The owner occupier system of land tenure is as deep rooted in our society as our Christian beliefs. This Bill is a first step, perhaps a small step, to change that serious attachment to land ownership. I do not think we can afford to condone such a rigid and inflexible system of land ownership without making some attempt to create a greater level of mobility. That mobility would ensure a greater level of resource utilisation which this Bill is all about. If it does nothing else but soften the attitudes which attach to the unwarranted status of the mere possession and ownership of land, then this Bill will be successful.
It has been stated, and will continue to be stated, that agricultural land is Ireland's major natural resource. One could go so far as to say that Ireland is unique among her European partners as regards the extent to which her economy depends on agriculture. As long as a considerable proportion of the country's land resources remain under-utilised and unproductive, then agriculture is not making the contribution it could and should make to the development of our economy. It was mentioned here last evening, and it has been mentioned time and time again, that we import £800 million of agricultural products almost every year and that figure is increasing. We have the capacity to produce most of these products. This would provide extra jobs and there would be a great saving to the Exchequer. Admittedly, we could not produce some of our imported products. People might say that because of the difficulty in marketing the surplus agricultural products which we already have, there is no point in trying to bring further agricultural land into production. That is a defeatist approach and we should not even contemplate it. The French, the Dutch and the Danes do not have the same climatic advantages we have but we have not applied ourselves to this problem as much as we should and until we do we will continue to have a deficit in our balance of payments, a high external debt and a large number unemployed.
This Bill prepares the way for improved land utilisation and productivity through a leasing system. The rigidity inherent in the system of owner occupancy can be lessened and a new and welcome form of land mobility achieved. I am looking forward to that, and so are the many people who never had control over their land for the following four or five years. They are at present operating under the conacre system which is not in the best interest of the person renting the land or the person leasing the land nor is it to the benefit of land management and land use.
Leasing can provide land for young people without a major initial investment. In other words, having to pay 16 per cent to the lending agencies for the initial investment is a severe impediment to buying land. Some people bought land when it was high in price, and because of the change in the market, the change in the demand for products, the increase in input prices and the lessening of productivity, they could not repay their loans. This brought down the price of land, which is not a bad thing. The advantages of young people owning land cannot be over-estimated. They will focus new ideas on land use. These people, equipped with modern knowledge, skills and training, can achieve a new level of agricultural resourcefulness.
This Bill is necessary to protect the lessor from being cheated out of his land under the present legislation in the event of somebody wanting to lease his land beyond the 11 month system. The Minister has carefully examined the old Land Acts and they will be repealed under this Bill. Under existing legislation the tenant is more than favourably protected. Accordingly, any inhibiting factors in respect to leasing must be removed so that this form of land use can be attractive to the present owner. Under no circumstances do people who own land want to find themselves in a situation where five years hence they cannot recover their land. That is their fear. The Minister has made it clear in section 3 of this Bill that all the relevant sections of old Land Acts will be repealed. Perhaps we will have an opportunity of discussing these further on Committee Stage.
What are the advantages to the lessor under the leasing system, which we hope will be successful and be supported by Deputies on both sides of the House? The existing conacre system leads to the exploitation of land. Nothing is put back into the land because a farmer rents the land for 11 months in anticipation of getting a good crop, and that is that, unless there is a possibility of getting the land the following year. That type of arrangement exists between farmers. The conacre system is ongoing. It would be better if the leasing system were tied up for four, five, six or ten years. The lessor has a guaranteed income and the assurance that the land reverts to the owner after the expiry of the lease. I would not promote this Bill without that assurance. It is vitally important that we give that guarantee to anybody wishing to lease land.
The Bill and the scheme is designed to get at the older farmer whose land is under-utilised. There is much land in the country that is under-utilised, even in my own county. Much of it is half-stocked or quarter-stocked. The system of taxation on the accounting basis is an inhibiting factor. There is no great incentive to farmers to produce over and above what is necessary to ensure a reasonable subsistence level for themselves. Farming is a high investment industry. I am glad that the system of taxation has been changed in relation to land or at least a different principle of taxation is mooted to be introduced. I am confident that system will be an effective one in time.
The trade union movement regard it as a confidence trick perpetrated on the PAYE sector but nothing could be further from the truth. They should make some attempt to understand the investment in farming, the high risk nature of the industry and particularly the high input costs. If they realised that every year the returns are lower and lower they might understand the situation better. We do not want to crucify the innovative and energetic farmers who manage their land efficiently. I am glad the system of taxation is being changed. I realise that the adjusted acreage concept is something new for many people outside farming but it is not new to farmers. The old PLV system was found objectionable because of the great variation applied to land throughout the country. Some land with a low PLV was much better in quality than land with a higher PLV. The system was unfair and it is gone now. Perhaps the new system can be modified, changed and made more effective as the years go on. We must see how it works.
The person who leases the land will benefit under the Bill. He will have no major investment in the short term. He can plan his farm policy over a period; he can know what he will do with the land and what improvements he can make over a period. We want to give more opportunities to young people. Too few of them are getting their hands on land and when they get it it is too late. They are subject to their parents for too long. The parents will not release the land to them until they are reasonably assured of some income for themselves. The retirement scheme was a complete failure. It was unattractive and only 39 people availed of the scheme in five years. There was no point in having personnel to administer a scheme that was bringing benefit to so few people and, consequently, the Government dropped the scheme.
The leasing system will help the young people. They will bring to the job new verve and energy and an overall view of agriculture in line with their training, education and with developments taking place in farming. Employment will benefit also. For many years thousands of farmers' sons have left the land. They have done this because they have no control over the situation and they have not sufficient income to plan their lives. In Ireland many farmers do not marry until they are in their forties or later and that is because they had no property but I hope the situation will change. They may say they will have no security of tenure but they will have as much security of tenure as anyone in industry or in other occupations.
The lease models that have been thought out by the IFA, the Incorporated Law Society and the Allied Irish Bank have been found to be extremely well suited for this type of scheme. There is no problem here. Yesterday evening I was grateful to Deputy Sheehan for the statistical data he placed before us in relation to land leasing in EC countries. We were a dismal last as far as leasing was concerned. In the United Kingdom the figure was as high as 47 per cent or 48 per cent and in Germany where there is also a great demand for land the figure was considerably in excess of 20 per cent. Italy was one of the lowest with 18 per cent. Perhaps there is a similarity between our two countries. There is an over-rigid, inflexible attachment to land that we must try to break down.
I thought the Opposition spokesman on agriculture was over-critical of the Bill. I could not go along with that kind of destructive criticism but perhaps this was not intentional. To be fair to the Deputy, he mentioned that there was a lack of financial incentive in the Bill to achieve the desired result regarding mobility of land and to some extent I would go along with that. He mentioned the White Paper on land policy which Fianna Fáil issued in December 1980. There were some important points in that paper and if these measures had been implemented perhaps there would be a more fair distribution of land. There is no guarantee under the leasing system that the better organised farmer will not lease a lot of land. That is a possibility and we cannot protect anybody against that. However, there are incentives in the recent national plan in relation to certain incentives such as tax concessions for young people.
With regard to land policy in the White Paper, it was stated that there should be a surcharge to provide assistance to smallholders in the sale of land. That would be very difficult to operate and it might be regarded as unconstitutional. There was also the point about an upper limit on land acquisition. We would love to see land in the hands of farmers who would work it full time. There is an anomaly here in that people who grew up on the land, who left it for one reason or another and who now wish to get back to the land again cannot do so under existing legislation because they are prevented from buying land. I disagree with that. I hope it will be looked at again at some stage. There should be some way in which such people could get back to working full time on the land. This leasing Bill provides for that and that is another advantage it has.
I am all in favour of the updated retirement scheme mentioned in the White Paper. I hope that before long we will have a proper, well thought out, advantageous retirement scheme for farmers. No section of the community is more entitled to protection in their old age arising from their input and their contribution to agriculture. The compulsory powers of the Land Commission were removed. The Land Commission were an exceptionally effective instrument in achieving worthwhile mobility of land. They brought about many improvements in the land structure in my own county. Not everybody would agree with everything they did. Were it not for political interference of a very serious nature, the Land Commission could have worked most effectively.
I had many consultations with various personnel in the Land Commission. They are well up in their knowledge of the land scene. They try to achieve a measure of fairness and equity in the proposals they put forward. They were not always accepted because it was politically inopportune for Ministers in the past to agree to their proposals. I saw people getting land — and I am sure Deputies on the other side of the House saw this — who were not entitled to get it. It was totally under-utilised and within a few years they sold it for housing sites, and so on. Much of the land which was available for purchase is no longer available. The Land Commission have land. Where there was no title to the land they purchased it, and they were able to achieve title. That was a very important development. They registered the land properly and we are greatly indebted to them for that.
As we knew it, the Land Commission no longer exists. The personnel and the legislation are there. Somebody else will operate in a different way. The same legal constraints still apply to the purchase and sale of land. Compulsory acquisition is gone and perhaps that is not a bad thing. No one likes to acquire land compulsorily. There are other ways and means of getting people to release their land. Leasing is one way in which that can be achieved.
I should like to give a few facts and figures which further justify the introduction of this land leasing scheme. I hope it will ensure a greater level of flexibility and mobility than we have. We are very far down in the European league in that regard. I take it that the figures given to us by Deputy Sheehan were accurate. I understand 61 per cent of all our farmers have less than 50 acres; 25 per cent are over 65 years of age compared to the European average of 6 per cent. That is a big difference.
Thirty-five per cent of the land is owned by farmers without direct heirs; 85 per cent have no education beyond the national school. That does not mean they are not intelligent, enterprising farmers, but it points to the need for a shift towards a younger, more viable, better educated farmer. A very small figure, 2 per cent, have been to agricultural colleges. I hope some change can be made in that regard. Somewhere between 3½ per cent and 6 per cent of our land changes hands each year and 80 per cent of this is through gift or inheritance. This exposes the difficulty the Minister is facing in trying to ensure the success of his new scheme. I wish him every success and I will work with him to promote it.
To tackle this problem is by no means an easy task. Deep rooted problems of an historical origin will only be tinkered with to some extent by this Bill. I hope the Minister does not mind me saying that. There is a lot of work to be done and perhaps as we observe its progression and development, we will be able to make changes and modifications. At least this is a start. I had hoped for a more imaginative approach with a greater financial incentive to achieve the much needed level of land mobility. We are living in difficult times. The Minister appreciates the fact that he got support from all of us who are concerned about the level of land mobility. We must try to bring pressure to bear on the powers that be to provide these incentives rather than being critical of the lack of incentives.
In the national economic and social plan Building on Reality specific recognition was given to a special tax concession for young farmers leasing land. The specifics of that recognition need further elaboration and clarification and I hope that, when the Minister of State is replying, he will advert to that. I have already mentioned income tax and the new concept of the adjustable acreage. This needs clarification in relation to the leasing of land. If 70 adjustable acres are leased who is responsible? Is it the person who leases the 70 adjustable acres? Will he have to pay or the person who leased the land and will the income accruing be subject to taxation also? These matters will have to be clarified to ensure the success of this operation.
The super-levy was mentioned yesterday evening. I was very disappointed that 58,000 or 59,000 tonnes of milk went astray some place because of statistical bungling. The farmers I represent are extremely concerned about the fact that that will take money out of their pockets. I hope Deputies on all sides of the House will lend their support——
