asked the Minister for Lands why landless men do not get land from the Land Commission while many of them have been brought up on farms and have worked for years in the home farm.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Allocation of Land.
120.
Landless applicants are not excluded from the categories of persons to whom lands may be allotted and where the disposal of lands which are not required for the structural reform of uneconomic holdings or other priority commitments is concerned, the claims of such applicants in any locality are always carefully considered by the Land Commission. Preference is then given to those who have experience of the working of land and who have sufficient capital or stock to enable them to work any land that might be allotted to them. In practice, however, the needs of the structural reform programme are such that the landless men must of necessity take a low place in the allotment queue. The extent of genuine congestion still awaiting solution amongst the people exclusively or mainly dependent on agriculture for a livelihood requires that the main emphasis on land policy must be directed towards them.
I dealt with this matter of priorities in the allocation of land when replying to the debate on the Lands Estimate on 24th October last; cols. 1295 and 1296 of the Official Report of that date are relevant and I would refer the Deputy to them.
What greater congestion can there be than among three or four men trying to exist on a small area of land, even in cases like County Meath? Is it not time these got fair consideration?
The Deputy will agree that, where there is a small farmer rearing a family and living wholly or mainly from the produce of the land, he should be given first preference. Because there are a large number of these people with holdings which are not sufficiently large to give them a reasonable standard of living, obviously we must concentrate on them before concerning ourselves with others.
Why does the Minister say this when he knows that, even in his own area, people who have been reared on small farms and whose opportunity to get land is reduced because of the system of dividing land in their areas have to emigrate because they are not given portions of land when it is being divided?
As the Deputy is aware, all uneconomic holders within a mile of the estate being divided get first consideration after those employed on the estate have been catered for. As a general rule, when all those people are catered for there is rarely any land left for division among others. After the claims of estate employees and uneconomic holders in the areas concerned have been catered for, then other categories are considered.
Is it not the system of the Land Commission, first of all, to divide half of the estate among local people and to give the remainder to migrants, who have come in from outside, with the result that many local people have to emigrate?
I do not accept that that has been the policy of the Land Commission—to divide the estate into halves. The policy of the Land Commission has been to give first consideration to the claims of those who have been looking after the estate and secondly, to ensure that uneconomic landholders within a mile of the estate will have their farms brought up in so far as is possible to economic level and very often after doing this the whole estate is used up.
The Minister is talking about theory. I am talking about practice.
I am as much aware of the practice as is the Deputy.
The Minister must have looked at it recently.