I am flattered by Deputy Burke's admission. When it comes to the discussion on this section by the Deputy from North County Dublin, no doubt we shall hear the plea he always makes on behalf of one sector of the community up in Balbriggan. Section 27 has perhaps given rise to more anxiety in the country than any other section of this Bill. Quite honestly, it was not understood at all in the beginning. The section reads:
For the removal of doubt, it is hereby declared that the determination of the land to be inspected under subsection (6) of section 40 of the Land Act, 1923, as amended by this Act, is not an excepted matter for the purposes of section 12 of the Land Act, 1950; provided that the Minister shall not authorise (pursuant to subsection (2) of section 12 of the Land Act, 1950) an officer to make such determination unless the officer is an officer of the Land Commission and not below the rank of Senior Inspector.
When the Bill was circulated and discussed by bodies such as the National Farmers' Association, I do not honestly think that many of them appreciated or understood its significance. Without being able to go back to the Act of 1923 to see exactly what section 40 (6) involves, it is impossible to understand the implications of this section.
It has been stated, correctly, by other Deputies that from time to time claims have been made with great regularity that X or Y or Z obtained a holding for his or their supporters. The general position in relation to the division of land throughout the country has been that those divisions have been made by the Land Commissioners. After the division has been announced, certain people have gone out and shouted valiantly that they were entirely responsible for getting an allotment for Paddy Murphy, Paddy Burke or Martin Corry, as the case might be. We all know that they had nothing whatever to do with it and that they were merely trying to convince supporters down the country that they had wielded great influence for the applicant on the occasion in question. If, as a result of those activities, the Minister is now faced with the attack that, in the past, land division to some extent was considered on a political basis, the only people responsible for it are the Fianna Fáil cumainn who shouted they had got it, whereas in fact they had not.
At the moment, I am not considering the nocturnal activities with which Deputy Corry regaled the House last week: we shall come to those in a minute. I am talking about the allotment of land by the Commissioners of the Land Commission up to this.
We are all aware that the Land Commissioners are persons appointed to what one might call a quasi-judicial term of office. They are above the political head of the Department of Lands of the day. By virtue of the terms of their appointment, they are entitled to sit back and to take an impartial view of whatever files and matters come before them, whether it be a file that comes before them for consideration in their office or whether it be one that comes before them when they sit as a quasi-judicial body in the court of the Land Commission.
It would also be appropriate for me to say that, because they sit as a quasi-judicial body to hear objections made to acquisition under the Land Acts, it is entirely wrong that the Secretary of the Land Commission should be a Commissioner. I have the greatest respect for the present incumbent of the office of Secretary of the Department of Lands. What I want to say in relation to his appointment as a Commissioner is not in relation to his personal appointment as such but in relation to the appointment of whoever may be Secretary of the Department for the time being to be a Commissioner. It is relevant to consider that for the purpose of considering what one has got to do here.
It is an utterly monstrous thing that one of the people who is there to sit in judgment on the objection of a farmer to the acquisition of his land is the administrative head, responsible for the inspectors who are giving evidence before him. It destroys any possible air of impartiality in the Land Commission count and destroys any appearance of justice being done as well as, possibly, affecting justice being done. It stands to reason that nobody coming before the Land Commission court, knowing that the officer giving evidence is giving evidence before his boss, will feel that he will get a fair hearing from the court. I want to make it clear that, in saying that, I am in no way accusing the present Secretary of the Department of being likely to influence, or attempting to influence, the evidence given by his officers before him. Human nature being what it is, it stands to reason that there will be venal people who will try to curry favour by giving evidence at a hearing in a difficult case on the side that will win the favour of the political head of the Department and, therefore, that of the administrative head who in accordance with democratic way of running the Civil Service, must be in the closest possible touch all the time with the political head.
That will have an effect also in relation to this section. It will mean that we must face the position in the future that the political head of the Department will be entitled, if the section is passed in its present form, to say to one of those before whom the case may come for judgment: "In your capacity as Secretary of the Department, direct that Mr. Lawlor's lands in Kildare——" I deliberately said "in Kildare" so that Deputy Lalor would not think I was referring to him—"will be inspected."
When they are inspected, the file may come back to the same man in his capacity as a Commissioner and he has to judge on that file whether acquisition proceedings should be initiated or not. No man can serve two masters and the Minister in this Bill is deliberately creating the situation in which it would be utterly impossible for the Secretary of the Department of Lands faithfully and honestly to fulfil his duties under the Constitution as the administrative head of the Department, on one hand, and as a Land Commissioner, on the other. It is utterly wrong that he should be asked to do as he is being asked in this section.
What is the purpose of the section supposed to be? To expedite the work. We all know that when a place is put up for auction or sale, a great deal must be done by the private individual who wants to buy it. Very often he must see if he can get money from his bank or from the Agricultural Credit Company to back him in the purchase. He must have interviews with the people concerned who will back him financially and he may possibly want someone to advise him in what I might term the agricultural sense. The private individual can do this in the time available; why cannot the Land Commission? Is it not a fact that the Minister's case in relation to the necessity that he says exists for this section could be met, not by bringing in this section, but, by making sure that the Land Commission organisation is properly oriented and works reasonably efficiently? He regaled us the other day with the tale of how the file had to travel from here to there and from there to somewhere else but what does it prove? It is proof that the red tape methods of the Department are out of date and that he should reorganise his Department rather than bring in this section which involves a violent departure from principle, which strikes at the root of judicial interpretation and judicial decision as between one sector of the community and the other.
From the very beginning of this State, and in any democratic State, it is an accepted cardinal principle that you cannot have a fair decision between the State and the individual unless the person making it has the independence of mind and outlook that a proper method of appointment of the judge involves. The appointment of the Lay Commissioners to the Land Commission follows that pattern and their certainty of tenure enables them to make independent judgment, secure in the knowledge that they are entitled to be impartial and that by virtue of their post, they are bound so to be. This section destroys all that.
The House and the country should be extremely grateful to Deputy Corry for having let the cat out of the bag. This section has been brought in by the Minister for the very purpose, in my view, of the nocturnal tactics described here by Deputy Corry. We should be grateful to the Deputy for having exposed the Minister's hand and what he intends to do, having got this section through the House.
Apparently, according to Deputy Corry—and I have no doubt the Deputy was told this at the usual Wednesday morning Fianna Fail meeting— when this section goes through, Deputy Corry will only have to sidle up to the Minister for Lands and say: "Go down to East Cork and have the lands of that fellow inspected. He opposes me on polling day. I shall teach him a lesson." Whether that inspection is to take place by car headlights or by reason of section 27, that is what the section is intended for and it is well the country should know it.
Now, the Minister will—I was about to say "have great difficulties" but I should rather say he will find it impossible—to re-bag that cat, once Deputy Corry spoke out of turn as he did. Tomorrow is Wednesday morning again and I should fear that Deputy Corry might get a little lick of the tongue at tomorrow's Party meeting for having let the cat out of the bag. I shall leave them to their internal difficulties. We saw one of them already in the public eye in the case of Deputy Smith. We will see what will happen to this cat in relation to the Minister for Lands and Deputy Corry in due course.
As I said at the beginning, I did not think this section was really understood by farmers and organisations who were considering this Bill because of the fact that the section itself was related to another Act, that is, legislation by reference,. Accordingly, without those other two Acts, the 1923 Act and the 1950 Act, people could not understand what this section meant. It is very significant indeed that once the section became understood by people and by organisations, there was mounting opposition to it.
The Minister has three Fianna Fáil Deputies in Kildare and he can ask any one of them, particularly Deputy Crinion, about the clattering—that is the only word I can use—they got, and particularly Deputy Crinion got, at the public meeting called at Naas by the National Farmers Association in relation to this Land Bill. Following that meeting, at which the Deputies concerned put their points of view—I put my point of view from the other side— we got a circular from the National Farmers Association I saw in that room in Kildare many supporters of mine, supporters of Fianna Fáil and supporters of the Labour Party. I knew them to be such. It was a non-political meeting and nobody can have any doubt whatever about that. It was called for the purpose of considering the matter in a non-political way.
As I say, all four of us were given adequate chance and adequate opportunity to put our case before the meeting. Since then or just about that time—I am not quite clear which it was—the National Farmers Association issued a second memorandum dated October, 1964 which they call "Observations of the National Council on the Land Bill 1963". In that memorandum they say that section 27 enables the Minister to delegate to senior inspectors of the Land Commission the power to decide on inspection of land with a view to possible acquisition. No doubt that is what section 27 does. It empowers the Minister to delegate to senior inspectors of the Land Commission the powers to decide on inspection of land. Here is what the National Farmers Association say about it:
We consider that these powers should be reserved to the Lay Commissioners as heretofore and that the number of Commissioners should be restored to six, if necessary.
As Deputy Donegan said, we have heard no word from the Minister's side of the House as to why it is not possible to have an adequate number of Commissioners for the purpose of expediting that matter. If that is what is required, far from having an adequate number of Commissioners, all that the Minister has done in that regard is to decide to get a Commissioner on the cheap by appointing the Secretary to the Department of Lands who, of course, is paid his salary as Secretary to the Department of Lands and gets a small allowance for acting also as a Lay Commissioner. There is no other way of describing that.
In addition to that, we got another circular from the National Farmers Association dated 6th November in which they say:
The document entitled "Observations of the National Council on Land Bill, 1963"...
This is the document to which I referred a second ago——
... and dated October, 1964, which you now have in your possession, represents the considered opinion of this Association as expressed by our Council on behalf of our members, over 80 per cent of whom are owners of holdings under £35 PLV. We would like to emphasise that our observations on the Bill have been drafted on the basis of policy decisions which were taken with the unanimous agreement of delegates from each and every one of our County Executives. We hope that, in your deliberations on the Land Bill, you will find it helpful to have at hand the consenses of opinion of that section of the community which is directly concerned in the proposed legislation.
As I say, not merely have I got that circular, not merely have I got those observations as a Deputy, but I also have the advantage of having heard at first hand the views of people from my constituency at this public meeting of members which was called and held at Naas, approximately a month ago and at which all four Deputies for the constituency were present. This section was discussed that night. I remember particularly one person got up and said he had no political views of any sort. He was one of the people who was most vocal in saying that it was monstrous that the political head of a Department should be the person who would be entitled to decide whether land belonging to A should be inspected and not land belonging to B or land belonging to C.
Some people may be misled by the fact that the section refers to the delegation to a senior inspector. There are a certain number of senior inspectors around the country and the Minister has been trying to suggest that what this section means is that the senior inspectors will take their decision. That is not what it says. A senior inspector of the Land Commission is constitutionally bound to carry out the direction of the Minister. If the Minister thought, for the purposes of expedition, that it was necessary to have the decision taken down the country, as apart from Dublin, it would have been perfectly simple for him to devise a section by which his Department left that decision to be made in a manner in accord with the quasi-judicial powers of the Lay Commissioners.
The position is quite simple. The Land Commission have, virtually, a record of every piece of land in the country at present and it would be quite a simple matter in the areas concerned for the Lay Commissioners to go over those now and to have their decisions ready for action at the appropriate time. That is not what the Minister has done. He has deliberately framed this section in such a way as to give to himself, the Minister for Lands, the right and the power to say whose land is to be inspected and on whose land an inspector of the Land Commission is to enter. That is what the section means; that is what the section says when you analyse it.
If we are to believe Deputy Corry then, what he told us was that the purpose of this section was to ensure hereafter that he could tell the Minister for Lands to send an inspector down at once to inspect the land of so-and-so for the purpose of starting Land Commission proceedings and that he could see in this House that it was done. That may be in accord with what the Minister was trying to do behind the section permits him to do. It is not in accord with the purpose for which he says he needed the section and it is not what he said the section would enable him to do, but it is what the section does enable him to do.
Even leaving aside the political desirability of that, or the political undersirability of the Minister as the political head being able to do that, there is another aspect in relation to this section which I think will create unfortunate feelings. All along an effort has been made, and correctly made, by the officials of the Land Commission to deal with their duties in rather the same way as a bank manager deals with his. If you go into a bank to get a loan, it is always the manager who gives it. But when the day comes to call it in, it is always the directors of the bank who are the unpleasant people forcing the bank manager to ask you to pay it back. By and large, the officials of the Land Commission have over the years been working on the same basis. They have been trying to keep on reasonable terms with the people in the area of their operations. I do not blame them for it. I think they are quite right and I think by keeping to that tradition, they were more likely to get accurate information. They have been following the bank manager's advice and it is the Commissioners up in Dublin who have been taking the unpleasant decisions. This section destroys that. The effect of this section will clearly be that the relationship between the officials of the Land Commission down the country and the people with whom they are dealing will be very much worsened in the future. For that reason, quite honestly, I do not believe the officials in the Land Commission want this section.
There is another aspect, too, in relation to this which we must consider, that is, the difficulties it will create in the general working of rural life. We all know that the knowledge that there has been a formal inspection of land affects—has a great deterrent effect—a sale and reduces substantially the price the farmer can expect to get. That does not matter if the Land Commission inspector goes in on a voluntary basis under the existing code and inspects the land. Then, the auctioneer concerned and the clients know that he is going in for the purpose of endeavouring in a friendly manner to see whether he can put a satisfactory bid on the lands in accordance with their market value.
That will not be the position under this section. Once a forced acquisition inspection comes in under this section, the effect of it will be to reduce the value of that land in the open market by about 25 per cent. I have already mentioned this. I told the Minister on that occasion that it was the considered view of people who were engaged, in their business, in dealing with this type of land sale from time to time that 25 per cent was perhaps an over-conservative estimate, and that in fact it might be very much more.
Does the Minister want that to happen? Does he want this to be another method of getting land on the cheap, another method of using the all-powerful forces of the State to overcome the individual farmer and to take his land from him at an uneconomic price, at a lower price than he would have been able to obtain in the open market? Once a notice is served under this section, the open market is virtually gone at the market value.
We will have in section 13, with which we have dealt already, the freezing, as Deputy Donegan said, for 12 months initially and now for six months, and the inevitable result of the two combined will be that the price of land will be forced down. That is, I believe, one of the main reasons why the Minister is interested in getting this section through, together with the freezing powers in section 13. That seems wrong. As Deputy Rooney has said, many people had their land expropriated in the years 1932-1938. Many people up to the beginning of the emergency in 1939 had land taken from them for a twentieth of its value.
This section, notwithstanding the provisions as regards market value that were included in the Land Act of 1950, will have the effect of depressing again for the benefit of the Land Commission the value of the land that will be acquired. It may sound very nice for the Minister for Lands when it comes to considering the number of acquisitions which he can put through on the amount allowed to him on his Vote by the Department of Finance or allowed to him on the creation of land bonds. It is bad principle and it unfairly weighs the powers of the State against the individual. But, bad and all as that is and bad and all as I know the effect it will have is, it is far less obnoxious than the powers the Minister is being given politically to decide that one farmer's land is to be inspected, that one farmer's land is to be dealt with and another is entitled to go free.
