Phil Hogan
Question:234 Mr. Hogan asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food the duties and positions that will be allocated to the staff of the Land Commission when that body is finally abolished; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Written Answers. - Land Commission Staff Redeployment.
The Dissolution Bill provides, inter alia, for: the dissolution of the Land Commission, i.e. the offices of the Judicial Commissioner and the Lay Commissioners; the revocation of the power to acquire land for land settlement purposes and the transfer of certain continuing functions to the Minister for Agriculture and Food.
Among the functions to be transferred to the Minister are: the disposal of land on hands; the settling of title of allotted lands; the exercise of statutory controls over the subdivision of farms and the purchase of land by non-qualified persons — mainly companies and non-EC nationals; the promotion of group purchase and leasing of land and the provision of assistance in schemes of rearrangement and commonage division; miscellaneous statutory and other obligations such as the collection of annuities, custody of title documents and responsibilities of the offices of the Examiner of Title and of Public Trustee.
Consequently there will be a considerable volume of work which must continue to be undertaken by both the administrative and field staff assigned to "lands" work. Enactment of the Dissolution Bill will therefore have little or no immediate effect on the overall workload/staff requirement for "lands" work.
Any reduction in staff requirements in certain areas of the Land Commission can be attributed to the termination of the policy of land acquisition (effectively ceased by 1984) rather than to the legislation to abolish the Land Commission. Every effort will be made to assign surplus staff to duties within my Department or elsewhere in the public service.