Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 12 Nov 1964

Vol. 212 No. 6

Appropriation Accounts 1962-63. - Land Bill, 1963—Committee Stage (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following amendment:

In page 14, to delete "same locality" and to substitute "immediate neighbourhood". —(Minister for Lands.)

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

Dealing with the amendments relating to limits and distances, I have been endeavouring to elicit from the Minister if it is not a fact that the determination of the limits and distances will have to be made by the commissioners. If it is a fact that the commissioners have to make that decision I want again to support very strongly the observations of the Leader of the Opposition this morning and to join in the protest to the Minister against the Secretary of the Department of Lands being a commissioner.

Since the Minister was out of the House during Question Time he may have availed of the opportunity of asking the Secretary of the Department if at any time Commissioner Browne raised the objection which I outlined a few moments ago against the principle of the Secretary of the Department being a commissioner. The Minister told us here that he had no idea of any such objection, that there was not a shred of evidence of it. If he makes further enquiries from the Secretary of the Department he may be able to ascertain the views of that commissioner who, I would point out, was a Fianna Fáil nominee having regard to the fact that the Minister made reference to Mr. Deegan's being a nominee of the Cumann na nGaedheal Government. Both of these gentlemen gave this country excellent service. They have carried out their duties in a careful and efficient manner and not alone the Department but the country owes a deep debt of gratitude to both of them for the loyal public service which they have given.

It is on record that violent opposition against this principle was expressed by Mr. Browne and I hope that between now and the Report Stage the Minister will make inquiries because we on this side of the House feel it is a matter that cannot be taken lightly. As Deputy Dillon pointed out, it is extremely doubtful whether the Supreme Court will hold it constitutional for the Secretary to sit as a commissioner under the procedure laid down. I hope that the circumstances which were prophesised by Deputy Dillon may be avoided by the Minister seeing some common sense in relation to this reasonable plea.

The Minister argues that it is necessary for the Secretary to be a commissioner so that he may have a knowledge of what is happening. It is nonsense to suggest the Secretary of the Department does not know what is happening. The senior commissioner who is appointed as such by sealed order of the Minister is bound to preside at the commissioners' meetings and to send a report of those meetings direct to the Secretary for transmission to the Minister. This is always done and the Secretary knows at once of any problem or difficulty arising in the Department.

If the Minister is anxious for a speedy passage to the remainder of his Bill I would ask him to assist the Opposition in this matter. It is our duty to be constructive in our opposition, to make the suggestions and observations we have to make and which we feel we are making in the interests of good law so that our citizens will not alone get fair play and justice but be seen to get justice to the last letter. We feel, particularly in relation to these amendments, that our citizens cannot get justice and fair play if the Secretary of the Department is to be a commissioner.

May I ask the Minister what regulations he will have or what machinery will be set up for defining this distance of three miles and if he is prepared to approach this matter in a reasonable and generous way in so far as the hundreds of landowners in this country are concerned who for one reason or another find it impossible to live on their holdings or to live within a distance of three miles. It should be borne in mind that nowdays three miles is an extremely short distance. It is not like many years ago. We have had cases where people some years ago were living in houses on their holdings and for the convenience of the family and for the purpose of being near schools and churches they decided to purchase sites convenient to towns, with the result that they allowed the old houses to deteriorate or converted them into out-offices. They now find that the provision in this amendment will seriously affect them. That is why I want a guarantee from the Minister that the fullest possible consideration will be given to such cases. I want a guarantee that their lands will not be confiscated or taken from them. This provision may be the means of putting a number of citizens to the expense of having to change residence and go back to their holdings. Everyone has a reason for selecting where to reside. It may be that the owner of land would have gone to reside with a married son or a married daughter in the town.

Once that land is being well worked, being looked after with the best of good husbandry, producing food for man and beast, providing employment and, more important still, providing a standard of living for the owner, then there should be a guarantee from the Minister that these lands will not be interfered with and I am very uneasy about the powers the Minister is seeking in these amendments. I trust that the amendments dealing with distance and limits will be put into effect in such manner as to cause the least possible inconvenience to the owners of the land and that steps will be taken to ensure that justice and fair play will prevail in all decisions taken under these amendments.

Mr. Clinton

Before the Minister inserted this section into the Bill, I assumed he had collected all the statistics necessary to make a case for it. I do not know that he has so far made his case. The least I should expect from the Minister is a statement of the number of owners who would be affected by this section, if it goes through, and details of the number of owners who are at present depending on an outlying farm to make the home farm an economic unit and how he justifies the taking away of this outlying farm and thereby rendering the home farm uneconomic. I have experience of a great many people who, as long as I can remember, have been depending on farms outside the three mile limit to make the home farms economic.

I should be very surprised if it were found possible to implement these provisions without creating chaos. It could, perhaps, be done under some sort of resettlement scheme, through an exchange of holdings by agreement, but for the life of me I cannot see why one should compel a man to surrender a holding simply because it is situated that short distance away. Three miles in not a very significant distance in the light of modern transport. Generally speaking, I regard this provision as most unfair. As Deputy O.J. Flanagan says, if the farm is run properly and produces the maximum amount of food for man and beast, there does not seem to be any justification whatever for this provision. It would be much better for the owner, of course, and everybody else if a compact economic holding could be provided, but that has been found impossible in many cases. People have not been able to find sufficient money to purchase a farm or a smallholding when it came on the market in order to add it to their own holding, thereby improving their income and making it possible to live out of the farm without any dependence upon casual work elsewhere.

Mr. Ryan

I tabled an amendment providing for five miles. I did so not because I felt there should be any limit at all, but, rather, because the Bill stipulated no distance allowance at all and, once a man's farm was divided between two holdings, he could, under the Bill as drafted, lose part of his farm, irrespective of how close it was to the homestead. This seems to me to be a most dangerous principle. It amounts to forbidding a man to hold two farms. Its effect will be to depress the price of land. In future any piece of land offered for sale will be offered to a very limited market. Only those residing within three miles will be interested, unless some individual has some particular reason for wanting to reside in a particular place. The holding might in itself be uneconomic but capable of being worked with another piece of land.

This is, of course, a grossly improper interference with family life and family liberty. There are many people who choose to remain single. Domestic circumstances may compel them to remain single. These have found it possible to live in some degree of reasonable comfort by adding to the immediate income available from the home farm the income derived from an outfarm or, perhaps, two outfarms. The entire holding may not comprise more than 35 to 40 acres. Deputy Flanagan said three miles is no longer as long as it used to be. As far as measurement is concerned it is, of course, still the same, but the time and stress taken to negotiate the distance has lessened considerably and the probability is that it will lessen still more in the future. The Minister may argue that we can extend the distance from three to five or 10 miles, should the necessity arise. That is true, but we know from experience that State Departments invariably move long after the facts would justify their moving. Meanwhile, this unnecessary restriction will remain, and so will the temptation to use it unfairly and improperly. This is undesirable legislation and I would ask the Minister to think about it again.

Mr. Moran

The Government and I are determined that vacant and unworked holdings should come under particularly severe scrutiny and should be especially vulnerable for acquisition to meet Land Commission needs in relation to the relief of congestion. To that end I have been compelled to find a formula which will identify the vacant holding. After much consideration I though it best to come at the problem from the other direction by saying that a farm is residential if the owner lives within three miles of it. That does not mean, as I have already said, that the Land Commission will immediately go after people who have farms three, four, or five miles away from their homes. This is designed to get at the vacant holding and this is the most effective way that I can see of getting at the kind of nonresidential holdings I have already described to to the House. The purpose of these amendments is to give the Land Commission more legal teeth to deal with the type of case I have illustrated here.

Mr. Dillon

The opposition to this amendment is apparently causing the Minister considerable irritation. It is nonsense for the Minister to say that he is being capriciously obstructed in this matter. We have consented to take whole groups of amendments and discuss them together and, if we wished to block the Minister, we could discuss these amendments seperately and divide on them separately, thus providing ourselves with enough material to keep us here for the rest of the day, without any discussion at all. Far from adopting such an obstructive course, we have expedited the enactment of certain parts of the Bill with which we find ourselves in agreement. I do not give a fiddle-de-dee whether the Minister gets annoyed or not. He can blow his top for all I care. The fact remains this is a most grievous matter.

The Minister tells us it is his purpose and the purpose of his Government to put teeth in the Land Commission's acquisition machinery in order effectively to secure the compulsory acquisition of certain holdings which, in the judgment of the Land Commission, are being inadequately worked. One of the tests of the special machinery envisaged under section 34 is now proposed to be a distance which is defined as three statute miles between the home farm and the out-farm. The Minister points out that in addition there are other considerations which it will be the duty of the Land Commission to consider.

Earlier in the afternoon, I was referring to the general question of the undesirability of the Land Commission charged with such responsibility consisting in part of an executive of the Department. I said that the Minister for Lands was disingenuous in reading to the House a memorandum by the late Commissioner Deegan favouring the appointment of a Land Commissioner who was also Secretary of the Department, without telling them that no other Land Commissioner since the Land Commission was established shares the view of the late Commissioner Deegan. Now, I am in a position to quote to the House—I cannot quote to the House but I can communicate to the House—the substance of the considered opinions of one of the most experienced men in Land Commission work in this country today. His view is that the appointment of a top level executive, that is to say, a chief inspector or the Secretary or Assistant Secretary, to the additional post of Lay Land Commissioner, calling from him judgment in both capacities, is undesirable and perilous; that the Lay Commissioner should have no say whatever in staffing matters, which should be exclusively controlled by the Minister through the Secretary of the Department of Lands.

Mr. Moran

Will the Deputy say what he is quoting from?

Mr. Dillon

No.

Mr. Moran

I submit, Sir, it is a precedent of the House that when a Deputy quotes from a document, he must identify it and tell the House what he is quoting.

Mr. Dillon

I am not quoting from it.

Mr. Moran

The Deputy quoted from the document.

Mr. Dillon

No.

Mr. Moran

I was watching the Deputy.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy said he would communicate to the House the opinion of a top level—I forget the exact word——

Mr. Dillon

Authority.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is not to say that he would quote.

Mr. Dillon

I was not quoting and I am not free to quote.

Mr. Moran

Deputy Dillon has read from a document which he is holding in his hand.

Mr. Dillon

A copious note.

Mr. Moran

He has read from it in the presence of us all, and I submit that in these circumstances the House is entitled to know from what document he has read. He is still holding the document in his hand.

Mr. Dillon

I hold in my hand copious notes on matters to which I——

An Ceann Comhairle

What Deputy Dillon purports to communicate to the House is not from a public document.

Mr. Dillon

It is a copious note, and I want to inform this House that since this legislation came before the House, I deemed it my duty as a public representative to consult every authority who was informed on Land Commission procedure in this country. That was my public duty and I would have been doing much less than my public duty if I came into this House without very copious notes of all the opinions vouchsafed to me by those qualified to give worthwhile opinions. I would have been doing less than my public duty if I did not commit them to copious notes to refresh my memory as I addressed the House.

Mr. Moran

I submit, Sir, that the Deputy prefaced his remarks by saying he was going to quote from one of the highest or most experienced opinions in this land on this issue and he proceeded to read from this document. I submit that under our rules it is very well established in these circumstances the Deputy must disclose what document he is quoting from.

Mr. Dillon

I will gladly disclose my copious notes of what this authority communicated to me.

An Ceann Comhairle

If the Deputy purports to quote from a public document, he is supposed to make that available to the House but the Deputy is not so purporting; he is communicating a top level opinion.

Mr. Dillon

Of which I have a copious and detailed note, and I am asserting that every single Lay Commissioner who ever functioned in this country, with the exception of the late Commissioner Deegan sustains the view——

Mr. Moran

On a point of order, the Deputy is getting away from the point of order I have made. I submit he is holding in his hand a document which he said represents the view of an experienced man dealing with Land Commission matters in this country. I submit the House is entitled to know who is the author of this document.

Mr. Dillon

It is a copious note of what I was told and I am now asserting that every Lay Commissioner who has functioned in this country since the Land Commission was established dissents from the view expressed by the late Commissioner Deegan. I am saying specifically that the late Commissioner Nally, who was at one time Assistant-Secretary of the Department and a Lay Commissioner, entered on his duties, and by virtue of the experience of an attempt to discharge his duties as Lay Commissioner and Assistant Secretary, he went to the Minister for Lands, Deputy Blowick, and told him that he found it impossible to discharge these dual duties satisfactorily and begged to be relieved of either one or the other. In fact he was relieved of his position as Assistant Secretary and remained as a commissioner only for that reason.

It is important to bear in mind in this context the full gravity of this whole problem. My information is that one of the considerations which must be borne in mind in this connection is that when the Land Commission is using the teeth the Minister for Lands now says this section is designed to provide, when there comes before them a question of acquisition of land, the only witnesses called to give evidence for the acquisition of lands are the State-paid inspectors of the Land Commission whose careers are controlled by the Secretary of the Department of Lands who may be one of those adjudicating on the evidence submitted by the inspector.

Unless Oireachtas Éireann has taken leave of its senses, it is not going to enact in this House that where an issue is joined between the Land Commission and citizens of the State in respect of one of the most vital matters that can concern a person, that is, the ownership of his land, the man who has ordered the inspection with a view to its acquisition is to be the man who will sit in judgment on whether the land is in fact to be acquired or not. I want to advise the House of this, that I have the best possible opinion for the view that if Oireachtas Éireann so legislates, the first person who goes to the Supreme Court will have the legislation declared null and void.

It is important that the House should know that this is not an issue that arose today or yesterday. This issue has been on the mat for 30 years. I think it would be true to say that the first man who ever put this proposition to the Department was the late Commissioner Deegan. The present Minister for Lands professes to have no record of these matters. I am going to suggest to the Minister for Lands that there are in his Department at this moment permanent records which will show that at one time Commissioner Deegan and the then acting Minister for Lands drafted a Bill for submission to the Government transferring all reserved matters to the Minister for Lands. I want to tell the Minister for Lands that on the records of his own Department there is a decision of his own Government instructing him to withdraw the Bill. There is a view expressed by his own Government that if such a Bill were passed it would create chaos in Ireland and precipitate something approximating to a civil war.

I ask the House: has the Minister for Lands been frank and open with it when he has quoted as a coercive authority the opinion of such a distinguished public servant as Commissioner Deegan, without telling us the rest of the story, which I have now told and which I challenge him to deny in any particular? I am gravely shocked that I should find myself at this time addressing the House without one single Fianna Fáil Deputy on the Government benches. They simply do not give a damn. I am entirely satisfied that the decision recorded by the Government, over which the present President of the State was then presiding, that the reserved functions of the Land Commissioners be transferred to the Minister for Lands, which was drafted by the late Commissioner Deegan and submitted to the Government by the acting Minister for Lands, is evidence that this whole concept which it has been sought to commend to us has been exhaustively considered in the past and has been rejected as extremely dangerous and going to the very root of land tenure and fixity of tenure in this country.

It is to me a tragic thing that we should find ourselves in Oireachtas Éireann debating a matter of this kind and yet being unable to secure from the Minister any evidence of understanding on his part of the gravity of the matter involved. I assert without fear of contradiction that there is not a responsible officer of the Land Commission today who, if he felt himself free, would not confirm that any delay in the examination of land with a view to acquisition is due not to anything transpiring in the Land Commission itself in Merrion Street but exclusively to the scarcity of experienced staff in the field. I assert that is the universal view held by every responsible authority in the Land Commission today. I assert that that is the conviction of every single Lay Commissioner, and I am now alleging against the Minister for Lands that the consequences of inadequate field staff are being pleaded in this House as a justification for a departure from the established practice of leaving certain reserved matters in the hands of the Lay Commissioners, who shall remain utterly independent of the political control of the Minister. That is something they cannot continue to be once one of the Lay Commissioners is, at the same time, the chief executive of the Minister's own Department.

There is a perfectly simple way in which the Minister can resolve this whole matter and greatly expedite the consideration and passage of this land legislation. He says he wants nothing but to promote expedition. We say this is a matter of fundamental principle for us. No reasonable Minister can possibly say, if he wants to put legislation through this House in an intelligent and rational way, he will set against something which the Opposition feel to be a matter of absolute fundamental principle nothing more than a mere machinery device he thinks might serve to expedite the due despatch of Land Commission business.

I asked him to drop this whole concept of the joint function of Commissioner and Secretary of his Department. If he does, I do not see anything in the remaining sections that we cannot quickly resolve by discussion and mutual consultation. I pointed out to him in regard to an earlier section, which was ambiguous to those of us who read it for the first time, that it needed only a short discussion to remove our doubts and allow us to go on to the next section and the next section. Exactly the same procedure is most readily available to the Minister if he will show some understanding and appreciation of the gravity we attach to the principle I am now defending. I think Deputies will agree there is nothing left in this Bill which is incapable of quick resolution.

Again and again in the sections remaining and in the amendments proposed by the Minister this vital evil is occurring. Again and again when we raise our voice against it, the Minister expresses the intentions of a man who feels he has got himself into an intolerable position and, out of mere obstinacy, is resolved not to yield an inch. The Minister has his duty to do and we have ours. We do not intend to allow the country to be under any illusion in regard to this matter. I quote the authority and I claim the support of every Land Commissioner who ever functioned in Ireland, against the view of Commissioner Deegan. I believe I have the support of every responsible officer of the Land Commission experienced in the work of land acquisition.

I know that analogous proposals of this kind were submitted to the Fianna Fáil Government in the thirties and were withdrawn and never brought before Dáil Éireann. I stake my reputation that the proposals in section 34 and the proposals in section 37 of the Bill are poison, and are rendered gravely dangerous to the whole pattern of our society by this damnable principle, proclaiming that it is no longer necessary in a matter of this character that it should be evident to all that justice is being done.

If a man is on trial for his life in this country, or on trial for stealing a pair of boots, and judgment goes against him, he has a court of appeal to go to—not only one court but maybe two or three—but if a decision is taken in the court of the Lay Commissioners of the Land Commission which operates to take from him the land he was born and reared on, and radically to alter his whole life—in a court where no evidence can be called, with a salaried servant as one of the Lay Commissioners sitting on the bench—there is no appeal to any tribunal in the land. Unless we are all taking leave of our senses, we cannot legislate in that way.

I claim the support of every Lay Commissioner in the country. I claim more than that. I do not know how many Ministers for Lands we have had since the State was founded, but they have belonged to the Cumann na nGaedheal Party, the Fianna Fáil Party, the Clann na Talmhan Party, and were members of inter-Party Governments and Fianna Fáil Governments again. The present Minister is the first Minister for Lands who has brought a proposition of this character before Dáil Éireann. I am telling him that an acting predecessor brought in not this proposal but an analogous proposal and the Government of which he was a member contemptuously rejected it and forbade him to submit it to the House.

On these facts I put it to the Minister that he should indicate his readiness to mend his hand in regard to this matter of the permanent head of the Department of Lands being at the same time a Lay Commissioner. If he does, the whole situation in regard to the remaining sections of the Bill is revolutionised and we see nothing in it that cannot be quickly disposed of, but with this poisonous principle reasserted again and again, I am bound to inform the Minister that some difficulties will arise. If we conceive it to be our duty to fight this issue on every occasion that presents itself, we will do so.

Mr. Moran

It would appear now that the main impetus in the attack of Deputy Dillon and his cohorts on this Bill is being switched and concentrated on the fact that Mr. O'Brien, the Secretary of the Department, has been appointed a Lay Commissioner of the Land Commission and will act as such with other Commissioners in dealing with the powers under this Bill as well as the general land law.

I listened very carefully to what Deputy Dillon said. He purports to speak on behalf of all the Lay Commissioners of this country, but he has not quoted any one by name. I wonder why Deputy Dillon was so coy about quoting from the document purporting to give the highest Land Commission opinion on this matter and why he would not give the author of the document. I assert that Deputy Dillon has no right whatsoever to try to put over to this House or the country that any of the Lay Commissioners shares his view on this issue.

I have put on the records of the House what the late Commissioner Deegan had to say on this issue. As I pointed out, he was an appointee of a Cumann na nGaedheal Government and was there for some 11 or 12 years both as Secretary and Commissioner of the Land Commission. I have pointed out and put on the records of the House that when leaving office, Commissioner Deegan wrote to the then Coalition Minister for Lands, Deputy Blowick, and is on record for all time, that it was essential to the proper working and administration of the Land Commission that the Secretary of the Department should also be a Commissioner of the Land Commission.

Deputy Dillon claims that this was an individual view to which every single individual, every legal man, and every Commissioner was diametrically opposed. He goes further and says it is completely unconstitutional for the Lay Commissioners to operate with the permanent Secretary of the Department being also a Commissioner, and that a person has only to walk into the Supreme Court to upset a decision by virtue of the fact that the Secretary of the Department is also a Commissioner. I want to pose this question: if that is so, is it not an extraordinary thing that during all the years a Cumann na nGaedheal appointee was there as Secretary and Commissioner, no legal luminary woke up to the fact that a decision of the Land Commission could be upset for that reason.

Deputy Dillon comes back to the attack and again asserts that the whole problem about this Land Bill is the fact that the Secretary of the Department, Mr. O'Brien, is a Commissioner of the Land Commission, that by virtue of that fact justice will not be done, and that any decision taken by the Lay Commissioners will be "bust" in the Supreme Court. He asserts that there is no responsible official of the Land Commission and no responsible lawyer who does not accept that view. He asserts that he has it on the highest legal authority in this land that by virtue of the fact that Commissioner O'Brien is the Secretary of the Department, any decision taken by the Lay Commissioners will be unconstitutional and will be upset in the Supreme Court. He asserts that no one except myself as Minister for Lands has agreed with the view put forward and expressed to the then Minister for Lands by Commissioner Deegan when he left that office.

He mentions some other high officials of the Land Commission who held a quasi-judical function and alleges that they were opposed to the Secretary of the Department being also a Commissioner. Whatever document Deputy Dillon has been quoting from, and whatever records he has from the Land Commission of which I am not aware, I again say that up to now I have no evidence of any of the allegations made by Deputy Dillon. I know that the late Commissioner Deegan was both Secretary of the Department and a Commissioner. I know Mr. Waddell was both Chief Inspector of the Land Commission and a Commissioner. I do know that the late Mr. Herlihy was an Assistant Secretary of the Department and was also a Land Commissioner all or some of the time. The late Mr. Nally was appointed, I think, by Deputy Derring. As far as I know, when Mr. Nally became Commissioner, he was nearing 63 years of age and he felt he was not physically in a condition to carry out both jobs.

But, contrary to what the legal luminaries who have been advising Deputy Dillon that this is unconstitutional have to say, contrary to the assertion that I am the only individual who agrees with the view of the late Commissioner Deegan that the Secretary of the Department should also be a Commissioner, there is another view that I have discovered in my researches. If Deputy Dillon and his cohorts were ever brought by hard facts to squirm on an issue, I advise them to get ready to squirm now because I have another document to quote. Unlike Deputy Dillon, I shall not be so coy in saying who wrote it or in saying what the date of it is. In contradistinction to the assertion by Deputy Dillon in relation to Commissioner O'Brien as being Secretary of the Land Commission that everything done would be unconstitutional, let me quote paragraph 5 of a letter dated 26th April, 1949, which reads as follows:

The maximum number of Commissioners should be fixed at four. No legal barrier should be placed on a Commissioner holding also an administrative post or the post of Chief Inspector. In my opinion it is desirable——

"desirable", mark you

—where four Commissioners are operating that both the post of Secretary of the Department of ,,Lands and that of Chief Inspector should be held by Commissioners and though this is not a practical issue at the moment I hope you will leave the way open for such a point of view in future. If you wish to have provisions made enabling two Commissioners to form a quorum for court sittings, I am prepared to agree. The case for such a provision is not so strong if there are to be four Commissioners.

Who wrote this?

Mr. Dillon

Mr. Deegan for Deputy Blowick. Was he not Secretary of the Department?

Mr. Moran

No, not at all, but his eminence, Professor Patrick McGilligan, the Minister for Finance in the Coalition Government. Here is Professor Patrick McGilligan, the legal luminary of the Coalition Government, telling Deputy Blowick how desirable it would be that the Commissioner should also hold these offices. Here is the legal luminary who was Minister for Finance in the Coalition Government backing up the opinion of Commissioner Deegan, which I quoted here laying down the desirability of having the Commissioner also either Chief Inspector or Secretary of the Department. Deputy Dillon has the audacity to come along here and to try to assert that, against all legal opinions, we are taking this step and that any decision to be made by the Lay Commissioners of the Irish Land Commission will be unconstitutional and void because Mr. O'Brien, the Secretary of the Department, is also a Lay Commissioner.

Deputy Dillon can sort this out with his colleague, Deputy McGilligan. Perhaps Deputy Dillon will say to Deputy McGilligan: "What was wrong with you, Paddy, when you wrote that letter? Did you not know that if this came to the Supreme Court it would be blown sky high?" Perhaps Deputy Dillon can reconcile this official view of Professor McGilligan, the Minister for Finance of the Coalition Government, who laid down this law and made this suggestion and has backed up the last will and testament left by Commissioner Deegan to the hilt.

How was it that the legal expert of the Coalition Government did not foresee the dangers of the Supreme Court "busting" the Land Commission high, wide and handsome if the Secretary of the Department was made a Commissioner? How was it that it never occurred to the legal adviser of the then Government, one of Deputy Dillon's own colleagues, that these dire things would arise constitutionally if they attempted to make an officer of the Land Commission a Lay Commissioner as well?

I think, in view of Deputy McGilligan's letter to his colleague, Deputy Blowick, dated 26th April, 1949, which I have quoted, that Deputy Dillon and his cohorts should for the rest of this Bill be silent about these allegations that everything being done here is unconstitutional, that the Secretary of the Land Commission was made a Lay Commissioner for some sinister purpose and that this whole business is a mere trick to take land from the working farmers of Ireland. Deputy Dillon has got this now. I hope he puts that in his pipe and smokes it. I hope that those outside whom he has endeavoured to terrorise by his bluff in this House will now realise how much weight is to be attached to the sheet-anchor of objection by the Fine Gael Party to this Bill because the Secretary of the Department is also a Lay Commissioner.

Mr. Dillon

I have already charged the Minister with being at least disingenuous. I must now declare him to be thoroughly dishonest, which I believe is a Parliamentary expression. He has quoted from a public document which, no doubt, he will lay on the table of the House?

Mr. Moran

Yes.

Mr. Dillon

In the course of an impassioned oration he asked: How does Deputy Dillon reconcile the advice of the chief legal officer of his Government with what he has just stated? The Minister knows as well as I do that Deputy McGilligan on the date mentioned by him was Minister for Finance in our Government. He was not the Attorney General.

Mr. Moran

Is the Deputy suggesting that Deputy McGilligan's legal view was of no value at that time?

Mr. Dillon

Now we are back-pedalling a bit.

Mr. Moran

No.

Mr. Dillon

Now, he was not the chief legal adviser of the Government.

Mr. Moran

Try to talk yourself out of that letter.

Mr. Dillon

Now he was the Minister for Finance, we have discovered. I want to say quite deliberately that the views of the Minister for Finance are almost invariably at variance with the views of any normal man, whoever has the misfortune to become the Minister for Finance. The views of the Minister for Finance always are that if it is possible to get rid of a Land Commissioner, or anybody, or to make anybody do two men's jobs for one man's pay then by all means let us do it.

I think the present Minister for Lands will agree with me that you can almost see that document being written by the hand of the late Commissioner Deegan. There are many Departments of State—12 or 14. From each of these Departments of State there pours into the office of the Minister for Finance every day thousands of questions relating to the status, position and tenure of various public servants. Anybody who has been Minister in this State knows well of the practically-weekly conferences that take place regarding establishment matters with the Department of Finance. I do not know who signed the document the Minister read out but it is a regulation Department of Finance admonition to the Land Commission to cut down and try to get one man to do two men's work.

Mr. Moran

It is signed personally by Deputy McGilligan.

Mr. Dillon

That is perfectly all right. When I was Minister and wanted two civil servants, I asked for eight and probably ended by getting four and usually had to create two jobs for those I did not really want. That is common experience. We all did it when we were Ministers; all Ministers do it at present. It is part of the awkward, clumsy functioning of the Government machine. I do not want to expand on that very much but it works in the long run because even if you get four when you want two, before very long you want two others and you fit them in somewhere.

That document is simply a recommendation relating to the financial and administrative affairs of the Department of Lands. It carries with it no considered judicial or legal opinion for which Deputy McGilligan would be held responsible. It is the Department of Finance view of some proposal advanced by the Minister for Lands. That had its origin in the Department of Lands. Who originated it? Who was the executive head of the Department of Lands at that time when the document issued?

Mr. Moran

The Deputy's colleague, Deputy Blowick.

Mr. Dillon

No, no, no. He was Minister and the executive head of the Department was Commissioner Deegan. He thought this whole thing up. I want to interpolate a few remarks here. I knew Commissioner Deegan and I say with great deliberation, lest the fact should be lost sight of in the course of earnest disputation here, that one of the most distinguished public servants of the country was Commissioner Deegan. He was a fearless public servant who had no concern but to do what he thought was his duty by whatever Minister he served. The fact that I disagree with his view—I want to make it perfectly clear—in no sense diminishes the height of my admiration, born of long acquaintance for the late Commissioner Deegan or the praise I have to offer for his distinguished public service to the country. Nor do I think it right for the present Minister, even by implication, to suggest that anybody on these benches deprecates a proposal to appoint Mr. O'Brien, the present Secretary of the Department of Lands, as a Commissioner. I said at an earlier stage in the debate there is no fitter person to be a Lay Commissioner than Mr. O'Brien nor is there any man better fitted to be Secretary of the Department of Lands. The basis of our contention is that there is nobody, short of an archangel who is fit to be Secretary of the Department and a Commissioner at the same time.

I think it should be the Minister's concern, as it is certainly mine, to avoid any suggestion that there is a personal reflection either on Mr. Deegan or on the present incumbent of the office of Secretary of the Department of Lands. It is irrelevant and silly of the Minister today to produce the Department of Finance document of 1949 which, in fact, I believe was drafted by Commissioner Deegan in order to prove that Commissioner Deegan was right in his view. I have not the faintest doubt—I never had—that Mr. Deegan was most profoundly convinced of his view and was actuated by no consideration but a desire to improve the public service but that is no reason why I should not advance against him the view of every other Lay Commissioner who ever functioned in this country. Mark ou, the Minister does not challenge me.

I am not in a position to speak of the views of the present Lay Commissioners, I did not think it appropriate or proper to ask them for their views because while they hold office by quasi-judicial tenure they are still public servants serving the present Government and I do not think they would be free, whatever their personal feelings might be, to brief me in any sense against a policy which the present Minister sponsors in the Dáil. They are not among the people to whom I have had access or with whom I have discussed this matter but I am certain, on the authority of those who know, that with the exception of Commissioner Deegan—I do not know what the existing Commissioners' views are —every other Lay Commissioner in the history of the country since the Land Commission was set up holds a view diametrically opposed to that of the late Commissioner Deegan.

I make no more of that than this: that I charge the Minister with being at least disingenuous, if not dishonest, in reading out to us at an earlier stage of the debate this testimony of the late Commissioner Deegan without saying: "But that was the opinion of one man whereas there are a dozen men of equal experience who took a diametrically opposite view." Perhaps the present Minister did not know this but if he knew, and intended to communicate to us the text of Commissioner Deegan's view, he should have told us that this was the man whose views were of so unique a character that he advised and helped his Minister to draft a Bill dealing with analogous matters, the reserved functions of the Land Commission, and that the Bill was of such a character that when it was submitted to the head of the Government, he tore it up and sent for the executive head of the Department and for the Minister and dictated to him, as head of the Government, the maximum he would tolerate of the proposals that had been submitted by the acting Minister, advised by the late Commissioner Deegan.

The Minister can ascertain the truth of those facts on the files of his Department. And so absolute and comprehensive was the condemnation of the then Minister's Taoiseach and his colleagues that the Bill never saw the light of day. It dropped dead before it was ever submitted to the Oireachtas. Again, I want to make it crystal clear that I do not quote this as any evidence of bad faith or failure in public duty on the part of the late Mr. Deegan; I salute it as the deeply-held conviction of a conscientious public servant that he considered it his duty to press upon his Minister whenever the matter arose. Although I pay that high tribute to his integrity and sense of duty that does not require me to feel that because he felt so strongly on that matter it is sacrilege on my part to differ from him.

I respect him for the courage and tenacity with which he held this view. I respect a public servant who has experienced the rebuff of pushing his Minister into the position of being mowed down by the Taoiseach of the Government to which he belongs, but he said: "That does not alter my view. I think the Taoiseach was wrong and if I am, in the future, asked for advice, I will tender the same advice as I tendered on the previous occasion. The decision is for the Minister and whatever his decision is I will carry that into effect." You have this testimony while he was serving in the Department under the Minister and he was a man who had manoeuvred his Minister into the position of suffering a sharp rebuff from the head of the Government to which he belonged. That testified the integrity and courage of the man. As he left the service, he left a valedictory memorandum behind him. That is admirable in its integrity and courage but it carries no conviction with me.

I have often met a man before with a been in his bonnet and that man's particular bee will buzz with a particular buzzing but the fact that he nourishes and cherishes the bee and grows attached to it does not make the bee any better. It is still a buzzing bee; it is still that man's particular bee. I maintain most energetically that the Minister has been guilty of dishonesty in seeking to suggest to the House that a document signed by Deputy McGilligan, as Minister for Finance, represents Deputy McGilligan's opinion as the principal legal adviser of the Government to which he then belonged. I am obliged to attach the word "dishonesty" to that because the Minister must know that the Minister for Finance is not charged to give legal advice to the Government to which he belongs.

The Minister must know that the Attorney General is the person charged with that responsibility. It is particularly disingenuous of the present Minister for Lands to read out a document signed by Deputy McGilligan dated, 1949 when we all know that Deputy McGilligan became Attorney General during the 1954-57 period. There might be some simple-minded people in Dáil Éireann who would forget the fact that Deputy McGilligan has served this State at various times as Minister for External Affairs, Minister for Industry and Commerce and Attorney General. I admit to find such brilliant versatility in one individual is not usual but I am proud to claim that Deputy McGilligan is a colleague of mine. Did the Minister think he might inculcate some confusion in his colleagues' minds by saying that Deputy McGilligan was legal adviser of the Government when he knew the document from which he was quoting was signed in his capacity as Minister for Finance? If the Minister set out to do that, he sought to mislead the House and that is something of which no Minister should be particularly proud.

I am not in the least concerned to find that Deputy McGilligan or any other Minister for Finance would not jump with agility at any proposal put forward by Mr. Deegan or the Secretary of the Department of Agriculture or the Secretary of any other Department, that he was planning to make one man do two jobs for the salary of one. If Deputy McGilligan proposed that on the grounds of constitutional law, the whole Department of Finance would fall in their standing. It is hard, I suppose, for those who have not served in the Government to understand the mighty load which falls on the shoulders of the Minister for Finance. It is one of those horrible things which faces every person when he is a member of the Government. One must change overnight from being a reasonable man into a kind of worn gramophone record with a sharp "no" on it, except there is a proposal that one might do two men's jobs for one man's salary. Then one voice will echo down the corridors of Government buildings with "yes".

In this case the Minister for Finance, in 1949, gave exactly the answer I would expect any Minister for Finance to give. Let us be clear it was not the legal advice of Deputy McGilligan. That was not the opinion of Deputy McGilligan when he was the law adviser of the Government to which he was a member. I think the Minister should be ashamed of the effort he has made to create a wrong impression in this regard.

This matter has not been tested in the courts as yet but I have been informed on the highest authority that men, long experienced in this office, have repeatedly expressed the view that it ought to be, in view of the unique procedure of the Lay Commissioners court, from which, the Minister will agree, there is no appeal. It is also uniquely true that there is no parallel, that the only witnesses to be heard in matters of acquisition are paid inspectors of the Land Commission. It is also the view of the highest authority that some time or other decisions in excepted matters, come to, or participated in, by a Commissioner, who is also Secretary of the Department, will be challenged before the courts. I have the highest authority for expressing the view that it is impossible in that event to justify any judgment on such an issue other than one declaring the proceedings to be null and void.

I recall that there is an earlier paragraph in the White Paper accompanying this Bill which speaks of the need of one section to remedy an adverse decision of the High Court. The Minister will recall that I mentioned that it might not be adverse to the Land Commission but it might be adverse to the other party. The fact is that down through the years the High Court have repeatedly set aside findings of the Lay Commissioners court on issues, which, compared with the issue of one of the Lay Commissioners being himself the Secretary of the Department, must be regarded as trivial. I have said already, and, I here again claim the highest authority for this opinion, that if such suit were brought into the Supreme Court deciding that the person of the Secretary of the Department in the Lay Commissioner court as Commissioner is ground for upsetting the decision of the Lay Commissioners' court, a whole series of consequences could ensue which would be irremediable by this Oireachtas because, not only could many of the decisions, or all of them, of the Land Commission court, in which the Secretary of the Department of Lands participated, be set aside, but all the consequences flowing from the decisions of that court could be made the subject of an action for damages against the Minister for Lands.

As I see it, the judgment of the Supreme Court in the Sinn Féin Funds case would render the Oireachtas unable retrospectively to prevent the courts continuing to declare its unconstitutional decisions which contain the fatal flaw of a quasi-judicial person being disqualified owing to his executive character as Secretary of the Department.

This is a matter which will be discussed again on the Report Stage of the Bill and it is a matter about which I am wholly unable to understand the Minister's position. I think his triumphant production of the irrelevant Department of Finance memorandum shows the extremity to which he is pushed to defend his whole untenable case. I would have sympathy with the Minister if I felt that he is deeply concerned in this matter as a high matter of principle. Then I would feel—here is something for the Division Lobby; there is no other way to have it resolved. He holds his views just as strongly as I hold mine but I do submit a grievance to Dáil Éireann. I do not think it is the right way to legislate, if the principal opposition, or any substantial body of Deputies, say: "Here is a matter about which we feel deeply; it is a matter of high principle to us and one which it must be admitted is nothing more to you than a device to expedite the procedure." The principal Opposition then say: "Listen; we will offer you another method and sustain you in giving effect to it to secure the increased expedition you want."

For the Minister to stick his heels in and say: "I do not give a damn for your principles; if I can steamroll over them, I will" is an utterly indefensible position for the Minister for Lands to take up. I have it on the best possible authority of those who have long experience of administration in the Land Commission that, so far as the Commissioners' desks are concerned, there is no delay; there is no accumulation of documents; there is no waiting list of matters for examination. That there is some delay is universally admitted but all experience seems to point to the conclusion that that delay derives from an insufficiency of experienced inspectors in the field. If four or six inspectors were added to the inspectorial staff, I want to submit there would be no delay whatever in carrying out the inspection or the acquisition of land.

I want to assert that the Minister's allegations, that the proposals contained in this Bill will expedite acquisition proceedings, are wholly illusory and I—not that there is much hope in view of the Minister's attitude —renew my strong urge that we regard this as a matter of fundamental principle, while he regards it as purely a matter of expediency. If he had any respect for the legislative procedures of this country, then he would gladly concede what I ask and look for the support he requires to get the extra staff.

Mr. Moran

This is no memorandum from the Department of Finance, and I want to put that on the records of this House. When I was quoting from it I knew Deputy Dillon, like a hooked eel, would wriggle and wriggle in an attempt to vomit the bait and get away, but I shall not allow him to get away from this document. I have one leg on the bottom, and that is the opening of this letter. It is suggested that this letter was a composition by civil servants of the Department of Finance and that Deputy McGilligan merely put his name to it. Let me quote from the letter of 26th April, 1949:

Dear Minister,

With reference to your letter of 1st April, 1949, and to our discussion of the 21st idem about the future position of the Land Commissioners, I set out hereunder in modified form my suggestions for dealing with the problem.

Mr. Dillon

That is a letter from one colleague to another.

Mr. Moran

Here we had a personal discussion between the then Minister for Lands, Deputy Blowick, and the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Dillon.

Mr. Dillon

Deputy McGilligan.

Mr. Moran

Deputy Dillon wants to suggest that this was a mere production of the Department of Finance, cooked up by some civil servants to which Deputy McGilligan signed his name in an offhand manner without any consideration; but this letter sets out to confirm a discussion, about the future of the Land Commissioners and the Lay Commissioners of the Irish Land Commission, between Deputy Blowick, the then Minister for Lands and Deputy McGilligan, the then Minister for Finance. As a result of this discussion and after mature consideration, Deputy McGilligan writes personally, and signs it personally, to his colleague. I quote paragraph 5:

The maximum number of Commissioners should be fixed at four. No legal barrier should be placed on a Commissioner holding also an administrative post or the post of Chief Inspector. In my opinion it is desirable where four Commissioners are operating that both the post of Secretary of the Department of Lands and that of Chief Inspector should be held by Commissioners—

Mr. Dillon

Two men, four jobs.

Mr. Moran

and, though this is not a practical issue at the moment, I hope you will leave the way open for such an arrangement in future.

Here is Deputy McGilligan, Minister for Finance in the Coalition Government, a man who is held up to us as one of the greatest legal experts in the land, deliberately writing to his Government colleague. Here is a man who has spent years of his life lecturing on constitutional law in University College, Dublin, who has served as Attorney General in this country and who, according to Deputy Dillon, advised poor Joe Blowick to drive a coach and four through the Constitution by appointing the Secretary of the Department of Lands a Commissioner of the Irish Land Commission as well.

Deputy Dillon has told the House that he has it on the highest authority that, because of the fact that we have appointed Commissioner O'Brien, who is Secretary of the Department of Lands, to be a Commissioner of the Irish Land Commission, any decision taken by him as Commissioner or his colleagues will be "busted" high, wide and handsome by the Supreme Court by virtue of the fact that he is also Secretary of the Department. Deputy Dillon told us he has that proposition on the highest legal authority. Again, Deputy Dillon is coy. He does not quote for us here the high authority who has so advised him.

Mr. Corry

Deputy McGilligan.

Mr. Moran

I am prepared to quote one of the highest legal authorities in the land, to wit, Deputy Patrick McGilligan, a former Attorney General, who says here that not alone is it legally proper but it is desirable that the Secretary of the Department of Lands should also be a Land Commissioner. Either Deputy Dillon with the advice he has got must take an awfully poor view of his colleague, Deputy McGilligan, who is supposed to be one of the best constitutional lawyers, or the advice he has got must, to say the least of it, be unreliable on this issue. I knew the Deputy would endeavour to wriggle away from this proposition when he adverted here to this as a trick of mine to appoint the Secretary of the Department, with some dire intention, to be a Commissioner of the Land Commission.

When the Lay Commissioner, Mr. Deegan, was retiring, he said in his valedictory address, as Deputy Dillon chooses to call it:

Before leaving the Department, I want to place on record my most definite view that the Secretary of the Land Commission cannot do his work as satisfactorily as he would wish to do it or as he should do it, unless he is at the same time a Commissioner. From my administrative experience in other Departments and from outside knowledge of the Land Commission, I held that view when I came here as Secretary in 1930; my years as Secretary and Commissioner from 1930 confirmed it; the past couple of years when I have been Commissioner without administrative responsibility have doubly confirmed it for me. It is, or should be, an axiom that the Permanent Head and Accounting Officer of a Department should be effectively aware of everything that is happening in his Department and should be in a position to ensure administrative and financial efficiency and correctness. Here in the Land Commission a Secretary who is not a Commissioner does not come in contact with large blocks of most important work until something goes wrong: the most troublesome and danger-holding items of our business (those matters related to the acquisition and distribution of land) are routed direct to Commissioners and unless the Secretary is himself a Commissioner "anything may happen" without his knowledge, and, though Permanent Head of the Department, he has not the opportunity which he should have of controlling in good time, in the interests of efficiency, economy and financial correctness, the administration for which he is responsible. It is definitely wrong that there should be work in progress in any Department in regard to which the Permanent Head and Accounting Officer has no effective say: and, as regards the Land Commission, I wish to state from long experience inside and outside the Land Commission, that that position can be avoided only if the posts of Secretary and Commissioner are combined, and to emphasise once more my very definite view that the Secretary here should always be a Commissioner. The fact that I held the two posts for so many years and during periods of exceptional stress shows that there is nothing impossible in the proposition—indeed each post makes the operation of the other easier for the holder.

There is the record of the view of a Secretary - cum - Commissioner who served for 11 years, at least, in the dual capacity and who advised the then Minister for Lands, Deputy Blowick, that this should be the procedure in the future. There is the view that is recorded by Deputy McGilligan when he was Minister for Finance and this is the proposition on which Deputy Dillon and Fine Gael have now been arguing—that this Bill is completely wrong by reason of the fact that the Secretary of the Department is also a Commissioner.

The extraordinary view is now being asserted that, though everything done while Mr. Deegan was both Secretary and Commissioner over a period of 11 years was perfectly constitutional, the fact that now a new Secretary of the Department is also appointed a Commissioner of the Land Commission makes everything utterly wrong, that every decision taken will be null and void and will be so declared by the Supreme Court. The country is threatened with the dire consequences that will follow the appointment of Commissioner O'Brien as Secretary and Lay Commissioner.

In view of these documents, of this record, as against the unquoted opinions, the Capel Street opinion, being posed by Deputy Dillon on this issue, I think it is clear to everyone now, whatever confusion may have been created by Deputy Dillon and his cohorts, that on this Bill Deputy Dillon thought he would get the people outside to believe that something unconstitutional was being done. He thought he would terrorise the landowning community into the belief that for the first time this sinister appointment was being made in furtherance of some queer, dim, distant plot of Fianna Fáil to take land from the general public for their own followers. No doubt he thought he would get away with that. As against his unquoted legal authority, I have quoted a well-known legal authority in the written record of the former Minister for Finance, former professor of constitutional law, former Attorney General, Deputy Patrick McGilligan. Let Deputy Dillon put that in his pipe and smoke it.

Mr. Dillon

I propose to do so very energetically. This is not only a proposal that one man should do two jobs. This is a proposition that two men should do four jobs. A proposal was put up by Mr. Deegan—who, remember, wanted to abolish all the reserved services to the Department—that the higher officials of the Department of Lands ought to double up and be Commissioners as well and, of course, the Department of Finance at once submitted it to Deputy McGilligan with a whoop of joy. This disingenuous Minister, as I shall call him, now seeks to create the impression that this was a personal correspondence between Deputy McGilligan and his colleague, Deputy Blowick, but when he went to read it, he found it opened with "Dear Minister".

Can one picture any of Joe's colleagues sending him a letter addressed "Dear Minister"? I do not suppose the Minister for Lands addresses the Minister for Finance even as "Dear Dr. Ryan", or that the Minister for Finance greets the Minister for Lands with "Dear Mr. Moran": after a lifetime of association in public life, they would address each other by their Christian names. If a letter should come to me addressed "Dear Minister", I would say to my colleague concerned the first time I met him afterwards: "Did you see this blasted document I got from you yesterday saying: `Dear Minister?

Would you get rid of 50 of your officials' "? If he said to me he had not seen it, I would say to him: "Of course you did; you signed it". He would say: "I signed 140 documents yesterday".

The Minister for Lands may think this is good enough to pull the wool over the eyes of the less sophisticated members of his Party and of those who do not know the intricacies of Government administration. This is the classical Department of Finance rejoinder to any proposal to get any one man to do two men's jobs. It is not a legal opinion. It was not imparted by the Minister for Lands to the Minister for Finance as carrying any legal significance whatever because, as the Minister for Lands well knows, if the constitutionality of any proposals in legislation made by him to the Government were called in question, the Party to be called on to decide the issue would be the Attorney General, no matter what status in law he enjoyed as compared with the Minister for Finance in his office. In government the Minister for Finance deals with finance matters. The Attorney-General deals with the law and the Constitution. They do not cross each other's paths and do not trespass on each other's domains.

But, Sir, the Minister for Lands is now carried away by the violence of his own views in this matter, which I am wholly unable to understand. He defends no principle. He is merely trying to convey to the House a piece of administrative machinery but he is getting quite passionate about it and he says that all this objection that we have been raising in regard to the dual capacity of the Secretary of the Department and the Lay Commissioner is related to Mr. O'Brien. Of course, there is not a speck of truth in that. I have said and repeated ad nauseam that the personality of Mr. O'Brien does not come into this question at all, but, over and above that, the Minister is now trying to persuade the House to forget that all this business is linked up with section 27 which is cognate with section 34. The whole of our case relates to the problem of acquisition and to the undesirability of the Minister having power to say to a Lay Commissioner who is Secretary of his Department: “Tell the Chief Inspector to inspect the land of A.B.”

Mr. Corry

Is not that finished under section 27?

Mr. Dillon

I do not know what poor Deputy Corry is talking about. The objection is that if the inspector sent out to walk those lands on the orders of the Secretary of the Department of Lands recommends the acquisition to the Land Commission, when the Land Commission Court goes down to the district to hear the case of whether these lands should be acquired or not, sitting on the bench of the Lay Commissioners Court is the man who initiated the proceedings for the acquisition of the land which he is now hearing as a judge.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Surely that has been said so often and so often?

Mr. Dillon

It does not seem to have made much impression on the Minister. This comes up again now in this group of amendments that the Minister has asked us to consider jointly. I refer to amendment 43(c) which he has asked us to consider with the other amendments. Amendment 43(c) raises precisely the same principle because, as the Minister rightly said, the immediate aim is defined by statute. There can be no argument in the court about that. The only argument is, is the out farm three miles from the home farm or is it not? I come into court and say it is two and three-quarter miles. The Land Commission inspector comes in and says it is three miles and 22 yards. I am not sure that on that issue I would even have a right as owner of the land to be heard by the Lay Commissioners. Yet, I am not sure that this is not one of the matters relating to acquisition in respect of which the Commissioners will hear only the inspectors of the Land Commission. Perhaps the Minister will look into that and advise us at a later stage. But, here is a question of fact. Bear in mind that from the Lay Commissioners Court on a question of fact there is no appeal. They determine finally and irrevocably as to whether this three miles condition is observed or not. I say that this involves again the principle that you shall not condemn a man to appeal from the prosecutor to the prosecuting counsel and I do not believe that any reasonable Deputy in the Fianna Fáil benches disagrees with me in this contention.

Mr. P. Hogan

(South Tipperary): They are not there.

Mr. Dillon

Most of them are gone away.

Mr. Corry

Do your own two agree with you?

Mr. Dillon

I know that some of the Fianna Fáil Deputies agree with me and view this development with the gravest possible apprehension. I view it with great apprehension and I view with great dismay the attitude of the Minister for Lands in this regard. What puzzles me is this — he is convinced that we are concerned to use this as a stick to beat him with in the election, but is not he in a position to disarm us at once by saying: "Very well. If you object to it, I will take it out"? There is no difficulty about it. Nobody suffers; nobody is any the worse off. He is further entitled to say to me: "But, if I take this out, can I understand that I have the full support of the Opposition in increasing the inspectorial staff in order to get over the delays which I believe are at present existing in the acquisition of land?" and I am prepared to say in advance: "Yes, we will support you. If you believe delays are being created, let us try strengthening the field staff of inspectors" and is not he in a position then to say, in spite of Deputy Flanagan's, mine and my other colleagues' opposition to the whole of this Bill, "While I do not agree with them, if they feel like this about it I will take out of the Land Bill the very thing they complain about"?

The Minister cannot have it both ways. If the Minister wants to make the case that this is fractious opposition for opposition's sake, he must be in a position to add that they are asking him to do something in regard to this Bill which if he did it would go to the whole root of the legislation. He is not making that case. He himself says these are merely administrative procedures designed to improve the administration of the Department. I am putting it to him that for us they are nothing of the kind. He replies: "You are making a dishonest case to frighten the people. You are trying to misrepresent purely administrative reforms as being highly dangerous and radical departures." I say to him: "If you believe that I am wielding that weapon and you want to strike it out of my hand, why do not you say now: `I will concede the point and I warn you that if the adjustment of the inspectorial staff in the office does not meet my requirements for expedition I will come back to the Dáil and renew the proposal which you are opposing now'?"

I am prepared to say that I never could undertake to the Minister that any question of expedition would, in my judgement, justify the kind of departure he advocates—never—but I would be prepared to say to him: "We are prepared to support you in any other administrative measures you think necessary in order to get the expedition you seek but do not ask us to accept what we believe to be wrong in principle for no better reason than that the machinery can be geared up to work a little faster."

I think that when we return to the discussion of this Bill, if the Minister will concede this point to us, the rest of it can be passed through in a couple of hours. It will be a very much better Bill and without section 27 and this new proposal for legislating the views expressed by the late Commissioner Deegan, I believe the Minister will be able to do the work or get the work of the Land Commission done very much better than it has ever been done before.

I do not despair that when the atmosphere has cooled down a little the Minister may not on reflection determine to come that distance to meet us. I would be glad if he would. I should like to see the good parts of this Bill operating. I should like to help him to get them into operation. It is my public duty to fight the principle I have been fighting today, as I am convinced Deputy Flanagan would fight it, horse, foot and artillery, with every resource we have because we believe it to be wrong.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

May I ask the Minister since he did produce this argument from the Land Commission that we did not hear before and further since he denies the knowledge of any views expressed by former Commissioner Browne on this matter, can he tell us if he has obtained the services of the Minister for Local Government as the official letter finder?

Mr. Moran

When I want a professional liar, I can call on the Deputy.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.