I would appeal to the Minister, as other Deputies have, to try to pay in cash instead of in land bonds. Payment in cash would be much fairer and would be a more honest system. It would expedite the purchase and distribution of a large pool of land before we enter the EEC. Deputy O'Donovan has stated that we in this House are interested in justice and in seeing that the State deals justly with all the people and cherishes all sections of the people equally. I claim that in this connection we want justice, not confiscation. The present system of paying in land bonds is unfair and unjust. It delays, hinders and frustrates the acquisition of land.
At the present time nobody seems to have confidence in land bonds. The Minister knows as well as any one of us that when a vendor sells land he may have financial commitments or he may want to buy another farm. If he is paid in cash he can buy another farm immediately, perhaps to his advantage. He can meet his creditors and pay them off as quickly as possible. If he is paid in land bonds we know the trouble he has in trying to sell and the delay in many cases in trying to get somebody to buy them. That is one of the objections that landowners have. Land bonds have the reputation of not being easily convertible or, if they have to be cashed quickly, very often have to be sold at considerable loss. I understand that the Government stockbrokers do not operate for land bonds. They do not stand ready to buy and sell land bonds as they do in the case of National Loans. It is very unfair that trouble and inconvenience should be caused to landowners when they are trying to cash land bonds. The possibility of payment in land bonds operates to the detriment of the Land Commission in acquiring land. It certainly interferes with the goodwill that should exist and which the Government should try to retain. The question of land bonds very often leads to bad public relations between the Land Commission, auctioneers, solicitors and vendors. As a solicitor, the Minister, I am sure, knows a fair amount about that.
Every one of us in public life is conscious of the appalling hardships which have arisen from the depreciation in the value of bonds. Five per cent land bonds are now under £70; six per cent land bonds are only slightly over £70 and 3½ per cent land bonds are only around £60. So I have been told. Therefore, a man who invested £100 and who is selling them now would get only £60. Taking into consideration the depreciation in the value of money, I suppose in real money terms he would be getting only about £20, roughly one-fifth. That is very unfair. We all know many cases of both voluntary and compulsory acquisition of land where people have suffered very serious financial loss. Taking a figure of £70 now for land bonds that were worth £100, we can see that the landholder who sold a few years ago has suffered already a 30 per cent loss in the value of his money. No other section of the people are asked to suffer as seriously as those people are.
The position, I think, has become even worse within the past year or so. I can give the Minister particulars of a farm sold in my own county over a year ago or so for £12,000. Possession was taken on 12th December, 1968. The 8 per cent land bonds came into operation in January. The purchase money is only now being allocated and already there is a depreciation of about 20 per cent. Therefore, this man who sold his farm to the Irish Land Commission last year in good faith for £12,000 is now getting only something over £9,500 — between £9,500 and £10,000 in actual money. The Minister will have to admit that this is unfair and unjust. The man in question sold voluntarily. He wanted to buy again. Now, he is in the position that land has increased in price since then. To buy a farm similar to the one he sold for £12,000 would now cost him perhaps £13,000. Therefore, he would have to put £3,500 to £4,000 to the money he is getting now from the Land Commission in order to purchase a similar or a suitable farm. That is not giving any encouragement to holders of land to hand over their land voluntarily to the Irish Land Commission.
The Minister also knows that the 8 per cent bonds came into operation in January last and that the price of those bonds today is down, I think, to 91. Therefore, in respect of cases which still have to be completed, the owner is taking a loss of 10 per cent. The Minister will have to agree that this is outrageous and that some provision should be made to deal with such cases. How the Minister is going to do it I do not know. I should like to suggest three of four different methods. We should see that justice is done to those people and we should certainly try to retain good public relations. I understand that during Mr. Blowick's term as Minister for Lands — the Minister can contradict me if I am wrong but I have been told it — there was a system whereby a bonus on the purchase money could be awarded in such cases. I have been told that it is in section 6 of the Land Act, 1953. If my information is correct might I suggest that some sort of similar concession should now be made to deal with very real cases of hardship which have arisen and which seem to be arising regularly.
If the price of land bonds drops — we all know from past experience that they can drop very quickly — the Minister should have a provision made to allocate additional bonds. If you are not prepared to pay in cash and if you still want to pay in bonds I think there should be provision to allocate additional bonds to bring up the purchase price to par. I think power should be in the hands of judicial commissioners to make such concessions, where necessary. Another method would be that if, between the date the Land Commission take possession — the operative date — and the payment of bonds, bonds are issued at a higher rate of interest, the vendor should be allowed to exchange the old bonds for new bonds or he should be paid with the bonds that are in operation on the date they are being issued. I think the acquisition date is the operative date at the present time: I have given the House the case of the farm acquired on 12th December and the person is only being paid at the present time. Instead of making that date the operative date, if the Minister could make the date of payment the operative date, it would get over many of the difficulties that are arising at the present time. When people hand over land voluntarily or when the Land Commission acquire the land, many snags arise. Some people will tell you that solicitors may be a bit slow in dealing with cases. I have heard some people blame the solicitors. I do not know how good their cases are but they do. I know that there are delays even here in title and in different Land Commission offices here. Many snags arise. It may take as long as a year to clear title and to get everything in order. I would ask the Minister to make the operative date the date of payment and to issue land bonds at par with the land bonds on that particular date.
We were told that something like £600,000 was paid out in cash last year. Under what circumstances were people paid in cash and paid in bonds? What law governs this or at whose discretion are the particular people paid? Are they paid at the discretion of the Land Commission or are they paid at the discretion of the Minister? At whose discretion are they paid?
In fairness to everybody, if the State wants to seem to be just to everybody — not merely just to itself — I believe that land bonds should be accepted. They are not accepted at the present time by the State for the payment of death duties, income tax or any other State debt. They should be accepted at par value and, if not, at least at some reasonable value. People cannot understand why the Government will not accept them. Have the Government not got faith in their land bonds issued by themselves? If the Government or the State make a landowner accept land bonds, surely, if anything happens to that unfortunate man inside a year or two years, the State should accept what they have made him accept? Surely they should accept from his solicitor or his wife land bonds in payment of death duties? If he is in arrears of income tax, or anything like that, surely the Minister should accept the land bonds which the State has made the particular man accept and surely the State should accept them back at par for such purposes?
As the Minister himself knows, solicitors are paid their costs in land bonds. It means an immediate loss. It also means a lot of trouble and inconvenience to the people concerned. The market is so uncertain that very often there is difficulty in disposing of the bonds. I should like to hear the Minister's views on my suggestions.
