asked the Minister for Agriculture the action he proposes to take to make the leasing of land on a long term basis more attractive to potential development farmers with a land need.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Land Leasing.
7.
The Deputy will be aware that an inter-departmental committee are at present carrying out a wide-ranging review of existing land policy and no doubt they will deal comprehensively with the question of leasing. Any recommendation they may make in this regard will be seriously considered by the Government when plans for future land policy are being formulated. For myself, I would very much like to see a big expansion in long term leasing in the interests of greater land mobility and of meeting the land needs of potential development farmers.
When will the findings of the report be before this House?
Very soon.
Are the Land Commission watching all the land that is being sold in anticipation of some control as a result of this report? Is somebody keeping an eye on that?
The Land Commission have been extremely active in land purchase.
Not recently.
As I said, we have between 80,000 and 100,000 acres on hand and 68,000 acres in the pipeline being acquired. That is a substantial amount of land.
Is the Minister aware that there are many sales going on at the moment in anticipation of some control as a result of the report?
That may not be the main reason. The price of land is very attractive at the moment and some people may want to avail of that.
Is the Minister aware that this is going on?
Yes.
Order, I want to call Deputy Leonard.
Arising from the Minister's supplementary reply regarding the acquisition of land, is he aware that in his recent directive to the Land Commission officers to draw up schemes to distribute 40,000 acres, inspectors will not be available for the acquisition of further farms and that it looks as if, for the next period, they will distribute rather than acquire?
I am sure the Deputy will agree that it does not seem to be sensible, with that size of pool of land on hands, to concentrate more on acquisition than on redistribution. Every week I come into this House I am being pressed for redistribution of land that is on hands because it is too long in the hands of the Land Commission and I agree that is so.
Would the Minister not agree that it would take a considerable time to distribute that 40,000 acres——
I expect to have it distributed this year.
——and, if that will require the attention of all the Land Commission officers in the various offices, it could well be that farms which would be very suitable for congests would go on the market and be sold, seeing that the Land Commission in the next period do not seem to be interested in acquiring land?
That is not my intention. If such a situation is there, acquisition goes on. What I have asked them to do is to concentrate more on getting this land back into the hands of farmers in the hope of making them viable and becoming development farmers.
I am sure the Minister is aware—if not, he should be— that exactly what Deputy Leonard describes is happening, that farms are being sold and the Land Commission are concentrating——
That is not a question. Question No. 8 please.