This group of amendments is the group which defines the distance as being three miles?
Land Bill, 1963—Committee Stage (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following amendment:
39a. In page 14, line 54, to delete "same locality" and to substitute "immediate neighbourhood". — (Minister for Lands.)
Over the weekend, has the Minister considered the lengthy and reasonable debate which took place last Thursday with reference to the dual position of the Secretary of his Department being also a Land Commissioner? Has the Minister had an opportunity of discussing this matter with the heads of his Department or has he sought any advice which might help him to see reason in this matter? It is a matter on which the Minister would be well advised to make a statement for the record. The statement he has made does not hold water and few will consider seriously the excuse he gave. I feel there is some other motive behind this. The Minister should re-examine it. If the Minister has not sought the advice of his Department, perhaps between now and Report Stage, he will be prepared to go into it fully?
The points raised by the Leader of the Opposition are points which have met with one hundred per cent approval from the general public. That is why I think that this is something on which the Minister ought not adopt a childish attitude. This is going to be a very serious matter for landowners and the decisions which will be taken by the Commissioners will be very serious for the people. In order to have the whole matter straightened out, it would be as well to have all these problems cleared up while we are on this section of the Bill.
Deputy Dillon pointed out that this Party have acted throughout the whole course of the Bill in a very reasonable way and I should like to take this opportunity to deny some of the statements made by Government Deputies over the weekend. It was alleged that this Party are deliberately obstructing the passage of this Bill. There is nothing further from the truth. There has not been any obstruction but, on the contrary, constructive proposals have been made by this Party. We want to make this Bill a workable Bill and that is the reason we have gone through it section by section and subsection by subsection, to help the Government to change what we consider the bad sections of the Bill into something really workable. The statements made by Fianna Fáil Deputies would lead one to believe that there is no section in the Bill with which we agree. There are valuable and useful proposals in it and we want to see these sections put through and brought into operation so that their benefits will accrue to the people.
When we are of the opinion that there are sections, such as these we are now discussing, which would be bad for the country, it is our duty as a constructive Opposition to focus attention on them. That is our duty as an Opposition and surely the Minister realises that that is so, and particularly so in the case of a constructive Opposition, anxious to give the country the best type of land legislation. That is one of the reasons I feel the Minister would be well advised to tell us now, in order to expedite the passage of the Bill, that he is prepared to see reason and will reconsider the attitude of his Department in relation to the position of the Secretary of the Department.
We have debated these amendments at very great length and there is nothing that could be said on them that has not already been said. All we want is to extract from the Minister an undertaking that he will examine the matter seriously and not deal with it lightly as he appears to be dealing with it. The decisions which will be taken in relation to this section are likely to be contested in the courts and the result of such a contest will not be favourable to the Land Commission. We want to avoid that and now is the time to do so. That is why I ask the Minister to leave aside his childish attitude, to take the work of his Department seriously and to protect the interests of the landowners of this country from decisions which might later be found to be unconstitutional.
The Committee Stage of this Bill started on 3rd March, 1964. This is the sixteenth day Dáil Éireann is discussing the Committee Stage and I leave it to the public to judge whether there has been obstruction or not. Deputy Flanagan has asked me if I took advice on these amendments over the weekend. I suggest that Deputy Flanagan is the person who should take advice from his own colleague, Deputy Professor Patrick McGilligan, on this issue. I have put the matter on record in Deputy McGilligan's words when he said that, in his opinion, it was desirable where four Commissioners were operating, that both the posts of Secretary of the Department of Lands and that of Chief Inspector should be held by Commissioners. Deputy Professor McGilligan hoped that the way would be left open for such an arrangement in future. That was his letter to his colleague, Deputy Blowick, as Minister for Lands.
Here is the letter drawn up by the pride of Fine Gael in the field of constitutional law, Deputy McGilligan. That was what he thought to be not alone practical but desirable for the future running of the Land Commission. I am quite satisfied to accept his interpretation of the law, quite satisfied to accept his considered view that this is a proper proposal. I am quite satisfied that Deputy McGilligan, who is eminent in the field of constitutional law, would not make this recommendation unless he was satisfied that it is acceptable by our courts. Should the matter ever arise, I am sure that my legal advisers will have Deputy McGilligan come into court and confirm his advice given to Deputy Blowick when Deputy Blowick was Minister for Lands.
I should like to refer to what Deputy Dillon stated on the last occasion in column 851 when he said:
We will put down an amendment on the Report Stage which will declare once and for all that executive officers of the Department of Lands must not be members of the Land Commission, and that the quasi-judicial status of the Land Commission must be restored.
Deputy Dillon has indicated his intention to put down an amendment on the Report Stage and I suggest that we can debate the rights or wrongs of this matter, as advised by Deputy Professor McGilligan, on that Stage of this Bill.
It is not right to let the Minister away with the idea that Deputy McGilligan wrote to Deputy Blowick giving his legal opinion in this matter. Deputy McGilligan wrote as Minister for Finance, giving the official view of his Department to Deputy Blowick as Minister for Lands. Nothing could be further from the truth now than for the present Minister for Lands to say that Deputy McGilligan was giving a legal opinion. The Minister is not familiar with his facts and he must be under the impression that Deputy McGilligan was writing as Attorney General. Deputy McGilligan held with honour and distinction a number of very important posts, Minister for Industry and Commerce, Minister for Finance and Attorney General.
The present Minister discovered a letter in his Department. Whether he had the able assistance of the Minister for Local Government or not, we cannot say, but in the letter it was found that Deputy McGilligan as Minister for Finance was conveying the official Departmental view on this matter. Nobody knows better than the Minister for Lands that every Minister for Finance who properly and efficiently carries out his duties, as Deputy McGilligan did, must take all steps to cut down public expenditure, and here we see a good Minister for Finance saving the taxpayers, keeping down expenditure and ensuring there was no extravagance in any State Department. He was giving his approval when he saw that one man could do the work of two, something that any Minister for Finance would be delighted to do and if he did otherwise, he would not be doing his job efficiently.
But if Deputy McGilligan had been asked to express a legal opinion on the matter, it would be very different from his expression of opinion as Minister for Finance, entrusted by the country with the job of ensuring economies in administration. Unlike Fianna Fáil, who promised to reduce the number of civil servants and at one stage were going to get one civil servant to do the work of three, here was Deputy McGilligan exercising economy. Now, the Minister for Lands turns and twists the letter giving an official opinion of the Department of Finance to the then Minister for Lands. I want to put on record that this was not Deputy McGilligan's legal expression of opinion but an opinion of the Department of Finance conveyed through the Minister to the Minister for Lands. It was nothing more. I now trust that the Minister for Lands will see the folly of his statement and how unreasonable it is, and how untrue are the conclusions he draws from the letter that he had discovered and about which we heard nothing until last Thursday.
I ask the Minister to communicate with his colleagues, the Minister for Local Government and the Minister for Justice, and get them to look for another letter because there is another letter, an expression of opinion from Commissioner Dan Browne, that it is most undesirable that the Secretary of the Department should be a Land Commissioner. The Minister had no trouble, with the aid of his colleagues, in finding Deputy McGilligan's letter because he feels it is something he can twist and turn to suit his purpose, but it is a different matter when it comes to finding the official views which must be on record, of every Land Commissioner since the State was founded.
With the exception of the late Mr. Deegan who retired in 1951, every one of them expressed the view that it was unwise and undesirable to have the Secretary a Land Commissioner. Whether the Minister has checked or not, there must be on record an expression of opinion by the late Commissioner Browne. It was made in the presence of some high-ranking officials at present in the Land Commission and he said that in no circumstances was it wise or desirable that the Secretary should be a Land Commissioner. The only person to express the opposite view was the late Mr. Deegan.
I now ask the Minister to make more inquiries in his Department and to give us the facts which he has so far failed to convey to the House as to why every Land Commissioner, with the exception of the late Mr. Deegan, held it was unwise that the Secretary should be a Land Commissioner. I assure the Minister that we shall go on to debate this on the Report Stage and since the Minister is not prepared to see reason, perhaps it is better to leave it over until the Report Stage. In all seriousness, I ask the Minister to explain his unreasonable attitude in this matter.
I have listened to this debate from the very beginning. I had a completely open mind on the section then, not having had the experience of other Deputies of the working of this system, but, having listened to the arguments on both sides, I am perfectly satisfied that the Minister's side has been more convincing than Fine Gael. That is a personal opinion. If a vote did take place, I would recommend my Party to vote in that way.
The Minister, however, has referred to holding up the Bill and I want to point out that the Bill contains 45 sections and since it was introduced, the Minister has introduced 46 amendments, one of them running into a complete page of the amendment sheet. Some of these amendments were broken down into (a), (b), (c) and (d), so that, in fact, if taken separately, the figure would be nearer the 60 mark. I am satisfied that if anyone must bear responsibility for the length of time we are debating the Bill, it is the Minister and those who drafted a Bill which, before getting halfway through Committee Stage, required 46 suggested amendments, so, while there may be something in what the Minister says about some of the sections being held up, he must bear his full share of the responsibility for the condition in which the Bill reached this House and the way in which it has been dealt with since it reached the House.
Deputy Tully has made a very effective answer to the outrageous suggestion of the Minister and the unreasonable attitude he has adopted in complaining that this Committee Stage took sixteen days to discuss in this House. That is a tribute to the serious consideration given to the Bill by all the members of the House and it was in consequence of the fact that the Bill was framed in such a manner and contained such obnoxious inclusions that it was necessary to spotlight what was objectionable so that the Bill would be remedied in Committee.
It is also true that the Bill must have been presented to the Government in ample time for the members of the Government to give it the consideration which it deserved before it ever reached this House on Second Stage. One must remember that it is the very same Government as, we assume, gave similar consideration to the Succession Bill and we assume that they were as confident of the advisability of the inclusion of every provision in that Bill as they are in relation to the measure before the House now. The contributions made in the necessarily lengthy deliberations that ensued following the introduction of this Bill had the effect of making it necessary for the Minister to bring in an inordinate number of amendments so as to rectify the Bill as it stood when it left the Government table.
We would be happier if the Minister and the Government had gone further, had treated this Bill as drastically as they were compelled to review the Succession Bill. We wish that they would have agreed to drop proposals that are causing considerable disquiet throughout the country relative to the removal of what had been accepted down through generations, and was so dearly won, by way of rights for the farmers.
We have no apology, therefore, to offer for the close attention to detail and the trojan efforts put into the discussion at all Stages of this Bill up to now. The same attention will be devoted to it until it leaves the House and then we will be able to bring it home to the people that every effort was made to see that those parts of the Bill that were obnoxious would be removed and, if they have not been removed or rectified, it cannot be alleged that that was due to any dilatoriness on the part of the Opposition.
I must, for the record, reiterate that there is no evidence at all in the Land Commission that the late Commissioner Browne or any other Commissioner suggested that the Secretary of the Department should not also be a Lay Commissioner. Deputy O.J. Flanagan glibly keeps repeating these assertions but I have given the House anything that we have on record on this issue from the letter that I put on record from the late Commissioner Deegan, who said it was essential for the Secretary to be a Land Commissioner, to the letter of Deputy McGilligan, who was then Minister for Finance, to Deputy Blowick, as Minister for Lands.
What I want to ask is this: where is Deputy McGilligan, the pride of Fine Gael, the nation's hope in the field of constitutional law? What is wrong with Deputy McGilligan coming into this House and denying authorship of this letter dated 26th April, 1949 and telling the House that he was not responsible for it and that it was written by civil servants? I put it on the record of the House before and I will put it on record again that in writing to Deputy Blowick, the then Minister for Lands, he said:
With reference to your letter of 1st April, 1949 and to our discussion of 21st idem about the future position of the Land Commissioners I set out hereunder in modified form my suggestions for dealing with the problem.
This letter confirms that there was a discussion between Deputy Blowick, the then Minister for Lands, and Deputy McGilligan on this issue, and following that discussion, Deputy McGilligan wrote and gave his considered view to Deputy Blowick as to how the Land Commissioners should be constituted and as to the desirability of making the Secretary of the Department of Lands a Commissioner of Lands or Lay Commissioner.
No matter what wriggling is done on this issue by Deputy Flanagan, there is a simple way of denying authorship of this letter. It is signed by Deputy Patrick McGilligan, Professor of Constitutional Law for many years in University College, Dublin, a former Attorney General, and Deputy Flanagan suggests that Deputy McGilligan did not know what he was writing about when he writes and tells Deputy Blowick that the proper thing to do would be to make the Secretary of the Department a Commissioner for Lands.
It is alleged by Deputy Flanagan that because Commissioner O'Brien, Secretary of the Department of Lands, is now Commissioner, anything done in future will be completely unconstitutional because of Commissioner O'Brien's appointment. It is extraordinary that this did not occur to the Fine Gael constitutional legal authority, Deputy McGilligan, when writing to Deputy Blowick and advising him that for proper administration it was not alone right but desirable that not alone should the Secretary of the Department of Lands also be a Lay Commissioner but that the Chief Inspector of the Department of Lands should also be a Commissioner and this letter was following discussion between these two Ministers on this issue at that time.
If Deputy Dillon puts down this amendment on Report Stage, we can go into this matter further. I am quite prepared to accept Deputy Professor McGilligan's advice to his then colleague at that time and I am quite prepared to accept that Deputy McGilligan's view of the law is correct and that if ever this matter is raised before the Supreme Court, Deputy McGilligan's view will prevail.
The Minister is deliberately raising a dust storm to cover something and for the past five minutes I have been puzzling as to what he is trying to cover up. There is no doubt that these notes from Deputy McGilligan as Minister for Finance came across to me. There is no denying that. As Deputy Flanagan has pointed out, it is the duty of every Minister for Finance to watch every sixpence expenditure or else he is not worthy to be Minister for Finance.
The kernel of the whole thing is this—when I took over the Department in 1948, there were three judicial posts. In other words, each of three Commissioners held a judicial post as well as an administrative post. The late Commissioner Deegan was Commissioner and Secretary of the Department and Secretary of the Land Commission. He had three posts. He was Secretary of the Department of Lands, which included Gaeltacht Services and Forestry as well as the Land Commission at the time. The late Commissioner Herlihy, if I remember correctly, was Commissioner and Assistant Secretary. Ex-Commissioner Waddell was Chief Inspector and Commissioner. They were three posts.
In the 1950 Act, I proposed to separate these three; in other words, to let the Commissioners be Commissioners only and to let the administrative men be administrators only. That meant increasing the cost of running the Department because, while each of the Commissioners I have mentioned held both judicial and administrative posts, they were paid for only one. Deputy McGilligan foresaw that by the 1950 Act I was adding, not perhaps very seriously, but somewhat, to the administrative cost of the Department, and as Minister for Finance, he would be perfectly justified in sending me a much stronger note than that. Let me say also that Deputy McGilligan did not go into a tantrum and resign his post as Minister in the inter-Party Government of the day. The matter came up at a Cabinet meeting; the Cabinet decided what was to be done, and that was that.
The Minister has made great play with this whole thing. I do not lose any sleep because the present Commisioner, Mr. O'Brien, is Secretary as well as Commissioner. I do not believe the Minister's explanation but I believe that the present Secretary, Mr. O'Brien, will administer the two posts properly and correctly. Therefore if there was a vote on the question, I do not think I would take sides, even though I deliberately, in the 1950 Act, took away the administrative posts from three Commissioners of the day. During the four or five years I was Minister for Lands, I could not see any great damage being done by having Commissioner Deegan as Commissioner and Secretary. I have nothing but praise for him and I have nothing but the highest respect for his two colleagues who had administrative posts for many years before I became Minister for Lands, Commissioners Waddell and Herlihy.
If the Bill goes through in its present form, it will not disturb me in the least if Mr. O'Brien is Commissioner and Secretary, because knowing Mr. O'Brien as I do, I have not the slightest doubt that he will carry out his judicial and administrative duties in an absolutely fair manner. That has been my experience over many years. I have no doubt that when Mr. O'Brien comes to relinquish the two posts, there will be, as always, a decent official who can be safely appointed. As I say, I have such an open mind that if there was a vote, I do not think I would take one side or the other.
Let me refer now to an aspect of this Bill which has been disturbing the Minister very much, that is, the horrible obstruction that Deputies on this side of the House, myself included, have been engaging in. What has been the history of this Bill? The very first thing that happened was that the Taoiseach, away back in 1961, at a Muintir na Tire meeting in Thurles, announced or forecast this Bill, and so the Bill was conceived. It was finally born last year after hatching somewhere for three years. Now the Minister wants to steamroll it through the House. What have we got? We have a Bill with a few good points, a whole lot of blah-blah and two very poisonous stings in it. We as an Opposition are perfectly justified in fighting to the last ditch. One of the stings is that a farmer is denied the right to let his land or do what he likes with it. The second sting is the right of the Minister to order an inspection of land, thus taking away the right of ownership which we fought so hard to get.
On a point of order, we are dealing with certain amendments and I submit the Deputy is completely out of order.
I am answering the charges the Minister has made about obstruction. Let him sit down and take his medicine.
If that was relevant, so is the answer.
I am giving the whole history of this Bill.
We cannot discuss the whole history of the Bill on amendment No. 39 (a).
It would be relevant to point out how inconsistent the Minister is when he talks about obstruction at this stage. That is another way of saying we have no right to criticise him when he brings in a Bill, that we should go down on our knees and thank God for such a brainy Minister for Lands who brings in such a perfect Bill. That is his attitude. There are two very poisonous stings in this Bill which I want to put across to the people. The Minister is taking steps to deny people the right to let their holdings. Again, although it has passed the Committee Stage, I say the Minister is doing a rotten job of work for the farmers if he denies them the right to do what they like with their own land.
I could not possibly allow the Minister to get away with what he has said. He has endeavoured to show that Fine Gael are opposed to Mr. O'Brien as Commissioner and Secretary of the Department. May I place on record that I have known Mr. O'Brien for over 20 years and I want to add to the tributes that have already been paid to him as a conscientious, honourable, highly qualified civil servant? If there was any one man in Ireland who was well qualified for the position of Commissioner it is Mr. O'Brien. What Deputy Blowick has missed and what other Deputies do not seem to realise is that at the present time it makes no difference whether the Secretary of the Department is also a Commissioner because what is happening at the moment is quiet different from what can happen when this Bill is passed.
At the present time the Minister has no right to order a senior inspector of his Department to inspect any man's land. That is the great difference between Mr. O'Brien being Commissioner and Secretary now, between Mr. Deegan being Commissioner and Secretary in his day, and the future situation. The power that the Minister has already won for himself in this Bill makes it impossible for the Civil Service head of his Department to carry out his duties, no matter how good or well meaning he may be.
Here we have the Civil Service head of the Department taking an order from his own Minister to cause an inspection or to decide on the distance limits with which we are now dealing. His Departmental Secretary issues these instructions and then the farmer makes an appeal against what he feels is a wrong and unjust decision. To whom is he appealing? He is appealing to Mr. O'Brien, not this time as the Minister's agent, Secretary of his Department, but as a Commissioner, both judge and jury in the Land Commission. He will be asked as a Commissioner whether it was right or wrong for him to carry out his own administrative orders. That is why this Bill is an entirely new departure.
Up to now, whether it was Mr. O'Brien or Mr. Deegan who was Secretary and Commissioner, it was all the same. The Minister for Lands of the day had not the power the Minister has vested in him in this Bill. We have disposed of that section and the House has agreed to give him that power. Because he has that power, we seriously object to the Secretary of his Department, who has to take his instructions, sitting in judgment as a Land Commissioner on an issue passed to him by his own Minister to deal with. That is our objection.
Fine Gael have no objection whatsoever to Mr. O'Brien—quite the contrary. There is not a more highly qualified man in Europe to be a Land Commissioner. What we object to is this entirely new departure whereunder the Minister will have powers no Minister ever had before and it is that that changes completely the position in relation to the Secretary of the Department being also a Land Commissioner. The Minister is now trying to make the case that this is Fine Gael versus Mr. O'Brien. Our objections were clearly stated. It makes no difference to this Party who the Secretary is because, after the next general election, we propose, as the Government, so to alter this measure as to remove both the unreasonableness and the embarrassment which the powers the Minister has now won for himself will cause. The House and the country have been made aware of our views on this matter by the Leader of the Opposition. It is wrong of the Minister to try to convey to the House that this Party object to Mr. O'Brien. It is all the same who the Secretary is. This Bill is unconstitutional and the moment we get authority from the people we propose to change it.
Deputy Blowick said the gestation period of this Bill was some three years. That is quite inaccurate. The Taoiseach's speech, to which the Deputy referred, was made on 14th August, 1962, and this Bill was introduced in July, 1963. What will happen after the next election is another matter, but, if Deputy O.J. Flanagan continues to pursue the policy he has been pursuing on this Bill, I doubt very much that he will be here after the next election.
On the principle of this matter, Deputy Blowick sees no objection to the Secretary of the Department being also a Lay Commissioner. Labour Deputies see no objection. Only in the Fine Gael benches has there been some sinister motive attributed to the appointment of the Secretary as a Lay Commissioner. Strange to say, the Cumann na nGaedheal Government away back in 1930 appointed the then Secretary, Mr. Deegan, a Lay Commissioner. They were all in favour of this procedure. Deputy McGilligan is all in favour of it. I think I have said sufficient.
Amendment agreed to.
With amendment No. 40, the House might also discuss amendment No. 43, which is cognate.
We have discussed en bloc amendments Nos. 39a, 40b, 40c, 42b, 42c, 43a and 43c. Was it not agreed that we should then deal with the fishery and boundary limits of rivers, namely, amendments Nos. 40 and 43? They form the next group.
Yes. Amendments Nos. 40 and 43 may be discussed together.
I move amendment No. 40:
In page 15, lines 2 to 5, to delete "or, in the case only of land forming the bank or shore of a lake or river, the provision of facilities for persons boating or fishing on the lake or river," and to insert "or (in the case only of land not adjoining an occupied dwellinghouse which was in existence at the commencement of the qualifying period) the provision of facilities for persons boating or fishing on the sea or on a lake or river,".
I have received very reasonable representations to the effect that, where the Land Commission provide a site on the bank of a lake or river for the use of persons boating or fishing, there will be a tendency for these people to use the site for picnic meals and perhaps to light fires for that purpose. If the site were adjacent to a dwellinghouse, such activities might create nuisances for the residents in the form of smoke and noise and I propose, therefore, that sites near dwelling-houses should be excluded, but, so that no landowner may seek to defeat acquisition proceedings by starting to erect a dwelling nearby, the concession will apply only to an occupied dwellinghouse which is in existence for one year before the commencement of proceedings. I am also taking this opportunity to add in "sea" as well as the "lake or river" covered in the earlier text.
As Deputies are aware there has been some criticism about people buying land adjoining the foreshore where traditional rights of access were enjoyed by the public going to the shore and excluding or purporting to exclude the public from enjoying these traditional rights. If the public were sufficiently active where these rights exist, they could, under the law as it stands, claim a public right-of-way. In many cases the public have been slow to act mainly because, as we say in the country, what is everybody's business is nobody's business. I have received complaints that certain purchasers of land, particularly in the south, have stopped people enjoying certain traditional amenities in the way of access to the seashore. In future, where the Land Commission are satisfied that the public enjoyed certain facilities giving them access to the sea, and where these facilities are denied, the Land Commission can take action to provide such rights-of-way to enable the public to continue the enjoyment of their traditional rights.
With regard to the first part of the amendment, provision is made that the Land Commission will not compulsorily acquire places on lakes or rivers beside an existing dwellinghouse. I think this is reasonable. It is designed to meet representations made to me since the Second Stage of the Bill.
Why go back a year?
Assuming the Land Commission decide to provide boating facilities or a place where boats can anchor, and so on, it would defeat the Land Commission's purpose if the owner could start erecting a house near the place designed to be taken over by the Land Commission. Without the clause, the owner could defeat the purpose of the Land Commission and therefore we say the Land Commission would be stopped from taking a site on the lake and that the house must have been there a year before they commenced proceedings.
I do not think there is anything unreasonable in the Minister's amendment. The section in general gives power to the Land Commission compulsorily to acquire land adjoining a lake or river in order to provide boating or fishing facilities. There was a certain amount of anxiety on the part of owners of residential property that the Land Commission, in their anxiety to provide these facilities, might considerably reduce the value of property convenient to such a site. I am glad the Minister is taking these steps suitably to amend this section so as to convey to the owners of residential property that there will be no possibility of the Land Commission making an effort to reduce the value of their property in their effort to provide boating or fishing facilities.
It is true that the owner of a residence convenient to a lake or river would have the value of his property seriously reduced if he had not got the safeguards which the Minister's amendment now guarantees him. It could be that the public, having the right of freedom convenient to a lake or river and starting, as the Minister pointed out, picnic fires and so on, could be the cause of a plantation being burned through carelessness. That is why I am glad to see these steps being taken and to see that the hazards which landowners had in mind will disappear completely.
I should like to ask the Minister whether he has considered, or is considering, the question of compensation for landowners where compulsory powers are to be used and where the landowner may not wish voluntarily to surrender portion of his ground convenient to a lake or river. Perhaps he might have decided to have a pleasure garden there for himself, might have been considering the family privacy or might have had other plans involving the spending of large sums of money on his property to maintain the beauty, peace and quiet of the place. Then he finds that the Land Commission are going to acquire part of his property in order to provide boating and fishing facilities. What would be the nature of the compensation that would be paid in such a case and will there be machinery to consider fully the case of such an aggrieved party?
I agree fully with the steps being taken by the Minister to ensure that where the public have enjoyed rights of way to the sea, these rights of way will be preserved. This question has aroused a lot of anxiety, more particularly because we have seen aliens who purchased lands and who had no responsibility whatever to the country, restricting the movement of persons through rights of way to the sea which had been established hundreds of years. As the Minister pointed out the general public are very slow to take legal action in a case of that kind. Some public-spirited citizen must be the first to move in order to set the legal machinery moving and nobody wants to be the first. That is why I am glad that where it has been or can be established that rights of way to the sea exist, steps will be taken to ensure that no alien or other person will obstruct the movement of the public through the right of way. I trust that if the attention of the Land Commission is directed to any case where an absentee landlord, an alien or an owner of land, for selfish reasons wishes to prevent the public from using the right of way to the sea, they will take steps to see that the interests of the public are protected. These amendments will ensure that the rights of way that have existed will be maintained and that the public will not be prevented from using them.
I should like to inquire if this amendment relates only to rights of way to the sea. I fully agree with what Deputy O.J. Flanagan and the Minister have said and with what the country feels generally about the inviolability of such rights of way. It seems to me, however, that it may develop the problem of the deprivation of public rights of way which do not concern access to the sea. I am thinking of places of scenic beauty where people take walks, say, in and around Dublin. I know of one place in the county where it was possible some years ago for the public to take walks. There is no question of access to the sea from this place but it might have been acquired by foreign interests. I am happy to say that that did not happen. I should like to know if this amendment will provide that any right of way which has no relation to access to the sea will also be protected by this amendment.
Under these amendments, we are, for the first time, taking power to create rights of way into lakes and rivers. I found from my experience as a fisherman in dealing with fishing clubs that in many cases, where you have troublesome landowners, it is impossible for clubs to operate. Fishing as a sport is becoming more and more popular with our people. There was no power I could find to enable boat owners to anchor boats off shore, because it can be argued that riparian owners are the owners of the land to the middle of the stream, and likewise in regard to many lakes except what are called State lakes. Therefore I feel it is necessary in this day and age to provide for these amenities to enable fishermen and tourists to have access to these lakes and rivers and, of course, to the sea, as I explained before the Deputy came in.
Under this amendment, we are taking power to acquire sites along rivers, lakes and at the seaside. Though it was not usual for them to do so, I think under the existing law that the Land Commission could provide a right of way, but the practice has been to do so for the purpose of giving access to people for land user rather than for the purpose the Deputy has mentioned. However, I think there is nothing in law to stop the Land Commission acquiring a right of way to some scenic spot, as the Deputy has suggested, if they so desire and if a proper case is made for such acquisition by the public.
The short answer to Deputy Flanagan about where the Land Commission would exercise these powers to take sites on lakes and rivers and provide access is that they will have to pay the full market value for the land. People are entitled to compensation. Just like any normal land acquisition, if they are not satisfied with the price offered, they will have an appeal at law to the Appeal Tribunal.
Amendment agreed to.
I move amendment No. 40a:
In page 15, lines 9 to 29, to delete "(b) either—" and subparagraphs (i) and (ii), and to substitute the following:
"(b) any one of the following requirements which is applicable has been bona fide complied with—
(i) where a person other than a body corporate is the sole tenant or proprietor of the land —such person has throughout the whole of the qualifying period resided either on the land or in the immediate neighbourhood thereof;
(ii) where a body corporate is the sole tenant or proprietor of the land—each of the persons entitled to a beneficial interest in the body corporate has throughout the whole of the qualifying period resided either on the land or in the immediate neighbourhood thereof;
(iii) in any case not mentioned in subparagraph (i) or (ii) of this paragraph—all the persons entitled to a beneficial interest in any part of or share in the land and all the persons entitled to a beneficial interest in the body or bodies corporate, which is or are entitled to any part of or share in the land, have throughout the whole of the qualifying period resided either on the land or in the immediate neighbourhood thereof;
provided that the requirement in respect of residence shall in no case be satisfied or deemed to be satisfied by compliance with any statutory provision whatsoever relating to residence by a body corporate, and".
These amendments are designed to improve the wording of those parts of the text which deal with the residence qualification. For example, on page 15 of the Bill as introduced, the word "person" in line 15 clashes with the words "has or have" in line 23. This is really a drafting amendment. Also I have not been entirely satisfied with the provision about bodies corporate. One of the advantages of the proposed new text is that it deals rather neatly with (1) the individual, (2) the company and (3) every other combination of individuals and companies in joint or inter-related ownership.
It may be objected that the residence qualification will be very severe on companies with large numbers of shareholders. My answer to this objection is that we are not seeking to make companies comply with a residence qualification; we are merely saying that if their lands are otherwise judged necessary for the relief of congestion they may, as vacant or non-residential lands, be acquired.
It is to be especially noted that the "family company" will in normal circumstances be protected. We are basing our farm structure plans on the "family farm," but, if the family chooses legally to transform itself into a limited company, no difficulty will arise. The shareholders of this type of company, living a normal family life, will no doubt be ordinarily dwelling on the farm and will not be vulnerable under this heading.
The amendment is designed in the main to deal with companies owning land. In many instances the registered offices of these companies may be in London, Dublin or God-knows-where. It is to make this type of land vulnerable, where congestion exists, and to enable the Land Commission to move in in such cases. Deputies will appreciate there has grown up a practice where in certain instances big business men form companies to take over land and siphon off certain profits into such a proposition. Where such land would be required for the relief of congestion, this will enable the Land Commission to move.
I should like to hear a little more from the Minister on this. There is a little uneasiness on the part of certain landowners in regard to the residence clause. Why has the Minister introduced a residence clause at all? The Land Commission are going to have a difficult time dealing with the many problems caused by the residence clause. Leaving aside entirely companies owning land, let us take the case of a landowner who, for some reason or other, goes to live with a son or daughter. Is it held that the landowner does not reside on his property? The holding may dangle attractively before the eyes of the Land Commission as a suitable holding for acquisition. We have the case of many landowners who have to emigrate to Scotland and Britain for temporary employment and whose holdings are not sufficiently large to enable them eke out an existence They find it necessary to be absent from home frequently. In some cases this absence may run to years, with a return at Easter and Christmas. Even though this land is well worked, will this mean that the fact that the owner is absent at certain periods, due to circumstances outside his control, is to be used by the Land Commission for the purpose of dispossessing him?
In this country there are a large number of small holdings where the owner, for one reason or another, is not resident on the holding. I feel that a special case can be made for the owner of a small holding who has to emigrate frequently. Because a case can be made by the Land Commission that Mr. X is the owner of so many acres in such a district and is employed in England, Scotland or Dublin and is not depending on the land for his livelihood, is this non-residence clause going to be used as a lever to deprive him of his land? It would be unfair and unreasonable if this House were to allow amendments to go through without a clear understanding of their meaning.
We have the case of many landowners who reside in towns. Are they to be evicted as a result of the residence clause? We have the owner of what can be described as the draw farm, the second or third farm which a man may have on which he does not reside but which he intends to keep for his sons or daughters in years to come. The farmers who usually have these draw farms generally have them for the purpose of settling their sons or daughters when they come of age. Are we now to be faced with the position that because the owner does not reside on such a farm the Land Commission will acquire it?
We know that there are many such holdings well worked and well looked after, giving reasonably good employment, on which the owner does not reside. I have in mind a number of very well worked holdings where the owner is residing with relatives or friends or, for his own convenience, in a town. I would ask for a guarantee from the Minister that the owner of such lands who does not reside on his holding and the owners of draw farms can be assured that the residence qualification will not be used as a method of depriving them of property which they are working well, producing food for man and beast, giving employment and on which they intend to settle their sons or daughters, nieces or nephews. This is a very important matter because there is great anxiety about the position of landowners who do not reside on their holdings.
Does the Minister intend that such people should immediately dispose of their property to the Land Commission? In the case of the farmer who may have two or three holdings, five or six sons and three or four daughters, is he expected, in order to hold on to the lands on which he intends to settle his family, to spend his money wastefully on the erection of houses and outoffices until the family are ready to move into occupation? These are matters which are causing anxiety to many farmers at the moment. I have met farmers who seem to be much concerned with what is to happen to non-residential holdings. Very often the non-residential holding is subsidising very generously the residential holding. The farmer cannot work one without the other.
The Land Commission do not appear to study the economics of family living as closely as the landowner down the country studies them. That is why I can foresee grave difficulties arising in this matter. The Minister should take steps to reassure the smallholders and others whose lands are scattered. What about the landowner whose lands are not consolidated and who may have them stretching over a distance of three or four miles from his home? We also have the position of a farmer residing on a holding which is completely subsidised by the profits from a farm on which he does not reside. If the farm on which he does not reside is to be taken from him, he will then have to dispose of the holding on which he resides because one cannot work without the other. That is endangering the principles of fixity of tenure and freedom of sale for every landowner.
The fact that a man does not reside on his holding does not mean that he should not have it. It does not mean that such land is not contributing towards his livelihood. The family circumstances of the landowner, his family, whether they have a taste for farming and what his capacity is to buy land for his family, if the Land Commission decides to buy the holding on which he is not now residing, should all be taken into consideration.
The Minister would be more familiar than I am with the case of the extremely small holder who may have five or six pieces of land and who can live on only one of these pieces. Does this proposal mean that the four or five pieces on which he does not live are in danger? Reading this section and the amendments, I fear that such a property is in danger of what the Minister described last week as the teeth of the Land Commission. That is why we have been so careful in dealing with this Bill because the teeth of the Land Commission may be far too sharp. We want to slow up the jaws of the Land Commission in operating these teeth because in the event of the Land Commission taking action, it might lead to a loss of employment on the land.
I should like a little more information regarding the ownership of land by companies. What will be the position of a company owning a stud farm? Are we to understand that all the directors must live on the farm? The Minister should clearly indicate what the position is regarding stud farms owned by companies. We have a number of farms owned by companies giving good employment and treating their workers generously. I know a number of them in my constituency. They set a headline with excellent crops; they carry on private afforestation schemes, and private land drainage schemes, and in some cases have demonstration plots which are an example of good husbandry. Is it unreasonable, in the case of farms owned by companies, to expect that the Land Commission will not require all the directors and all who derive financial benefit from that company to reside on the holding?
The Minister now guarantees that this will not refer in any way to companies but that there might be an instance in which the Land Commission will want to acquire the holding of a registered company and that he is just putting the provision in the Bill to sharpen the teeth of the Land Commission to deal with such a company. Perhaps the Minister will tell us if there will be any difference between an Irish company and a foreign company owning land here. The Minister will be well-advised while on these two amendments to convey to the House the attitude of the Land Commission regarding land owned and worked by native companies as compared with land controlled by alien companies. This matter deserves very serious thought by the Minister. I am sure the Land Commission have considered land owned by foreign companies. To what extent do such companies own such land here? Are statistics readily available of the amount of land they hold?
I am glad the Minister assures us that in the case of land held by companies, all those who have a financial interest in the company are not expected to reside on the holding. That possibility caused a good deal of anxiety on the part of directors of such companies. One can easily imagine how difficult it would be in the case of a substantial farm owned by a company to comply with the provisions of the Bill if all connected with the farm had to reside on the holding. Since we now see that the individual farmer who resides on his holding cannot have a draw farm without meriting the serious notice of the Land Commission and that the Land Commission may attempt to acquire it on the residential qualification grounds, how will it be established otherwise in the case of the company when the directors do not live on the holding? I take it from what the Minister says they are exempt from the provisions of the section? I have asked the Minister to let us know his attitude regarding native companies and foreign companies owning land here.
Deputy Flanagan, being an auctioneer, like all auctioneers, has made an anti-Land Bill statement. It is extraordinary that we have, I suppose, about one out of every six in the House an auctioneer and it is these people who have opposed this Bill day in, day out. We in the west want this Bill to go through and I am frequently blackguarded in the papers for not saying something but anytime I do speak, I am slowing down the progress of the Bill. I do not agree with anything Deputy Flanagan or anybody belonging to him has said. Evidently he thinks we are still back in 1927 or 1928 when we had to have a blue card, as you must have for the cows——
How does that arise on the amendments before the House?
Deputy Flanagan is opposing them and I must make a case against him. He evidently thinks we are in the same position as we were in over 30 years ago when we needed a blue card before we got anything from the Cumann na nGaedheal Government. There is no use in a Deputy coming along to-day and suggesting that the Minister will be unreasonable or harsh with anybody because he cannot be. We are living in a completely modern world and the sooner we get to realise that the better.
We in the west want to see the Minister getting these powers. It is not a question of the Minister leading the people of the West into the promised land of the midlands because they do not want to go to the Midlands at all. It is a question of the Minister being able to deal with the lands in the west that are lying derelict, of being able to take over these lands and to make it possible for the people of the west to live there, rather than have to emigrate.
Deputy Flanagan's attitude towards this Bill is purely and simply that he is afraid of his life that the auctioneers will lose their five per cent. I do not mind whether Deputy Flanagan or any other Deputy loses his five per cent. My attitude towards this Bill is that I want to see the Minister putting the Bill through so that derelict lands in the west may be acquired by the Minister and allotted to the people of the locality at a reasonable price to enable them to live there.
Deputy Flanagan starts off with the ballyhoo about Fianna Fáil doing this, that and the other thing. He should go back to Cumann na nGaedheal, who did nothing in their life but change their name.
Will the Deputy deal with the amendments?
The Deputy talks about stud farms. Who owns the stud farms? I doubt if there are more than two Irishmen among all those people who own stud farms there. I do not believe for one moment that the present Minister for Lands or any other Minister for Lands would take any action to deprive any man of his land where that man was operating a stud farm and operating the farm properly and giving employment.
This attack on the Minister for Lands, who is a Mayoman and who knows our troubles probably better than anybody else, is pure, unadulterated bunkum and I am not going to accept it from a midlands man. The Minister comes from Mayo and certainly knows our troubles. Our main trouble is that we just have not got enough land. In Mayo it often happens that there are several farms left idle for years and years. If they are vested holdings, they can be put up for sale, whether the owners are in Canada, the United States or anywhere else. That is our big trouble. As the Minister knows, such a case has occurred at my doorstep over the past 12 months. I want that position ended. I want to see the Minister in the position that he will be able to acquire these lands at a reasonable price and make them available to people who can use them to make a living and not have to go to Canada, the United States, England or anywhere else.
Unfortunately, the position is that these places can be bought at fantastic prices and the Land Commission must make the highest bid in order to acquire the land. The lands cannot be left; they cannot be allotted to local tenants. For the first time in the history of this country, a Minister is taking steps to end this position by putting this section into a Bill.
Last Thursday Deputy Dillon blazed forth as hotly as he could and spoke of simple-minded Deputies and referred to everybody in the most deprecating terms. Deputy Dillon is not right in referring to simple-minded Deputies. There are no simple-minded Deputies in this House or, if there is any simple-minded Deputy, it is the Deputy himself from Roscommon who was returned here by the obviously simple-minded people of Monaghan. That kind of thing will not go down here.
Perhaps the Deputy would come to the amendments? The amendments deal with residence on the land and the Deputy may not discuss the whole Bill on these two amendments.
I agree with you, Sir. Practically every Deputy who has spoken has gone 300 miles outside the scope of anything contained in sections or amendments to this Bill. I suppose I am fairly in order in doing so as well. The fact remains that a great deal of ballyhoo is being brought in here purely and simply because there is a by-election pending in Galway and if there were no by-election in Galway, the chances are that this Bill would have been through long ago.
I cannot stand idly by and listen to people from the midlands who regard us from the west as second-class citizens or as not being first-rate citizens. I want to assure the House that we are first-rate citizens. Anybody who has been transferred to the midlands has proved his worth and anybody who will be transferred to the midlands will also prove his worth. Consequently, I cannot agree with either Deputy Flanagan, Deputy Dillon, or any other Deputy, be he an auctioneer or otherwise, who opposes this.
There are a few points I should like to make in connection with the residence clause which has been referred to. Deputy Flanagan raised the question of a man residing on one farm and having an outside farm. There are many cases where there is no residence on the outside farm. I am sure it is not the intention of the Minister to interfere with the man who has one farm where he resides and who takes an outside farm perhaps three or four miles away.
The Minister has referred to big business combines. We all know that for the past couple of years at least, there was a combine buying up land. There were cases where men, who advocated that foreigners should not get Irish land, sold their farms to this combine at a good price. Deputy Flanagan spoke about small men with three or four small holdings in the west. I am sure it is not the Minister's idea to take over these places. It is his idea to help these men and to enlarge the farms.
Again, with regard to the point I have raised about men living on one farm and having also an outside farm, on which there is no residence, I do not believe that the Land Commission have any idea of interfering with such land. It would be very wrong to do so. I am not in favour of the big business man, whether he is a foreigner or otherwise, who lives in a big town or city, being allowed to buy up all the holdings he can lay hands on. I do not think he is entitled to do that and to produce crops and to put the small man out.
The Minister knows what he is talking about and he knows also what the amendments are likely to prove to be worth.
I should like to repeat that I am quite certain that the man who has two farms, on one of which there is a house in which he resides, and who is making a good job of the outside farm will not be interfered with in any way.
I wonder is Deputy Flanagan concerned at all with the relief of congestion? He is terribly concerned, evidently, with the companies owning large tracts of land, that they should be immune. He accuses me of abolishing, by these amendments, the three Fs. For the purpose of the relief of congestion it is necessary to abolish three Fs, particularly the three Fs representing Fine Gael frustrating failure in the land policy field.
Nonsense.
These amendments are designed to make these lands vulnerable that are owned by big companies throughout the country where they are non-resident. The suggestion, of course, is utterly absurd that it is the Land Commission's intention to go after people who are properly working their lands. Time and again in discussions on this Bill the cause of the widow is trotted out by Deputy Flanagan.
One would imagine that in acquiring land the only object of the Land Commission was to pick on people like widows with small farms, to pick on people who are temporarily absent in England to earn a few pounds. Everybody living in rural Ireland knows that is not so. It is the people who have been absent for a very long time, who have a bad land user record, who have been letting their land year after year for 25 years—those are the people against whom the Land Commission are moving to acquire land and those are the people who, under these amendments, the Land Commission will be pursuing.
As I have already said, I had to find a definition for the vacant and under-worked holding which would particularly be under severe scrutiny by the Land Commission and would be especially vulnerable where lands are required for the relief of congestion. Therefore, I had to find a formula which would identify the vacant holding. After consideration, I thought it best to come at the problem from the other side by saying in effect that a farm is residential if the owner lives within three miles. This deals with companies, non-resident companies, one of the worst forms concerning those resident abroad who have bought Irish land.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.