asked the Minister for Lands if his Department has any records to show the land owned by foreign and national financial institutions such as banks and insurance companies.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Foreign Owned Land.
26.
There are no records available in the Land Commission of the amount of land held by foreign and national financial institutions such as banks and insurance companies.
The Land Commission have a record of every case where their consent was given for the purchase of rural land by any company requiring consent under the provisions of section 45, Land Act, 1965. The total number of consents issued to companies for the purchase of rural land between 9th March, 1965 and 31st December, 1976 was 2,635 for an acreage of 148,510. It would entail a considerable amount of work to segregate this figure as between ordinary companies and the type of company the Deputy has in mind.
The Deputy will appreciate that the granting of such consent does not mean that a particular transaction actually went through or if it did that the property did not subsequently change hands.
The Land Commission have no record of properties purchased by companies not requiring their consent, which in the main are semi-State companies, philantrophic bodies, the scheduled banks and companies which obtain a certificate from the Minister for Industry and Commerce that they are acquiring land for industrial purposes.