asked the Minister for Agriculture (i) the number of commonages waiting to be divided in County Galway; (ii) their acreage; (iii) the number of shareholders of them; (iv) when it is proposed to divide them; and (v) their locations.
Ceisteanna—Question. Oral Answers. - County Galway Commonages.
16.
As the reply is in the form of a tabular statement I propose to circulate the figures in the Official Report.
Following is the statement: (i) 12; (ii) 464 hectares; (iii) 70, (iv) It is not possible to indicate precisely when these commonages will be divided. However, every effort is being made to expedite division; (v) Townlands: Clooncurra, Abbeylandgrate, Derrymore, Caltraghduff, Treananearla, Cloonmore, Derrynane, Moycullen-Oughterard.
I presume there is a good deal of information in the reply. I want to ask the Minister two simple questions. Is it true that the Minister for Agriculture sent a memo to the relevant sections on the Land Commission stating that further money would not be made available for the acquisition of land?
That is a different question altogether.
It is not.
Of course it is.
Why does the Minister not reply?
I have asked Deputies to be reasonable.
The Minister should be reasonable.
The Minister is entitled to circulate a statement with the reply if he wants to. If he does that, it is unreasonable to be groping in the dark, for the want of a better phrase, with supplementaries which mean nothing. I am going on to Question No. 17.
There are thousands of acres in County Galway——
That was three questions ago.
No it was not.
It was. Uimhir 17.
We are all aware——
Will the Minister answer Ceist 17?
On a point of order——
I am trying to get some order into Question Time and I think that is the desire of all parties.
I wish to ask a supplementary on Question No. 16 pertaining to commonages.
I should like to discourage the Deputy from doing that — I will not put it stronger than that — because he has not the answer to the question before him. You may thrash it out on the debate this evening to your heart's content.
We know there are thousands of acres in County Galway held by the Land Commission and we want to ask a question as to what he is doing to have that land divided between farmers in the county.
A supplementary question must arise out of an answer given by the Minister. That is not the case here.