asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food if it is still the Government's intention to abolish the Land Commission; the steps the Government intend to take to ensure availability of land to progressive farmers and new farmers coming on to the market in order to reduce the concentration of land among a small number of landholders and to discourage the sale of agricultural land to non-agricultural interests and foreign interests; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Ceisteanna — Questions. Oral Answers. - Abolition of Land Commission.
50.
It is hoped to reintroduce the Second Stage of the Land Commission (Dissolution) Bill this session. This Bill provides for the retention of a number of controls on the sale of agricultural land which will in future be exercised by the Minister for Agriculture and Food. Policies in relation to land will be kept under continuous review in the light of changes in Irish agriculture, the evolution of the Common Agricultural Policy and other relevant developments.
Earlier the Minister described the NESC report as a well informed report. I would remind him that the report stated that there has been no coherent land policy and no structural policy in Irish agriculture. Could I ask the Minister, is the report wrong in that regard? Will the Government establish an alternative agency to the Land Commission, as recommended in the interdepartmental report of 1978 which many Fianna Fáil Deputies at the time supported? Will the Government consider introducing legislation based on their own White Paper of 1980, a very far-reaching White Paper? Will it cover such areas as compulsory acquisition, control of land purchase by non-agricultural interests, taxation measures, financial assistance for new and expanding farmers and the purchase or leasing of land, all of which were covered in the previous Fianna Fáil Government's White Paper? Is he now saying that all we will literally have is a cheque book control of land distribution without any land agency, and with only an occasional slight intervention by the Minister?
I am saying no such thing. I am impressed by the Deputy's enthusiasm for something which the previous Government, of which his party were a member, abolished. As the Deputy knows, that Government abolished the Land Commission in 1974.
They did not.
I have the record of that decision.
And the Minister agreed with it.
I do not understand the enthusiasm now for something they abolished.
I assure the Minister I hold no brief for the last Government. They were a Fianna Fáil Government also.
I have introduced new legislation. I recognise the priority for having a land structural policy and that is incorporated in the legislation which will be before the House. I want to assure the Deputy that every action I take in regard to milk quotas or any other area, by definition and by policy of this party in Government, will be to promote and advance the interests particularly of the very special small producer in our country. My Department will have a structural policy, as I indicated in my reply, and the Minister, under the proposals, will now retain many of the powers which the Land Commission had as a separate independent body.
Is the Minister stating——
It must be a brief question, Deputy Stagg.
——that there will be direct political interference in and control over the allocation and structures of land under him as Minister?
No.
Is he stating that there will be no independent land agency for the structures of land and that he, as Minister, will decide who gets land and who does not?
The fact that the Deputy says something does not make it either correct or reasonable. If the Deputy suggests that a Minister or Government in discharge of their responsibility are engaging in what he calls blatant political interference, then the whole function of Government better stop now because Governments take decisions every day. I do not accept the implication that that is political interference of the kind the Deputy is suggesting and it is nonsense to suggest that. On the other point. I want to assure the House, if not the Deputy——
I feel assured as well.
——that we will have a structures division within the Department which will be fully animated by his concern for a proper structural policy in land holding.