When I was beginning my reply last night I dealt with the vital question of the right of foreigners to purchase land in this country after our accession to EEC. I pointed out first that the draft directive seeking to provide such a right has not yet been adopted by the existing members of EEC and also that we have been assured that it will not be adopted for the time being and that, even if it were, suitable amending legislation could be introduced here to protect our interests provided that this legislation was non-discriminatory in nature, that it applied equally to our own citizens as well as to citizens of other member states and finally that this legislation might take the form advocated strongly by certain members of Fine Gael in the course of this debate.
The fact that we have structural problems different in kind rather than degree from other countries is well recognised in Europe. In summary, therefore, I can say that our existing controls or similar ones devised to the same end will continue indefinitely. I could talk for a very long time on this subject having been involved in discussions in regard to the right of establishment that have taken place over the past few months and if any Deputy wishes to know more about the situation I shall be very glad to talk to him at any time. However, I consider that my purpose at this stage is served by having given the assurances I have given already to the House and to the country. I agree with those Deputies who said that the question of the right of nationals of other countries to purchase land here on our accession to EEC will be a vital element in the decision of many people as to whether to vote yes or no when the referendum is taken.
Before turning to questions of land policy I should like to say something in regard to the recommendation of the Devlin Report that the Departments of Lands and Agriculture should be amalgamated. This is in reply to Deputy Desmond in particular. As the House knows I strongly favour this proposal; I accept the logic involved in it. Indeed, in an earlier debate I suggested my own elimination to bring it about. What I do not accept is either that the Land Commission staff are working merely at half capacity because this recommendation has not yet been implemented, or that the delay is too great.
Deputies must know how far-reaching and complex are the recommendations in the Devlin Report. They must also know that some of these recommendations are fundamental in nature and, put into practice, would alter radically the whole system of communication between State Departments and the public, and would also alter basically the internal structure of the Departments themselves. Because of their fundamental nature, under any Government it would take many years for these recommendations, if adopted, to be put into operation. I want to make it clear that this Government have, in fact, acted on some of the more important proposals. The first and most important of these is the decision to set up the Public Services Department.
I should also mention that arrangements are in train to try out the aireacht executive recommendation in a number of Departments at least. I do not think it would be relevant to go into the considerations on both sides as to whether or not this aireacht executive idea is a good one, but obviously it is one that must be tried. In the near future the Minister for Finance will be announcing the Departments in which this system will be tried on an experimental basis.
The proposals in Devlin in regard to the restructuring of Departments and the creation of new Departments are not as fundamental in their nature as the two that I have already suggested and, for that reason, in the normal course of events would not be implemented for some time yet. So far as Lands and Agriculture are concerned, there is already very considerable reappraisal and reorganisation going on within the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries. So far as I know the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries is in agreement in principle with the idea of the amalgamation of his Department with the Department of Lands so far as they control the Land Commission. Obviously he would wish that the reorganisation within his own Department to which I have referred should be completed first. It will be many years before the Devlin recommendations, that is those that will be adopted ultimately, will be put into operation.
I now turn to the major issue of land division. Deputy L'Estrange, Deputy Tully and Deputy O'Hara asked what had happened with regard to the proposals for part-time farming which I put forward in the House a couple of years ago. I should make one thing clear. Like Deputy Nolan I start from the premise that there is not enough land available to solve the economic and social problems of our rural people. There is not enough land to achieve this aim. Therefore, let us try to be clear on what is the logic of this simple and yet profound truth. It follows, first, that not all of our farmers can ever be made the owners of so-called. economic units and, secondly, that other work must be provided on a full or a part-time basis for those who wish, on the one hand, to get out of farming altogether and go into other work and, on the other hand, to stay in farming but not as a sole means of livelihood.
Therefore, we must provide that other work, and provide it where it is needed. We must also decide at what point a man may be deemed to be a full-time farmer. As regards the provision of industry, much progress has already been made. In the recent past, certain towns have been selected by the IDA for the establishment of advance factories. These include areas like Swinford in my own county which are very badly hit by the lack of good land and also by the lack of industrial or other work. Very soon the IDA will be announcing detailed plans for the development of the remoter rural towns to tie in with the existing plans for the development of regional industry in the larger centres. I cannot be more specific at this stage.
I know that the House, and Deputies who have the interests of the real countryman at heart, will be glad of this development. The real unchanging Irishman of history, the true inheritor and protector of our culture and national values, lives in these hills and valleys and, no matter what economic experts say, his is the greatest value to our land. It should be added here that one reason for delay was uncertainty in regard to our position in the negotiations with the existing EEC countries for accession to the Community. I think we can be happy with the outcome and in particular with the protocol which will protect the interests of the remoter parts of the country in the years ahead. This protocol is evidence of the fact that our special problems are well recognised in Europe.
On the question of acquisition may I say that I have grave misgivings about the fact that the Land Commission are asked to and do acquire tiny bits of land of ten or 15 acres. I wonder if a system could be devised whereby bidding for such land would be confined to a radius or class. If this were possible I would operate it with enthusiasm. It should not have to be the concern of the Land Commission to put the expensive State machinery at their disposal into operation in cases like this. Instead there should be the semi-free rivalry of interested locals who would contend with each other for the purchase of these small properties. After all, to make three 15-acre farmers into three 19 or 20-acre farmers does not really make them much better off. Indeed, it is a nonsense, at least in terms of land. I do appreciate that again I am suggesting some form of restriction on the right to purchase land and that this is indeed a very delicate subject but if you have a severe pocket of congestion and a small piece of land becomes available it seems to me that if competition between the neighbouring or near neighbouring farmers were to result in the sale of the whole of that piece of land to one of them it would be preferable to the expensive and slow system of acquisition by the Land Commission.
I wish to make it clear that this statement of mine involves no adverse criticism of the Land Commission. Various circumstances have forced the commissioners in many instances into going after these pieces of land, sometimes the circumstances being the fact that outsiders with far more money than the locals are in competition in the field and, therefore, without the intervention of the Land Commission the land might go out of the ownership of people in the area. This, indeed, was the burden of the complaint made here in regard to a case in Roscommon by Deputy Joan Burke yesterday. She has given me further details of that particular case since then. I can only say that the decision in regard to all these matters is not made by me but by the Land Commissioners and, therefore, the local people concerned should not attempt to take it out on me personally or on my party because I do not intervene in these matters. Indeed, is it not time that people throughout the country began to realise what is, in fact, the function of the Minister for Lands and the Land Commissioners? Is it not time for them to realise that 90 per cent of the representations they make are self-cancelling because one goes to Deputy O'Hara, another one goes to Deputy Finn, another one comes to me and we all make our representations to the Land Commission who eventually prepare a scheme, submit it to the commissioners and they in their wisdom decide who shall get what.
May I say, as well, that in general the schemes as submitted from the local offices are fairly drawn up and fairly adjudicated on by the commissioners. It is obviously impossible in the situation which I have mentioned earlier of having, on the one hand, too little land and, on the other, too little alternative employment, to satisfy the needs of everybody. Indeed one of the rules of the Land Commission, which has every logic behind it, has given me a lot of trouble—the rule which gives preference to a person with a holding, however small that holding, who has it as his sole means of livelihood as against somebody who, while a small farmer, also has some job on the side. There were instances where it was obvious that the person who had the job on the side had proved his capacity to work and that in the ultimate some of the people who succeeded to the land had not done so and were afterwards to prove their incapacity for real work. However, this is a very difficult problem and one incapable of solution by means of a policy decision. I am satisfied that in the exercise of their duty both the officials on the ground, the officials at head office and the commissioners exercise their judgement with honesty and fairness.
In regard to the small farmer about whom I was talking a few minutes ago it is obvious that if this person is to have a fair existence he must have some sideline as well as his few acres. At the other end of the scale the Land Commission also have very great problems. I shall not repeat what I said here two years ago but simply observe that with EEC approaching the difficulty of providing enough land for those who should be or will remain full-time farmers will be with us for a very long time indeed. As one Deputy remarked, what was done in honesty 30 years ago has created some of our difficulties today.
I now come to the vexed question of land bonds and with what I suspect is visible relief I am able to announce the agreement of the Government to the removal of the disabilities under which land bonds have suffered up to now. I wish to record my thanks to the Taoiseach, the Minister for Finance and all members of the Government for being able to say this. I am glad, in other words, that I do not have to, because I would not anyway defend the indefensible. The mechanics of the operation are being studied with the Department of Finance and the outcome will be announced as soon as possible. It does seem, unfortunately, that it will not be possible to make retrospective change, that only bonds issued in the future will carry the new status. Of course, the most recent issues are standing high and I can only regret that the owners of other issues of fairly recent vintage cannot, it seems, be compensated now. In any event, as soon as possible the details of the new land bonds will be announced.
I turn to one of the most interesting developments in this country in recent years and that is the group farming experiment at Grennanstown, County Meath. I had the privilege of formally launching the project on the 28th September last. I agree with Deputy Kavanagh and everyone else who is enthusiastic about the idea of co-operative farming. Might I tell the House a story? Just before my visit to Grennanstown I had spent a week in Hungary and had made a brief study of the system of co-operative farming which they use. The Grennanstown scheme is very similar to the system of co-operative farming operated there. In Hungary, as in Grennanstown, the farmer is the absolute owner of his dwelling house. He is also the owner of a few acres of land which, and I think this in interesting, vary in size depending on the number in his family. I wonder how many countries in the world still provide incentives to parents to have more children? In any event, the farmer can do what he likes in the way of farming with the acres which he is personally allotted and he can keep the profit for himself.
The co-operative itself, of a minimum of 600 acres and usually substantially more, is run by a council of the farmers themselves and decisions on production schedules and so forth are taken by a majority vote. I had long discussions with the Minister for Agriculture in Hungary and also with his two deputies not merely about co-operative farming but about conservation, forestry and other aspects of the development of the country in which I was interested. Both the Minister and his deputies said that if the farmers of Hungary were now given their choice they would not go back to the system of individual farming which had obtained there up to some years ago.
I hope I am not telling tales out of school, so to speak, when I say that while I was being shown around Grennanstown estate by one of the four migrants involved, having told him this story, he said: "Well, Minister, we would not go back either." Considering that they have been there only since last April it is obvious that the men concerned are more than well satisfied to-date at least with this experiment in group farming. Another of them said: "I hope you will not be calling us communists." I said: "We will, because that is what you are, but if it is any help you can call yourself Catholic communists. You certainly are communists because you have now put the bulk of your land together for co-operative development." Incidentally, a limited company has been formed in Grennanstown and it is operated by the directors.
I fully agree with those who regard this as a significant breakthrough in land use and land development. The next co-operative farm will be set up next year. I have an idea that instead of scattering the houses within a radius of a half a mile or so, as in Grennanstown, the Land Commission might set up a village next time. I should hope at some stage that this experiment will be tried. For the purposes of the group farm to be started in the west of Ireland the proposed members of the co-op were not willing to accept this idea and wished instead to live in their individual houses separate from each other as at Grennanstown.
It may be a pipe dream as far as I am concerned but I remember very early in my political life going through the old Kilvine settlement before the rearrangement scheme was effected and all of the people brought into lovely new houses on compact holdings on the hills surrounding the valley in which the old village lay. There was a marvellous sense of community in that old village and I wonder if I am simply being romantic or perhaps stupid in thinking that this sort of village life is capable of being recreated in the seventies. Perhaps it is not, but I should like the experiment to be tried. Of course it can only be tried with the agreement of the people selected to do the farming in co-operation with each other.
It is true that even without formal pooling of land farmers throughout the country—certainly in Mayo which is the area I know best—have begun to realise the futility of their each purchasing their own farm equipment. There has been a significant trend in the pooling of farm machinery in recent years, certainly in my county and I believe elsewhere.
