently, the purpose of it is to compel people letting their land to inform upon themselves or to put them in the position that somebody else can inform on them that they have let the land so that the Land Commission may go in and adjudge whether it is proper or not that the lands have been let. It may be considered that these people are using their land improperly and should be deprived of it. That would seem to be the objective behind it. We on this side of the House feel an injustice is likely to be committed. Innocent people will be tormented and will suffer as a consequence of this attempt to get everybody into the net. He apparently accepted the fact—I suppose we all must—that conacre is a legitimate practice in certain conditions and within reason, and, carried to excess, is the reverse. He wants the Land Commission to adjudicate on this; he wants every form of letting to be reported, and judging by the wording of the provision, that is what will happen.
If the Minister wants to set aside the doubts that have been expressed on this side of the House, I can see no reason why he cannot introduce some section of his own and put everybody's mind at rest. He says he is in agreement in relation to what we are trying to guard against. What is to prevent his putting in a provision to cover that?
The level this debate has reached now would suggest to me the Fine Gael Party are involved in an obstruction process. The last speaker asked a series of utterly ridiculous questions. Apparently he does not know that in regard to registered land, all post-1923 Act registered land, at any rate, subdivision and subletting without the consent of the Land Commission is already illegal to such an extent that the agreement being made between the parties is void and of no effect whatsoever in the eyes of the law.
That has not been the interpretation of the law.
I agree there has been a circuit court case in regard to letting in which it has been held that the contract is binding as between the parties. That is so, but the intention and the operation up to that decision was that the letting was void. By the way, Sir, I would prefer, if possible, to speak without a microphone. I do not know whether there is any difficulty about turning it off.
We would have to turn it all off.
I thought there was some machinery.
We can get the operator to turn it off.
I consider myself capable of being understood in any part of this Assembly without a microphone system.
The only trouble is that there are people in the Public Gallery who may be interested in hearing what the Deputy has to say.
They will all hear.
I doubt it.
I am indeed surprised at the attitude of my fellow Mayoman, Deputy Blowick. Partly because he is a Mayoman and partly because of his experience as Minister for Lands in the years gone by, the Deputy ought to be aware that this provision, provided it does exclude conacre and agistment lettings, is not merely desirable but absolutely necessary and does not involve any invasion of the basic rights of the citizen.
Provided it excludes conacre or agistment lettings, but it does not. It includes them.
I maintain it does not do so and I am satisfied about that. There is no point in reiterating what the Minister has already said, what to me is perfectly clear and what appears to be well founded in law.
If we were satisfied it was well founded in law, there would be no difficulty but to make sure it is well founded, could a provision not go in excluding conacre or agistment lettings?
What is the purpose of it?
The Minister would stop his bluff.
It is the Opposition who are bluffing.
If the Minister says he is prepared on Report Stage to insert in brackets, "excluding conacre or agistment letting", he will get the section at once.
On the spot.
Let me reiterate that not alone today, not alone in 1923 but away back in 1870, a conacre letting or agistment letting was not a letting by law, and it was so defined, but was regarded as the sale of a profit á prendre; in other words, it was what some colleagues of mine in the west of Ireland used to call the sale of the “eatage” of the grass—which, to my mind, is a good way of expressing it— and was consequently outside the Land Acts down through all those years. Now we come along to the 1923 Act and for Deputy Collins's edification, let me say section 65 of that Act does not say “voidable”. It reads:
(1) Where the Land Commission have after the date of the passing of this Act made any advance for the purchase of a holding or parcel, the proprietor thereof shall not subdivide or let the holding or parcel without the consent of the Land Commission, and every attempted subdivision or letting in contravention of this provision shall be void as against all persons, and on any such contravention the holding or parcel shall at the option of the Land Commission vest in them.
There is not one exception in section 65 relating to conacre or agistment lettings, which goes to show that the accepted law then was, as it is today, that conacre and agistment lettings are outside the provisions of the Land Acts and are in fact the sale of profit á prendre. The very same wording as is in the 1923 Act is used in this section of the Bill about lettings. That obviously covers lettings for more than 11 months, lettings outside agistment lettings and, of course, as everyone concerned in these matters knows, a lease of land or a letting of land for one, two or three years or for over a period of one year is void under that section, without the consent of the Land Commission.
Somebody says for the sake of argument that a shopkeeper is entitled to let his shop without any penalty. While it is not quite relevant, let me say it is not strictly true. If a shopkeeper lets his shop for a period of over three years, as lawyers know, under the Landlord and Tenant Act of 1931, the tenant is entitled to go to the court and get a lease for 21 years and keep renewing it in perpetuity. The shopkeeper who lets his shop for over three years parts with his shop for all time.
That is not the same at all.
Since 1870, conacre lettings have been defined by law in the way I have set out and put on the records of this House and that has been accepted by all concerned, including by judicial decision, down through all those years.
Again let me deny as emphatically as I can—because evidently I can keep on repeating this until I am black in the face—that agistment or conacre lettings are not within this section, that they are outside this section. Let me reiterate that the wording of this section follows the wording of section 65 of the Land Act, 1923. Let me reiterate that it was necessary to get the Land Commission's consent to lettings of a period of a year or more. It is only because we are following it in other categories of land now that it is necessary to extend the same sub-division control and subletting control as was exercised under section 65 of the 1923 Land Act.
For those who have a real interest in the purposes of this Bill, let me also point out that if there were lettings for longer, without the consent being necessary, then any longer arrangements would be indistinguishable from permanent subdivisions and would make complete nonsense of the control machinery. If we did not extend this control provision about lettings for periods of over one year, it would mean that the Land Commission or anybody else would never know where they were, if consent were not necessary for these long lettings. The fact remains that this has been the law before and that this law is only now being extended with the new lands that are being brought under the scope of this Bill and this section does not interfere in any way with conacre lettings or agistment lettings, or the letting of after-grass lands to which Deputy Flanagan referred, or to any of these short, temporary convenience lettings under the 11-months system. I do not think it will serve any useful purpose for me to keep on repeating what the law has been, what it is and what is proposed here. That is as clear as I can make it.
I am convinced that the Minister is deliberately trying to mislead the House. He referred to section 65 of the Land Act, 1923. Every child knows that that applies to land which was still in the possession of the Land Commission but recently had been alloted to an allottee.
Not at all.
I know that much about the statute. Why has the Minister repeated it here? Why has he not repealed section 65 of the 1923 Act? Answer these questions.
How stupid can the Deputy get? I have answered that 40 times over.
You are deliberately trying——
The Deputy will address the Chair.
The Minister is deliberately trying to mislead the House and I have exposed him.
Surely Deputy Collins does not support this statement about the effect of the 1923 Act?
I heard it from men who had spent a lifetime in the Land Commission and who even outside this country were considered to be authorities on land law. Men who had given a lifetime to it and who had been sitting in a Commissioner's chair for much of their life, told me that section 65 of the 1923 Land Act applied to land still in the possession of the Land Commission——
Not at all.
——where the land had been allotted to allottees but where the ownership had not been handed over. The Minister knows that and he has brought in this section to make sure. Now he tells us that agistment and conacre, by regular custom and probably by legal decisions down the years, is not included in a letting. He makes sure that all this custom is in by simple wording that a child can read or understand when he says in subsection (1) of section 12 that "an agriculture holding"—that is, a vested holding, or a holding that might be redeemed free of rent forever, or a free farm holding or a leasehold holding—"shall not be let, sublet or subdivided without the consent in writing of the Land Commission".
I must congratulate the Minister on the clarity with which he has worded it. If he has brought in a tyrannical weapon against the small farmer, I certainly compliment with which he plainness and bluntness with which he has worded it. A child in the second class in national school could understand it. In case the custom in the past has been for agistment and conacre to be outside the scope of letting and sub-letting, he has made sure now. If the Minister is genuine in what he says and if he gives me an assurance that on the Report Stage he will just exclude conacre and agistment, I shall withdraw my amendment immediately; otherwise, I am not going to allow the Minister to bring in a tyrannical weapon for either his own hands or for those of whatever unscrupulous Minister may follow him, turning the Land Commission into a minor Gestapo for the purpose of annoying farmers.
Deputy Blowick has given still further evidence that he does not understand this section. It might be interesting to realise that under another Bill introduced recently the precise effect of this section would automatically be in operation in about 20 or 25 years' time when all title in this country would be registered anyway. All the Minister is doing is taking time by the forelock and bringing in unregistered land.
The Deputy might be interested to know the history of the section in the 1923 Act and why it was introduced. The fact was that the previous Land Act had been ineffectual in preventing subletting and subdivision inasmuch as the rider was added "until the Land Commission advance has been redeemed." Therefore where pre-1923 land was concerned, it was possible, on the redemption of the annuity, to carve up the land and to undo the work the Land Commission had been established to do and make nonsense of their efforts. It became essential to bring in this wording to make void any arrangement to sublet or subdivide, irrespective of whether the annuity was or was not redeemed.
That is the history and to suggest that the Minister is trying to bluff anybody or is bringing in something new or that the interpretation which Deputy Blowick has been putting on it is the interpretation which has been in force for over 41 years, is just plain childishness, to use a word so beloved of Deputy Blowick. It seems to me now that Clann na Talmhan and its remnant for some reason best known to themselves, have decided to join Fine Gael in obstructing a provision that is not merely late in 1964 but would have been late if Deputy Blowick had started it.
Deputy Flanagan went down to the Minister a few minutes ago and the Minister said: "Get up and take me out of this mess".
I strenously object to this. I did not have a copy of Deputy Blowick's amendment. I asked the Minister what the amendment was and the Minister told me. That is the only conversation I had. If Deputy Blowick has to stoop to this sort of thing, he is a disgrace.
Finally, let me say on this amendment and put it on the records of the House that what Deputy Blowick has stated about the effect of section 65 of the Land Act of 1923 is utter nonsense, is incorrect, is untrue, and that section 65 of the Land Act of 1923 applied to every holding purchased under that Act, not to holdings awaiting division by the Land Commission, but to every holding purchased under that Act and that under that section every holding purchased under the 1923 Act was subject to this control, that is, that if there was a letting for more than 11 months it was void without the consent of the Land Commission. I want to give the lie to the utter nonsense uttered by Deputy Blowick in regard to section 65 of the Land Act, 1923, and to point out that this control was there in respect of all lands purchased under that Land Act and that this particular control was there also.
Yes, of unvested land. That is what I said.
I was under the impression, perhaps, wrongly, but if what the Minister said is correct, rightly, that under section 65 of the Land Act, 1923, permission and consent must be obtained and that no letting would stand legally unless the permission and the consent of the Land Commission were obtained. The Minister now agrees with me that that is so.
The reason why 11 months conacre lettings have taken place, particularly since 1923, is to avoid having to get the consent and permission of the Land Commission to let owing to family circumstances, for convenience and to assist people who must avail of conacre letting.
I am sorry that there appears to be a strong exchange of views between both sides of the House in relation to this matter but I feel rather strongly about this matter myself. In the event of legal proceedings being instituted by the Land Commission in relation to the letting of lands, can the Minister tell us what defence the defendants will have in court if the learned judge refers to section 12 and sees that as far as the law goes the letting and subletting of all agricultural land in the State is subject to Land Commission consent? It will be of no use to tell the learned judge that the Minister for Lands said in the Dáil when the Bill was going through that conacre and agistment lettings were outside the scope of the section.
Therefore I would ask the Minister to insert, on Report Stage, 12 words in the Bill, to which the learned judge can refer, to the effect that conacre and agistment lettings and temporary lettings do not come within the scope of section 12 of the Land Act, 1963. It is as simple as that. If the Minister would meet us on that I am sure Deputy Blowick and other Deputies who have spoken strongly on the matter would welcome any step he might take in that regard.
Finally, I should like to refer to Deputy Seán Flanagan's statement that there is a deliberate attempt on this side of the House to obstruct the speedy passage of this Bill. There is no such thing. I am sure the Minister will agree that we are reasonable on this side of the House. There must be an Opposition in order to produce the best possible legislation. We are here, not to obstruct, but to make honest and constructive criticism. That is why we are examining this Bill patiently, not alone section by section, but sub-section by subsection, line by line, word by word. The Bill deserves the fullest possible examination.
I would ask the Minister to let us discuss the Bill in a spirit of friendliness. Let what is said be said in an effort to make this section workable. I would make a genuine and sincere appeal to the Minister to review this matter. I am sure that his very capable officials could advise him. May I say with reference to the Department of Lands that we have the best civil servants in Ireland in the Land Commission and we have a high standard Civil Service. I would ask the Minister to consult his officials with a view to the insertion of some suitable subsection on Report Stage that would clear the air and ease the minds of persons who must conacre their lands.
I have met people in recent weeks since this Bill was circulated and reference has been made to it. They are people who as a matter of necessity conacre their holdings. There is a certain amount of fear and a great strain and a wave of depression over them because they feel the powers given in this Bill will react against them and that they will have to apply to the Land Commission in order to obtain permission and consent to conacre their lands, despite the fact that the auctioneering and legal professions have gone to great lengths to explain to them that there is no need for any uneasiness. There is a section of the legal profession who have serious doubts about this and maintain that, on the reading of the Bill as it stands, "all lettings within the State", as referred to in the Bill, would include conacre lettings, agistment and temporary lettings.
In order to remove these doubts, I would ask the Minister to bring in an amendment on the Report Stage. I do not know of conacre letting of one acre or under. In all the lands that I have set in years past, I do not ever remember making a conacre letting of one acre of land. Land is let in conacre in 30, 40, 70 acres and so on. If it is quite legal to set one acre or under one acre without having to get permission, then the permission and the consent are nonsensical. Nobody goes to the trouble of setting one acre of land. It might be a cottage plot. Those who have cottage plots work them wisely and well. They are the people who look for conacre so as to be able to work an additional piece of ground.
We on this side of the House want to see this Bill work because we are most anxious that the congestion problem should be tackled in the proper manner. We want to see the lot of smallholders improved. I would, therefore, ask the Minister, in order that he may get a greater measure of co-operation from this side of the House, to meet us on this and bring in a short amendment on Report Stage.
Put in, in brackets, "excluding conacre or agistment holdings".
The slogan down the country among auctioneers and legal men at the moment is: "Sell as fast as you can before the Land Commission come in." If I had taken a "jorum", I might be inclined to believe Deputy Blowick, to take him seriously. As it is, I suggest he is taking leave of his senses. Here he is the big man's man. His speech on this section was directed against the small farmers of the west. Does he not realise that not only is there nothing extraordinary in this section but that there is nothing new in it at all? If justices and judges in this country since 1923 have been perfectly capable of interpreting this section, is there any reason why a new section, drafted in exactly the same way, should be misconstrued? I fail to see any merit in the opposition to this section. The extraordinary thing is that the opposition is coming from auctioneers and legal men, the only two categories who can benefit by holding up the Bill.
I do not think there is any necessity for me to reiterate that the only doubts about this matter are those raised deliberately by Deputy O.J. Flanagan that this does not, in fact, apply to conacre or agistment lettings. The Deputy has referred to learned judges. We must assume our judges are not imbeciles and that they are aware of the law of this land as it has existed since 1870——
Would the Minister even agree to put it in brackets as suggested by Deputy Collins?
If there is any technical difficulty about it, I do not mind.
I want to make my position clear. The only concern I have—I feel sure the Minister will agree with me here—is the protection of the ordinary small farmer who has a right to his land. Take a widow with a £10 valuation who wants to let her holding. She has been left with a young family; she does not know much about the management of land, but she wants to keep the holding for one of her sons.
That is not at issue at all.
I do not want to get hot and bothered. I want to give the Minister the section this minute. We are not talking through our hats. What is wrong with putting in the few words suggested by Deputy Collins?
All we want included, in brackets, is "save conacre lettings".
Would the Minister consider that between now and Report Stage?
I shall not waste further public time by reiterating what is no news to any legal schoolboy—that conacre and agistment lettings were never regarded as being legal lettings, creating a tenancy. That has been the law since 1870. It is utter tripe to try to pretend something is being done here which is not being done and which every reasonable Deputy knows is not being done. There is no such exception made in section 23 because these lettings were never legal tenancies under any of the Land Acts. It would look utterly ridiculous for the House to include some nonsense of this kind which has no meaning for anybody but which might be misinterpreted.
How could it be?
I cannot continue to reiterate that this opposition is in order to scare any hare that might be frightened under this Bill. Any lawyer dealing with land law or who has got anything to do with it, today or 60 years ago, knows that the position is quite clear—again, that this section has nothing to do with conacre or agistment lettings.
I am disappointed with the Minister's attitude. While it may have applied for 100 years that a conacre or agistment letting did not mean a legal letting, by Jove it means it here. Since the Minister will not meet our suggestion, I am forced to conclude he has some sinister object in forcing the section through. He is taking a highly unwarranted power unto himself. I am speaking on behalf of a class of smallholders who, through accident, ill health or financial distress, have got to emigrate, to leave their holdings behind them and to earn money in order that they may come back and resume the holdings. I am concerned about a husband or wife who find themselves left without the life partner——
Give me the hankie until I start crying.
It is tough luck and hard law on the small farmer to be forced off his land through lack of interest by Government policy.
Are we to have this out all over again on this amendment?
This section will be used against such a man. If I am forced off my little holding and have to go to England, I must do something with my holding. This section is designed to force me off my holding.
Question put: "That the words proposed to be deleted stand."
The Committee divided: Tá, 64; Níl, 58.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Allen, Lorcan.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Blaney, Neil T.
- Boland, Kevin.
- Booth, Lionel.
- Boylan, Terence.
- Brady, Philip A.
- Brennan, Joseph.
- Brennan, Paudge.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Burke, Patrick J.
- Calleary, Phelim A.
- Carter, Frank.
- Carty, Michael.
- Childers, Erskine.
- Clohessy, Patrick.
- Colley, George.
- Collins, James J.
- Corry, Martin J.
- Cotter, Edward.
- Crinion, Brendan.
- Crowley, Honor M.
- Cummins, Patrick J.
- Cunningham, Liam.
- Davern, Mick.
- de Valera, Vivion.
- Dolan, Séamus.
- Dooley, Patrick.
- Egan, Kieran P.
- Egan, Nicholas.
- Fanning, John.
- Faulkner, Padraig.
- Flanagan, Seán.
- Gallagher, James.
- Galvin, Sheila.
- Geoghegan, John.
- Gibbons, James M.
- Gilbride, Eugene.
- Gogan, Richard P.
- Hillery, Patrick.
- Hilliard, Michael.
- Kennedy, Michael J.
- Kitt, Michael F.
- Lalor, Patrick J.
- Lemass, Seán.
- Leneghan, Joseph R.
- Lenihan, Brian.
- Lynch, Celia.
- Lynch, Jack.
- MacCarthy, Seán.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- Meaney, Con.
- Medlar, Martin.
- Millar, Anthony G.
- Moher, John W.
- Mooney, Patrick.
- Moran, Michael.
- Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
- Ó Ceallaigh, Seán.
- O'Connor, Timothy.
- Ormonde, John.
- Sherwin, Frank.
- Timmons, Eugene.
Níl
- Barrett, Stephen D.
- Barron, Joseph.
- Barry, Anthony.
- Barry, Richard.
- Belton, Paddy.
- Blowick, Joseph.
- Browne, Michael.
- Burton, Philip.
- Byrne, Patrick.
- Clinton, Mark A.
- Collins, Seán.
- Connor, Patrick.
- Coogan, Fintan.
- Corish, Brendan.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Costello, Declan D.
- Costello, John A.
- Coughlan, Stephen.
- Crotty, Patrick J.
- Dillon, James M.
- Dockrell, Henry P.
- Dockrell, Maurice E.
- Donegan, Patrick S.
- Dunne, Seán.
- Dunne, Thomas.
- Esmonde, Sir Anthony C.
- Everett, James.
- Farrelly, Denis.
- Flanagan, Oliver J.
- Gilhawley, Eugene.
- Governey, Desmond.
- Harte, Patrick D.
- Hogan, Patrick (South Tipperary).
- Hogan O'Higgins, Brigid.
- Jones, Denis F.
- Kenny, Henry.
- Kyne, Thomas A.
- Lynch, Thaddeus.
- McAuliffe, Patrick.
- MacEoin, Seán.
- McLaughlin, Joseph.
- McQuillan, John.
- Murphy, Michael P.
- Murphy, William.
- O'Donnell, Patrick.
- O'Donnell, Thomas G.
- O'Higgins, Michael J.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F. K.
- O'Keeffe, James.
- O'Reilly, Patrick.
- O'Sullivan, Denis J.
- Pattison, Séamus.
- Rooney, Eamonn.
- Ryan, Richie.
- Spring, Dan.
- Sweetman, Gerard.
- Treacy, Seán.
- Tully, James.
Tellers: Tá: Deputies J. Brennan and Geoghegan; Níl: Deputies O'Sullivan and Crotty.
Question declared carried.
Amendment declared lost.
I move amendment No. 27:
In page 8, line 32, after "persons" to insert the following:
"; provided, however, that in any case where the consent of the Land Commission under this Act is given after the attempted or purported letting, subletting or subdivisions, such consent shall, if the Land Commission so direct, so operate as to validate with retrospective effect such attempted or purported letting, subletting or subdivision."
Since Second Reading, I have noticed that this section does not clearly give the Land Commission power to grant post factum approval of a subdivision or subletting. It is possible that a man might innocently complete a dealing which, while being technically a breach of this subdivision control section, would be quite innocuous so far as Land Commission policy is concerned. In such a case, it would be too severe to have the dealing accounted “null and void as against all persons” with no possibility of redress and no account being taken of the merits of the case.
I feel that this element of rigidity must be removed from the section. At the same time, I must state for the record, that I have no desire to see this amendment—which is an escape clause —used to cover up the misdeeds of real offenders. However, it will transpire from time to time that innocuous sublettings or lettings would arise in respect of which there would be no objection from the Land Commission policy point of view. It might also transpire due to squatters on small areas that boundaries of folios would change. This amendment is designed, therefore, to give the Land Commission power to give post factum approval to such matters where they arise. It is for clarification purposes.
Would the Minister say if that would apply to a case such as the one I cited earlier this evening, where someone had a small acreage of bad land? Is that what he has in mind?
I would want the facts of any particular application for sub-division that may have been refused. I understand that is what the Deputy was speaking about. As I say, this amendment is to enable the Land Commission to give post factum approval in a case where they consider it should be given.
For subletting?
For either subletting or subdivision. It could arise in either case. To my own knowledge, there have been hundreds of sublettings of over a year that are completely void under the 1923 Act. Unless there was a row and they came into court, they went ahead. It may also have happened in cases under the 1923 Act, and perhaps if they were brought to the notice of the Land Commission, they would be inclined to give post factum approval. At present the law is not there to enable them to do so. Under this section, they can give post factum approval where they consider it should be given.
Will there be any time limit?
No.
It relates to hardship cases?
Yes.
It is necessary, is it not?
I think so.
Amendment agreed to.
Amendment No. 27a was discussed with amendment No. 25.
I move amendment No. 27a:
In page 8, after subsection (2) to insert the following subsection;
"() Subsection (1) of this section shall not apply to any holding which is not subject to purchase annuity or other payment payable to the Land Commission, and either— (a) the whole of such holding is situate within the boundary of any county borough, borough, urban district or town, or
(b) the Land Commission certify under their common seal that in their opinion such holding, by reason of its proximity to a county borough, borough, urban district or town, is required for urban development."
Amendment agreed to.
I move amendment No. 27b:
In page 8, after subsection (3) to insert the following subsection:
"( ) Where but for this section a title to a part or parts of a holding would be acquired by possession, the consent of the Land Commission under this section shall be required to such acquisition."
I know from my experience as a solicitor that there are ways in which parties who have been refused permission to subdivide a holding can enter into collusion to bring about an effective subdivision by what is commonly called "adverse possession". Lest there may be any doubt, I propose that this circumventory device be clearly controlled, as in the amendment now put forward. The person who is in process of acquiring squatter's title is essentially a trespasser. The purpose of the amendment is to make it clear that, for purposes of sub-division control, the squatter is in the same position as the legal owner or tenant. It would be quite absurd to put squatters at an advantage compared with legal owners. I must point out, at the same time, that the amendment will not affect the case in which a man establishes a possessory title over a whole holding; for example, the man who has only a possessory title to a family farm will be no less secure than he is at present.
It has transpired that where people have applied for permission to subdivide land and such permission was refused, they have simply gone on in possession, put up fences, squatted on the land, and acquired squatter's title. The purpose of the amendment is to stop that practice. As I have explained, it does not apply to a person who squats on a whole farm.
Surely the Minister is not serious in telling us that there would be many cases of that kind, where people would remain in possession for ten years? Is it ten years undisputed ownership?
It is 12 years.
I would say such cases would be very isolated.
There are quite a number.
They are not that isolated.
Amendment agreed to.
I move amendment No. 27c:
In page 8, after subsection (3) to insert the following subsection:
"() Every stipulation in a contract for the sale of land whereby the purchaser is precluded from making requisitions in relation to a letting, subletting or subdivision of an agricultural holding shall be null and void."
It has occurred to me that since sub-divisions without Land Commission consent will be null and void over a wider field than heretofore, it will become necessary for a purchaser's solicitor to demand proof that there is no such flaw in a vendor's title, especially in respect of purchases in the now limited category of unregistered freeholds. On the other hand, we might have a vendor's solicitor trying to stipulate in conditions of sale that requisitions based on section 12 of this Bill would be barred. Accordingly. I propose that restrictive conditions of this nature against a reasonable requisition of title should be declared null and void.
This amendment deals with restrictive conditions of sale forbidding the purchaser to inquire whether lands are subject to this section. After discussions with Land Registry officials I am satisfied it is desirable to clarify the law, and to have this amendment dealing with title.
It seems a cumbersome amendment on the face of it.
We gave it very careful consideration.
I am not objecting to the principle of the amendment but it does seem a bit cumbersome.
After careful consideration, we settled on this form: I am advised it was necessary to have it in this way to achieve the purpose we have in mind.
It strikes me that a lot of this work amounts to excessive regimentation and interference with the landowners' business.
This is a protection.
It is not. I can see and I fear a trend which I do not care about and that is that the Land Commission are completely changing their outlook. They are getting away from what they were intended for, namely, the relief of congestion. Not one of these amendments deals with the relief of congestion or with the doing away of rundale or with the improvement of conditions for the farmers.
It is plain that the Deputy does not understand this amendment which is for the protection of the purchaser.
Deputy S. Flanagan is a legal man. I should like to see the Minister for Justice come into this House with a Bill that would regard the members of his profession in the same way as this Land Bill and this Minister regard the farmers. There would be sparks flying and I would admire him for it.
It is quite certain that Deputy Blowick is out to amuse himself.
Not a bit of it. It is a good while since I felt so bitter about anything done in this House.
It is quite plain that the Deputy has not the slightest notion of what he is talking about but that he is determined to use his handkerchief to wipe away enormous quantities of crocodile tears which he sheds in bitter isolation on behalf of the said misguided and rejected small farmers.
This amendment is designed to prevent a solicitor for a vendor from putting into conditions of sale a clause which would preclude the purchaser from making certain inquiries as to whether or not the land has been the subject of section 11. It is, therefore, a protection for the purchaser and should commend itself as such to the great protector of farmers who has been speaking so volubly and irrelevantly on their behalf.
Amendment agreed to.
I move amendment No. 27d:
In page 8, to delete subsection (4) and to insert the following sub-section:
"( ) In this section—
"agricultural", in relation to a holding, means substantially agricultural or pastoral or substantially agricultural and pastoral in character;
"holding", in relation to a particular tenant or proprietor, means all the land held by him at or after the passing of this Act under a single demise or to which he has acquired title by possession, whether fee simple, fee farm grant, leasehold or from year to year (whether or not under statutory conditions), and whether held jointly or in common or alone or in severalty, and whether or not purchased under the Land Purchase Acts or registered or deemed to be registered under the Registration of Title Acts, 1891 and 1942; provided that where two or more than two such holdings stand consolidated they shall be deemed to be one holding and that, where two or more than two registered properties are registered in the same ownership and have not been consolidated by the Land Commission.
they shall be deemed to be separate holdings for the purposes of this section;
"subdivision" includes any claim whatsoever to title to a part or parts of a holding, whether by disposition to one or more than one person, and `subdivide' shall be construed accordingly."
This amendment is designed to enlarge the definitions subsection so as to cover several other points on which clarification may be needed. I shall deal with them separately:
The word "property" in line 38 is being replaced by the word "land" because it was not explicit enough. This is merely a drafting point.
Next we have, a line or two later, the introduction of the phrase "or to which he has acquired title by possession." In the original text the phrase "under a single demise" would hardly cover the assumption of title by what is called adverse possession or squatting and so we would have an unjust situation in which the squatter would be quite free of sub-division control while the ordinary purchaser or inheritor of land would be subject to it.
I should perhaps mention that this is not the same point as that which I dealt with on amendment No. 27b. Broadly speaking, that amendment related to the severance of a holding through the claim of the squatter; this new phrase introduces the idea of control over any subsequent action by the squatter in sub-dividing what he managed to get title to.
Now I come to the words in brackets in the amendment,—"whether or not under statutory conditions." This is purely a matter of drafting. It seems possible that the words "year to year" immediately preceding would not cover a judicial tenancy and so it is desirable that this small gap should be closed.
Another point which has caused some concern is the argument that, on the original wording of this section, any two folio holdings acquired by the one man and registered in his name might have to be treated thereafter as one unit—for the purposes of sub-division control—even though they were otherwise quite unrelated. They might be very many miles apart and obviously distinct and separate units for the purposes of any rational land-structure policy. I have no desire to introduce unreal paper consolidations of this type since they would be vexatious to the owners concerned and would raise unnecessary problems in the Land Registry. Accordingly, the second last passage in amendment No. 27d provides in effect that two folio holdings in this situation shall remain distinct units unless the Land Commission have specifically provided that they be consolidated.
In the last three lines of the amendment I have sought to deal with certain problems of evasion. There are legal devices by which a lawyer might seek to achieve an effective sub-division and at the same time maintain that he had not legally subdivided the holding within the meaning of this section as originally drafted. The amendment has had to be worded comprehensively so as to put all such dealings in jeopardy and deter people from attempting evasion by the devices I have in mind.
With the exception of drafting amendments and, the last one, the point which was brought to our notice that you have, of course, some owners having two or three folios in different parts, perhaps widely separated, and in places where they are not consolidated, we thought it better to make the law clear here in this section and to set out that they would be regarded as separate units. These are the purposes of this comprehensive amendment on points that were raised as between the Land Registry and others on the legal effect of this section.
Is it not a pity that they were not raised before the Bill was drafted?
In this Bill, and dealing with land law, it is a very technical field. It was only after considering the different aspects of these sections, and their effect with the sections clarifying the ideas, that we have provided for what might turn up.
I take it that the Minister is running this Bill on the basis of consultation between the Land Registry and the Land Commission?
This is a point that obviously arises with Land Registry practice.
It is not fair to the House to introduce a Bill of this sort with an explanatory memorandum and to introduce shortly afterwards a list of amendments and to introduce, shortly after that, another list of amendments—and we are now presented with another list of amendments. There is nothing to prevent the Minister from introducing, every week the Dáil sits to discuss this Bill, a list of amendments. I am sure he would not, knowing it to be so, but he will admit it is rather unfair to Deputies and to Parties who have considered this Bill, discussed what was before them and decided to take a certain line of action, to find that, at this stage, the whole face of the Bill is being changed. The Minister says they are only drafting amendments. An amendment which requires one-third of a page of highly technical terms can hardly be considered one which is put in as just a drafting amendment. The Minister is being unfair to the House and to Deputies who want to discuss this Bill with him and who want to see it go through as a proper Land Bill.
It would be very remiss of me if, on consideration after the Second Reading, I found there were certain matters which might bear a different interpretation and I failed to deal with them. This is the place to deal with such matters. Not one amendment interferes with the original principles enshrined in the Bill. Their purpose is to make the law clearer and to deal with these odd cases of a very technical legal nature for which it is necessary to make provision.
Deputy Tully's point is very simple. The Minister should have been aware before he brought in the original draft of the Bill——
Perhaps the Deputy would stand up if he has anything to say.
Certainly; I meant no discourtesy to the Chair. Deputy Tully believes that all these special cases were within the knowledge of the Land Commission or the Land Registry. Deputy Tully is quite entitled to say that the Minister could have delayed the printing of the Bill until such time as he could cover all the difficulties he is now trying to cover by amendment. This is leading to confusion in the case of those who are not aware of the technical difficulties or the purpose of the Minister's amendments. It is in the Minister's own interest to clarify simpliciter rather than technically the reasons for these amendments. I am anxious the Minister should get this Bill quickly but, at the same time, Deputy Tully's protest should register with the Minister. It is unreasonable to find the Land Bill, in the course of a couple of months, being amended in this fashion by amendment and counter-amendment and amendments to amendments.
These amendments are mainly drafting amendments. They are of a very technical nature. Deputy Collins will appreciate it is not easy to explain in layman's language the effect of some of these dealing, for instance, with squatter's title and what can happen with registered titles under the Local Registration of Title Act and the position that could arise with regard to squatters under the provisions of this Bill. In very odd cases, too, there are fears of evasion. Either I, or someone else, after the Second Reading, saw the possible legal way in which the intention of the Bill could be evaded. It is to prevent such evasion that these technical amendments are introduced. The principles have not been departed from. The law has been made clearer and we are trying to foresee technical evasions and trying to make provision to make sure they will not occur.
Would the Minister not agree it is unreasonable on the Committee Stage of a Bill to put in an amendment like amendment No. 24 to section 12 and, after that had been in the possession of Deputies for almost a week, then amendments Nos. 24a and 24b, and so on, right down the line, are put in? Does it not appear as if the Bill is changing its face completely, despite what the Minister says? The wording of the Bill is being changed very considerably. Subsections are being deleted.
We are improving them.
I grant that they could be improved, but this looks to me like a sloppy attempt at legislation. I am not blaming the Minister but the Bill should be in more concise form before it comes before the House.
Amendment agreed to.
I move amendment No. 28:
To add to the section the following subsection:
"( ) In this section a holding shall be deemed to be let or sublet where it is held by virtue of any instrument in writing, whether under seal or not, containing a contract of tenancy in respect of holding, in consideration of a rent or return and shall not include a letting for the purpose of temporary depasturage, agistment or conacre or for temporary convenience or to meet a temporary necessity."
The purpose of this amendment is to clarify the law in relation to these lettings. I shall not repeat what I have already said but, if the Minister is making an attempt over the weekend to improve the Bill by the circulation of further miscellaneous amendments, I really think a genuine effort should be made to improve the Bill by accepting this amendment.
A farmer should be free to let his land for temporary convenience and legitimate conacre. It is a serious handicap on any farmer to be prevented from making such lettings or put to the inconvenience of having to seek permission from and the consent of the Land Commission. I presume there will be a section specially set up for the purpose of dealing speedily with applications and that a farmer will be assured of a reply in the course of a week or ten days. It is desirable no time should be lost in giving decisions.
This amendment should be accepted particularly in the light of the recommendation made to the Minister by the NFA in their observations on the Land Bill. They state clearly that they appreciate the fact that the Minister has stated that the usual conacre or legitimate lettings are not covered by this section but they also recommend that agistment and conacre should be specifically exempted from the section. The one way in which that can be done is by accepting this amendment. I have considered the matter very carefully and I believe the amendment is worthy of consideration by the House.
There is no difference between this amendment and the amendment moved by Deputy Blowick. I do not propose to weary the House reiterating that this Bill does not deal with conacre or agistment lettings. The law on that has been quite clear since 1870. I see no reason why the Land Commission should need any staff to deal with consent to lettings when, in fact, the law of the land is sinnce the passing of the 1923 Act that consents were necessary in respect of land purchased under the Act. The staff dealing with that can continue to deal with the matter in the future. I have dealt very fully with the whole position on the amendment moved by Deputy Blowick and the same arguments apply to this amendment.
Would the Minister say whether a subletting or agistment has ever been defined in any Act? I do not want to raise any heat over it, but I cannot see a judge putting any interpretation on this Bill when it becomes law other than that which is written into it. It is a judge's function to interpret the laws we make, whether they are good or bad. It would ease my mind enormously if I could be assured that no judge in the future would interpret subsection (1) in the way I am afraid of.
The Minister should be less naïve than he is. We have had a welter of verbiage in successive amendments from him. Since we have graciously consented to all kinds of long, technical amendments from the Minister, it is not unreasonable for us to ask him to bring in a simple two or three-line amendment on Report epitomising Deputy O.J. Flanagan's amendment to show it is clearly statutorily declared that, whatever the interpretation of agistment or conacre lettings may be, for the purposes of the 1963 Act, they are specifically included.
For the past 90 years, the law has been that a conacre or agistment letting is not, in fact, a legal letting at all. It does not create any tenancy but is a sale of a profit à prendre out of the lands or the eatage of lands, as we describe it in the west. That is the reason why there is no necessity to exclude conacre or agistment lettings in any of the Land Acts. What is the use wasting time on this when that is the law known to everybody, and there is no doubt about it. Every legal schoolboy knows that. I have used all these arguments before on Deputy Blowick's amendment and I do not think I should take up more of the time of the House dealing with it.
In the event of the Minister being Minister at some future date when some judge has given a contrary decision to that, would the Minister be opposed to a Private Member's Bill setting aside such a decision?
I would be delighted.
I will take that.
I am going to weary the Minister on the rest of this Land Bill.
What about the rest of us?
From my varied experience of 18 years, I do not think there has been any legislation so clumsily and ineptly presented as this legislation. The ink on one set of amendments was hardly dry before they were followed by more.
That does not arise on this amendment.
With due respect, it arises on all amendments, Sir.
Will the Deputy please resume his seat? We are discussing amendment No. 28.
With respect, the Chair must listen to my submission. The Minister is moaning about wasting time. Surely I am entitled to deal with criticism made by the Minister in regard to the waste of time?
The question of the waste of time does not arise on the amendment.
The Minister has been allowed to raise it, and with respect, I am entitled to answer him.
If the Deputy does not come to the amendment, I shall ask him to resume his seat.
I do not want to challenge the Chair, but, with respect, the Chair does not seem to be interpreting the amendment properly either.
There is nothing before the House except amendment No. 28.
I am asking the Minister to prevent further waste of time. He referred to a legal schoolboy. There is no such thing as a legal schoolboy. You are at an advanced stage of adult education before you become a legal student at all. Today the Minister tried to quote for a precedent Cherry and some archaic memoirs.
Surely not on amendment No. 28?
I am not being given a chance to argue. The Chair is constantly interrupting.
The Chair is endeavouring to get the Deputy to the amendment.
I am coming to the amendment if the Chair has the patience to wait.
The Deputy is wandering too far. He will never come to the amendment.
The argument is that there is no need for Deputy O.J. Flanagan's amendment. The Minister has stated that every legal schoolboy knows that. The Minister says that position is created by precedent. There is a simple way of confirming precedent, that is, by statutory inclusion. If the Minister wants to copperfasten the precedent and enshrine it in perpetuity, he can put it into the statute in the form of the amendment moved by Deputy O.J. Flanagan or in the very much shorter and simpler form I suggested earlier. He can do that, if his interpretation of the law is right, without any effect except enshrining a statutory provision in the Bill which will make it a statutory law as distinct from precedent as he has described it. If that is done, the speed with which all the other amendments go through will stagger him.
(South Tipperary): This subject has been debated already and there has been a division on it. However, the Minister maintains that under the law conacre is not a letting at all. I presume what he means by that, in my language, is that the interpretation of the law up to the present has been that conacre is not a letting. I submit that it has never been statutorily written into any Land Bill that conacre as such was not a letting and it has merely been left to the interpretation of the law. Will the Minister not agree that something that is written in by statute is stronger than something which is left to legal interpretation? It is on that basis we are asking him to accept this amendment. Interpretations may alter at some future date. None of us knows what a future judge may decide or what a future High Court may do. I would ask the Minister to incorporate this provision in the Bill. That is what we on this side of the House have been asking for and what the Minister has been resisting.
The Deputy has another 15 minutes more to waste. Let him continue.
(South Tipperary): I am sorry to waste my own time but I am not sorry about wasting the Minister's time.
Amendment put and declared lost.
SECTION 12.
Question proposed: "That section 12 as amended, stand part of the Bill".
Section 12 of this Bill can be described as a disastrous section in any Bill but particularly disastrous in the Land Bill where steps are being taken to prohibit letting, subletting or subdivision without the consent of the Land Commission.
This is certainly a very serious infringement of the rights of the farming community or of the right of the owner of land to do what he likes with his own property. This section can be described as unreasonable. It carries, in my opinion, a great deal of dictatorship from the Government in regard to the owners of property. This House has given every subsection of this section very serious thought. I have been wondering whether this section is at all constitutional. I am not so sure that at some future date it might not be contested as to whether it was in conformity with the Constitution. It is very wrong that the right of the ownership of land should be endangered and that the landowner should be deprived of the right to set his land as he thinks fit. On that principle I strongly and bitterly oppose this section.
It would appear there is a great deal of opposition to this section from this side of the House but the Opposition is based on different interpretations of what is contained in the section. It is my belief that this section is aimed at the congests in the west of Ireland and that the purpose of section 12 and the pile of amendments to strengthen section 12 is to get rid of the small farmers and congests in the west by legal means. The Minister was asked today to come out into the open and tell the House frankly what he had in mind and I restrained myself from contributing on a number of these amendments because I wanted to find out, as clearly as it was possible to do so, what exactly the Minister and the Government had in mind in this section.
I shall not bore the House by repeating what other Deputies have said but not content with producing the section itself originally, the Minister proceeds to tag on a number of amendments to that section. Deputy Seán Flanagan and other legal luminaries sought to suggest that some of these amendments were very good amendments and a form of protection. That was the kind of argument put to Deputy Blowick and the suggestion was made that Deputy Blowick was unaware of the legal implications of one or two of these amendments. I think Deputy Blowick was perfectly correct in his interpretation in this sense, that even though the amendments, on the face of it, appear to be a safeguard, when that safeguard was put on to a bad section, all that is done at that stage is to safeguard somebody who should not be safeguarded.
The Minister sought to hoodwink the House in regard to the real purpose of these amendments. If you clear out a room and then proceed to lock the door, you will strengthen the locks and strengthen the barricade if you put wedges in the door; you will make it harder to prise it open and if you get a dozen wedges and ram them in all round, you will make the place completely safe against penetration. The amendments put forward by the Minister were wedges so that, once the tenants or the small farmers were out, the door would be wedged to prevent their holding on to what the Minister describes as squatters' rights or by any other method by which they were entitled to remain.
On that basis, we shall have to make it clear to the general public and to the small farmers in the west that this Government brought in a series of amendments to section 12 as a smokescreen to hide their true aims. There is page after page of amendments to the section. If they were aimed at the acquisition of the large tracts of land which have been set for years to the wheat rancher and to the limited companies which have engaged in the growing of wheat as a speculative form of enterprise, there would be complete agreement in this House to strengthen the Minister's hand in dealing with that type of person or groups, but in fact there is nothing in these amendments or in section 12 which will strengthen the Minister's hand in dealing with those people or groups. The Minister's hand is being strengthened in this section to deal with the small man who, perhaps through no fault of his own, through economic circumstances, had to close the door of his house and go to England for two or three years in order to make sufficient money to help his family at home. He is the man who will be harried or hounded under section 12. The aim is to clear out the remainder of the small men who are still clinging hopefully to their holdings in the west and in the congested areas.
The Minister sought, unsuccessfully, I must say, to sidetrack Deputies from this aspect of section 12 by his smokescreen and by a form of diversion to the effect that there was a great danger of this evil of subdivision in the small holdings and in the congested areas being allowed to continue. His argument was: "We have to tighten up this law to prevent further subdivision in uneconomic farms." In fact, the position today is that there is no danger whatever of any large scale subdivision of uneconomic holdings. That day has gone and some Deputies who have sought to suggest that a farmer in the west with three or four sons and 20 acres of land was still inclined to divide that land between his sons are either deliberately trying to mislead the House or are completely out of touch with the situation in the west of Ireland. I challenge any Deputy who has made that statement, particularly when it affects Mayo, with betraying the small farmer and the congest in the western areas.
The position in Mayo, south and north, in Roscommon, Galway and in all these counties, is that a number of smallholders have been forced, through the ineptitude of this and other Governments, to clear out for a period of years to try to make sufficient money to enable them to return and rear their families here. In their absence, there is now an attempt to acquire the small bit of land they have. At the moment wherever a bit of land becomes available in the west, instead of a question of subdivision arising, it is a question of consolidation which is taking place. In fact, we have a new breed of landlord, the local rich individual. I will not describe what his form of living is at present but the local speculator is now in the process of buying up land in every parish and bringing the country back to the state which obtained here a number of years ago.
The aim of section 12 should be to prevent an entire townland being gobbled up by one individual. That is the real illness today in rural areas. Instead, the Government seek to suggest that there is a danger of further subdivision. Is it not proof positive that this Government are trying to hoodwink the smallholder and condoning this consolidation on the part of the rancher, the speculator and all the men out to make profit from the land?
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.