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Seanad Éireann debate -
Thursday, 21 Jan 1965

Vol. 58 No. 5

Land Bill, 1963: Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed : "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

This Bill has been described as perhaps an unpopular one for the Government to bring in. I suppose any Land Bill is to a certain extent unpopular. The Irishman in any case, and probably all landowners, dislike interference with their ownership in land. It is probably for that reason that it is an unpopular Bill and it is bound to make a Government unpopular because the people, in this country in any case, who receive a grant or are successful in their application for a new farm are far outnumbered by the people who are disappointed. At least, that is what a Senator or Deputy finds when he listens to all the applications he gets for support from applicants where a farm is to be divided. I think far more are disappointed than the number who get the grant for a new farm.

It is wrong to think that the Land Commission, under this Bill, will support a witch hunt, as it were, for land to divide. I do not think anything like that will happen but I think that in most cases where land was taken over, there were reasons for taking it over. Possibly it was not farmed to the fullest extent or possibly had been let for years and years. With all due respect to the owners of some of these lands, there was some reason, usually a quite sensible one, for the Land Commission taking that land. I would not like to see, and I hope there will be no such thing as, the idea of the witch hunt that has possibly been encouraged for political reasons throughout the country in the past 12 months.

One has to realise that in this whole problem, when all is said and done, we are only, as it were, scratching the back of a problem that will always be with us. There will always be farmers' sons, and perhaps agricultural labourers, who hope some day to have a farm of their own. The land is not available to give all of them farms.

It is wrong to give the impression that this figure of 45 acres is the smallest farm on which a man can make a living today. I feel we should not try to bring the farm up to 45 acres by buying up smaller portions and adding them together. I think on the smaller 30, or 15 acres even, there are no limits to what can be produced, provided the capital is available. We will have to encourage these smaller holders to specialise. That is the only hope. These smallholders should be taught, encouraged and educated to specialise in certain branches, let it be pigs, fowl or even in broiler calves which is the newest thing. Given the necessary capital there seems to be no limit to what can be produced on a small area. Such products as pigs, fowl, calves, kept indoor and on a small specialised farm with the necessary buildings, where the farmer has the necessary education and know-how, give quite a good living. Therefore, I should not like to think that the entire country would be turned into units of 45 acres or over.

Section 7 of the Bill provides for the payment of certain purchase annuities, rents, and so on, in full. A point that has been made to me by persons who have been granted farms in Meath and elsewhere, particularly persons who have come from the west of Ireland, is that the rent or annuity represents a very severe burden. They have told me that they would have felt reasonably happy on the farms allotted to them, were it not for this very severe burden of rent or annuity. The funds at the disposal of the Land Commission should be used for the purpose of reducing the rent charged on these farms, even if it means a higher charge on the Exchequer.

I should like to support the case made by Senator McGlinchey on behalf of those persons who have been in the habit of taking land on the 11-months system as their sole means of livelihood. Dealers, farmers' sons and farm labourers take, perhaps, five, ten, 15 acres of land, where they can get it, on the conacre system and, by their cleverness and keenness, are able to secure a substantial supplement to their incomes. It is to that type of persons, who have made a success of farming, that land should be given. I should like to see such persons, particularly farmers' sons with an agricultural education, getting priority where land is divided. In fact, I would give preference to a farmer's son who was keen and who had some agricultural education, over his father who might be a smallholder in the west of Ireland.

I should like to see the young people being given a chance on these new farms. A man who has reached middle age comes into a new farm with, perhaps, his old ideas. Personally, I should like to see even a young unmarried man getting an opportunity to take a farm. It might seem strange that a farm of divided land with a house should be given to a young unmarried man. In my view, these are the type of persons we should encourage and support. For the future we want to have agriculturally educated people on these farms. For that reason, in the division of land, I would, perhaps, forget about the older men, with their older ways of farming, and would encourage younger men who had shown keenness and who had already demonstrated their ability to farm successfully.

It is absolutely necessary to preserve a balance in the country between small and large farms. Some of the large farms have done quite a bit for the benefit of the country generally in experimenting, perhaps, with farm machinery, with pedigree cattle, and so on. Even though these farms do not appear, perhaps, to be giving their full productive value, a great many of them have been examples in many ways to others and I should not like to see too many of these big farms compulsorily acquired and divided. A large farm is a sine qua non for the conduct of such experiments as the Agricultural Institute or the Department of Agriculture might not like to undertake.

Sometimes we receive complaints about the size or shape of the fields when land is allotted. Quite a few people have come to me and complained that the manner in which land was divided was completely wrong from the point of view of the ordinary farmer. In one case I found that the fields had very acute angles so that anybody tilling or mowing or meadowing them would find the job more difficult and contrary than it would otherwise be.

Only lately I received a complaint that a man got a piece of land and, between his land and a lake, there are two other portions of land so that, although his land is only a short distance from the lake, it has no water on it whatsoever. He came to me in December last, some years after the land was divided, and said he has to draw the water to give to the cattle. This may be an exceptional case. The man in question told me he protested when the land was first allotted to him and that he was told to take it without the water or not at all. On a map it would be a simple thing in this case to provide a passage for his cows down to the lake.

I suggest it might be possible to have a panel of farmers, perhaps on a county basis, to supervise some of these divisions so that whoever is dividing the land could get advice from the members if necessary. I think there is a precedent for that. I think the Agricultural Credit Corporation sometimes get advice from local farmers on similar matters. Such instances may not be very common but those are two matters that were brought to my attention—lack of water and the shape of the fields.

Another point, which is probably a Committee matter, arises on section 6 (6) which reads:

"member of the family" means father, mother, step-father, stepmother, son, daughter, grandson, granddaughter, step-son, stepdaughter, brother, sister, half-brother, half-sister, uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, son-in-law or daughter-in-law.

That definition does not include an adopted child and I think it should be added there.

Section 6 also deals with the granting of a life annuity to the aged vendor of a farm instead of paying cash. It would be an improvement if such people were also declared eligible for a labourer's cottage. It may be that the annuity in some cases will be very small and these people are not at present eligible to look for a cottage. If they were eligible for a labourer's cottage, as well as receiving the annuity, it would be an encouragement to them to accept the annuity because it will need encouragement to persuade these people that an annuity would be much better for them than a lump sum.

Section 5 deals with advances for the purchase of land by persons in congested areas. Would it be possible to extend this concession to make an advance to a small farmer to add to his farm? Apparently, this merely envisages the case where, perhaps, a man would hand over a farm to the Land Commission and look for a larger or possibly a better farm and the Land Commission would make an advance to him provided he is a qualified person. Consider a small farmer who needs assistance to buy land which has become available near him, even if the advance has to be spread over his original holding plus the new holding. In my view, such a step would help to solve many of the difficulties of our small farmers.

Take the controversial section 12 which concerns the prohibition of letting, sub-letting or sub-division of certain holdings without the consent of the Land Commission. The idea of the section does not perturb me at all but I feel there might be some cases in need of urgent reply. I suggest there should be a time limit in this matter so that the Land Commission would indicate their decision within a reasonable period or else the person could sub-let or sub-divide in the meantime. It is sometimes very difficult to have an inspector available to look at the land in question but at the same time there might be urgency about the matter and I think there should be some limit on the Land Commission side so that they will reply within a reasonable time.

I should like some explanation in regard to section 5 (2) (vii). The section deals with advances for the purchase of land by persons in congested areas. Subsection (2) (b) reads :

Regulations under this section may, in particular but without prejudice to the generality of paragraph (a) of this subsection, make provision in relation to all or any of the following matters—

and sub-paragraph (vii) :

the application of such existing provisions in the Land Purchase Acts or the Land Reclamation Act, 1949, as the Minister deems necessary, relating to vesting of land and to the apportionment, consolidation, charging and recovery of advances under this section and the adaptation where necessary of references in such provisions.

The Acts will apply without any action on the Minister's part so I cannot understand how he should be able to apply provisions of the Land Purchase Acts in one case and not in another. It may be a drafting point that I do not follow but I should like some explanation.

Those are the only points I wish to make. I approve of the Bill and support it. It will probably clear up many small points of difficulties for the Land Commission. If it is carried out in the spirit in which the Land Commission have worked in the past, it will be a success.

In so far as this Bill will facilitate the distribution of land among those requiring it, without interfering with the constitutional rights and other rights that have been hard won by landowners down through the years, I welcome it. I welcome it in so far as it contains some good sections. Subject to what I shall say later, I particularly welcome section 5 which provides for land purchase loans in certain areas, and section 6 which provides life annuities in order to encourage elderly and incapacitated farmers to retire and hand over their farms to those better able to work them.

Those two provisions, in particular, are good provisions. Nobody could oppose them but the Bill is a dangerous one because, while having those good provisions, it has a number of very dangerous provisions. Section 12 dealing with subdivision, section 13 which freezes dealing in land following inspection, section 27 which hands over for the first time in the history of this State power of initiating a step to take over land to the political head of the Department, section 35—in my opinion, the worse section in the Bill —which deprives landowners of defences against acquisition, are all bad sections, sections which are unnecessary, sections which are dangerous. I shall deal with them all in detail later.

The people of this country cherish the land, cherish their holdings, and I cannot help thinking that one of the reasons why the farmers of Ireland, small, medium-size and large farmers, cherish their holdings so much is that when they own a farm, they have a real stake in the country; they have something which entitles them to fixity of tenure and they feel they have a right to regard themselves as part of the country. The provision of further holdings for people, desirable as that is, at the expense of the reasonable rights which landowners enjoy at the present time is going too far. Those are my views in general and I can elaborate on these points as I go through the Bill.

Although I approve of section 5 of the Bill, which provides loans for the purchase of lands in congested areas, I cannot understand why the section, as it stands, confines this provision to the congested areas set out in the Second Schedule to the Bill. I cannot understand why the counties of Cavan and Monaghan are not included in the Schedule. In particular, I find it impossible to understand why west Cavan has been left out of this Schedule. Apparently the Minister has followed the old congested areas in drafting the Schedule.

I know I will be told that the Minister has power to add to this Schedule and to extend the scope of section 5 to areas not now covered by it. That is not acceptable to me because when the Undeveloped Areas Bill went through the Oireachtas, the same provisions applied and, broadly speaking, they extended only to the congested districts. We were told again at that time that the Minister had power by order to extend the scope of that Bill but it took several years to have the scope of that Bill extended to County Cavan. If this measure is allowed to go through as it stands, it will again be several years before it is extended to County Cavan, if it is ever extended. I should like the Minister to tell me what case he can make for not including west Cavan within the provisions of section 5 and including it immediately. Exactly the same arguments would apply to section 7 which deals with halving the annuities in congested districts.

I also said that I welcome the provisions of section 6. There is nothing compulsory about this section. It means that a farmer is at liberty to say to the Land Commission : "I will hand you over my farm and I will take a life annuity." There are many old people with no immediate dependants or successors in occupation of farms at the moment to whom this section would very well apply, with great benefit to both the old people concerned and their neighbours. It is provided in this section that the first £150 of any such annuity will not be taken into account in assessing the means of annuitants for the old age pension. I wonder will that get the Minister into trouble? I wonder has the Minister considered that fully? The position will be that a farmer who sells his farm to the Land Commission in this way can have £150 of an annuity and £50, approximately, other income and qualify for the old age pension, whereas any other person over 70 years of age with an income of £102 will not qualify for any old age pension. I wonder whether that might be regarded as legislation that infringes the Constitution?

It strikes me that a businessman who handed over to his son, subject to the payment of an annuity of £102 a year, could not draw a penny of the old age pension, whereas a farmer, who handed his land over to the Land Commission for an annuity of £150, can have another £50 income and still qualify for the old age pension. I suppose, strictly speaking, that is not a matter to be dealt with on this Bill because the provisions exempting the first £150 will be dealt with on a social welfare measure. I should like to have the Minister's views on it.

I find the Minister is empowered in this section to make regulations dealing with the conditions under which he may take over land, including the right of residence. I wonder does the section itself give the Land Commission power to purchase a farm subject to right of residence? It does give the Land Commission power to purchase and, in lieu of payments in cash of the whole or part of the purchase price, to grant to the vendor a life annuity, in accordance with regulations thereunder. It does say in its principal part that the Land Commission may sell partly for an annuity and partly for right of residence. It is doubtful whether the section does give power to the Land Commission subject to the right of residence.

There is a point on section 10 which is probably a Second Reading point. The section purports to remove doubts and to relieve the Land Commission of any obligation to cleanse, maintain, repair or restore any works. I particularly want to speak about this section from my experience. There appears to be some doubt, at the present time, as to whether the Land Commission are obliged to maintain a right-of-way or, more important still, to maintain or repair a bridge on a right-of-way. The position, therefore, at the moment is that an estate is divided among six or seven people and access to those people's holdings is gained by a laneway on which there is a bridge. When this Bill goes through, it will be beyond doubt, once the Land Commission hand over possession to the allottees, that they will not be responsible for that right-of-way or for that bridge. The county council will not be responsible unless they take it over and, in counties like Cavan, they will not take it over because they have too much to do with county roads already.

The bridge on this right-of-way becomes broken down, and I know of such a case. The Land Commission or the county council will not repair it. There are seven people with holdings on it. Three of them live there and need the lane to gain access to their houses. Four of them have land there but do not live there and they do not mind whether the right-of-way is repaired or not. The upshot is that the right-of-way is impassable for all practical purposes. The three people who are living there and who have to go in and out every day are in an intolerable position. The right-of-way is not repaired. The four people who have only outfarms there do not care whether it is repaired or not. It is high time, in this year 1965, that the Land Commission either accept responsibility for the maintenance of a lane of this type or, failing that, that the Government, by legislation, place an obligation on the local authority to take it over and maintain it.

It is no answer to me to say that the local authority have power to take it over if they wish. It is a reserved function and, as I say, in certain counties, there is great difficulty about county roads and these lanes have not been and will not be taken over. This is something which will drive people out of rural Ireland more than anything else I know of. It might not be strictly relevant here but compulsory power should be taken to ensure that where the majority of the people residing beside such a lane wish to repair it by a Local Government grant, the minority will fall in line and the county council should even raise the local rate contribution on the people living near the lane to ensure the work is done. This is a serious problem and the case I have outlined here is an actual case of which I know and is not an isolated case.

Section 12 deals with subdivision and, for the first time in our land law, imposes a restriction on subdivision of agricultural holdings, whether those holdings have been bought with the assistance of a land purchase advance or not. I do not consider this is necessary. I wonder has the Minister any evidence that holdings which were not bought out under the Land Acts were being divided up so as to create uneconomic holdings? I have seen no evidence of it and I do not know of any such cases. We have always had some restraint on subdivision since the land code was first introduced and as it stands I believe it has worked reasonably well. This particular section goes too far. It applies to all land whether subject to annuity, whether the land has been bought out or whether it was ever subject to annuity.

I notice that subsection (6) of section 12 says that where but for this section a title to a part or parts of a holding would be acquired by possession, the consent of the Land Commission under this section shall be required to such acquisition. I should like to ask the Minister if that subsection is retrospective or does it mean that although a person has been in exclusive occupation and possession of ten or 12 acres of land for 50 years and has reared his family there and has lived in a house on that land which he has come to regard as his home, he cannot now avail of section 52 or its equivalent to have his title declared in order without the consent of the Land Commission? I should say that subsection (6) of section 12 should not be made retrospective.

Section 13, coupled with section 27, is a dangerous section. It is the section which freezes all dealings with land for a time after inspection—perhaps on the direction of the Minister. This section is not as objectionable as it was when the Bill was first introduced. We have heard it said in this House, in the Dáil, and from political platforms that the passage of the Bill through the Dáil was unduly delayed and that obstructive methods were adopted. I say that the Bill as it came out of the Dáil was much less objectionable than when introduced. For example, the 12 months in section 13 with which I am dealing was reduced to three months and another section with which I shall later deal was inserted. I should have no objection to the three months specified in section 13 if section 27 did not exist. Certainly, the 12 months provision originally in the section was outrageous. I think the three months mentioned could be further reduced to one month.

In my opening remarks, I said I thought section 35 the most objectionable section of the Bill but before I come to it, I shall deal with section 27 which enables the political head of the Department of Lands to say to an inspector: "You are to go and inspect the lands of A or B." That is the first step in initiating compulsory acquisition proceedings under the Land Acts. It is a fact that since the introduction of the land code, or since the State was founded, no Minister for Lands ever sought such a power. Senator Boland in his speech yesterday said that any Minister for Lands who would interfere in land division should have his head examined. Those were his exact words. Section 27 certainly is an interference by the political head of the Department in the distribution and acquisition of land and I defy contradiction on that.

The excuse for this section is that it will cut red tape. What is the red tape the Minister seeks to cut? What will the Minister do under the section that the Lay Commissioners cannot do under existing provisions of the land code? The Lay Commissioners are quasi-judicial officers who are independent of the Minister and of the Government and in a position to act as they think right. They are not subject to political pressure from members of the Dáil or of any Party and I cannot understand why, when the Lay Commissioners are charged with the right to operate the land Acts, with the right to acquire and distribute land, they cannot do it and why it is necessary for the Minister to take to himself the power of inspection which he never before enjoyed and which none of his predecessors thought necessary, desirable or prudent.

The Minister may have the best intentions in putting this section into the Bill but once it is there the Minister is human and he will be subject to pressure from his own Party, his supporters and followers and he will find it difficult to resist that pressure if it is strong enough. The distribution of land should not be a matter for political pressure; it should be above and beyond politics. We are not legislating here for the present Minister or the present officers of the Land Commission. We are legislating for the future, for many years to come and I repeat that it is undesirable that the acquisition of land, or the first step towards it, should be a matter that can be brought about by political pressure.

Section 35 is the section which, in the words of the explanatory memorandum I think, drastically alters the defence available to a landowner against compulsory acquisition. It provides that if a man offers his farm for sale and if within 12 months of his doing so, the Land Commission seek to acquire, he has no defence against the proposal to acquire it. That is a very far-reaching provision. A man might offer his land for sale, and within two months might change his mind and might have excellent reasons for doing so. He might offer his farm for sale because his son had emigrated, but as a result of negotiations his son might agree to come back and live on the farm with him. Under this provision the Land Commission can take the farm from him in spite of that. Once he offers the farm for sale, the Land Commission are all-powerful for 12 months.

A man might offer his farm for sale because his wife wanted to emigrate to America. There might be some domestic trouble, and that domestic trouble might be patched up and the sale called off, but, again, he loses any defence against compulsory acquisition, once he offers his farm for sale. One could think of several other instances in which a farmer might offer his farm for sale, and then genuinely change his mind. I propose to put down an amendment on Committee Stage providing that this defence will not be lost to a farmer if he has good and valid grounds for changing his mind. I would wish to delete this provision altogether, but I am sure the Minister would hardly go so far with me and agree to delete it from the Bill.

There is another provision in this section which says that unless a farmer is residing within three miles of his holding, the Land Commission can acquire it, and he has no defence or answer to that proposal. The Minister said in his speech, and in his explanatory memorandum, that the point in putting in this provision is to deal with the continuous and habitual letting of land. I agree that if land is being let year after year, the Land Commission are entitled to take it over. I do not see anything wrong with that, but that is very different from saying that if a man ceases to reside on his holding, or within three miles of it, for 12 months, the Land Commission have absolute power to take it over.

Under this section a farmer who lives on his farm and lets it on the 11-months system, year after year for 20 years, is entitled to retain his holding within the section and the legal decisions that have been given on production, but if a County Cavan farmer's son goes to England—as they do—saves money, comes home, buys a farm and returns to England for a few years to earn more money to stock the farm and set himself up with capital, the Land Commission can take it over.

It is no answer to me to say the Land Commission will not do that. That is what the Bill enables them to do. The farmer who stays at home and lets his land year after year can hold on to it, but the boy who returns from England, buys a farm, stocks it, and leaves his brother at home to mind it for a few years, loses his defence under this section. I think that is outrageous. This is the year 1965, and three miles is a very short distance. Many a farmer has his home farm in one spot and an outlying farm three, four, five or six miles away, and can get there in a van, a motor car, or a tractor, in a few minutes, and work the outlying farm perfectly well, as is being done. If he cannot get a farm immediately beside him, and has to buy an outlying farm, under this wretched section the Land Commission are entitled to take that outlying farm from him if they want to. Again, there is no use in saying the Land Commission will be reasonable, and this person and that person will be reasonable. That is the weapon we are putting into the hands of the Minister for Lands and the Land Commission. I say that is bad. I say it is unnecessary and should not be done.

Section 45 is a good section. It is the section which provides restriction on the sale of land to foreigners. It took a great battle, many months of arguing and talking in the Dáil, and a by-election in East Galway, to get this section put into the Bill. When the Bill was introduced, the Minister said there was no necessity for a section restricting the sale of land to foreigners. As was said yesterday, the former Minister for Agriculture said in Mullingar that foreigners were welcome to come in, buy land and work it. When Deputy Hogan put down an amendment last year to insert this provision into the Bill, it was resisted and defeated by the Minister and the Government.

I am labouring this point because I feel that being the case the Minister must not appreciate the enormity and the seriousness of this problem. A few years ago a farm of approximately 100 acres was bought by a foreigner. He kept it for three or four years and then decided the county in which he was living was not convenient for him. He left that county and bought another farm in a more fashionable county, shall I say, and put the first farm up for sale. The auction was attended by two or three of his countrymen who bid for the farm in a language the locals did not understand. Some local men bid approximately £100 an acre for that farm but the foreigner would not even talk business with them. He and the foreign bidders cleared out of the town without talking business to them at all. That was six or eight months ago and the farm is lying there now, either let or with nothing being done with it. He has so much money, I suppose, that he can afford to leave the land lying there while he works the second farm. That is the kind of thing that is going on and that is the kind of thing that makes one's blood boil. That is the kind of thing this section will prevent, the kind of thing that makes this section necessary. When the Minister, in the beginning, so strongly resisted the proposals made by the Fine Gael Party to insert such a section, I think he must have been completely out of touch with what is going on in the country.

There are a great many other points in this measure which can be described as Committee matters. There is, for example, provision in section 2 and section 6 for the making of regulations. I should like the Minister to tell me whether it is proposed that these regulations be laid before the Dáil and Seanad in the ordinary way because, on my interpretation of section 2, it would not appear that they will be and, if they are not, I propose to put down an amendment to rectify that position.

A Senator said yesterday that this was a courageous Bill and the fact that the Minister and the Government introduced this Bill and the Succession Bill demonstrates that it is a courageous Government. I do not endorse that opinion. The Succession Bill as originally introduced has now been ditched. This Bill as introduced—it has been drastically amended, to say nothing of the fact that it is not wanted —demonstrates in many of its provisions, not that the Government is a courageous Government but that the Government is out of touch with the requirements of rural Ireland.

I trust the Minister will live up to his promise that he will welcome suggestions to improve the Bill. I trust that he will deal seriously with all the amendments put down on the Committee Stage. I see in section 45— it is a small point—that it is provided there that regulations made under that particular section will be laid before Dáil Éireann. That is indicative of the recent attitude of the Government to this Chamber. Surely these regulations should be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas. I shall put down an amendment to the section on the Committee Stage. It cannot be regarded as contentious surely. I hope the Minister will accept it.

I have listened to the speeches on this Bill and, having listened to them, I have come to the conclusion that no matter what kind of Bill is introduced fault will be found with it. I know that this land question is a very important one in the minds of the people. It is important because there is not enough land to satisfy the requirements of all our people. When any attempt is made, therefore, to face up to the problem of land acquisition and land division, there is bound to be a great deal of controversy about it.

I listened to the speech just delivered by Senator Fitzpatrick. While he put forward many constructive suggestions and arguments, the trend of his speech was much the same as that of the Fine Gael Deputies in the Dáil, who indulged in a policy of scaremongering and in an attempt to frighten the farmers, and people generally, into believing that, after the passage of this Bill, they would no longer be secure on their holdings.

This Bill was described just now by Senator Fitzpatrick as a dangerous one. I do not think that is the proper description to apply to this measure. The campaign of scaremongering indulged in by members of Fine Gael in the Dáil and throughout the country had no justification whatsoever. The fact of the matter is that, after the passage of this Bill, the ordinary working farmer will be as secure on his holding as ever he was. His tenure will be as sound as the Rock of Cashel.

It got a bit of a shaking the other day.

I have listened to what I describe as the Fine Gael speeches here. Senator L'Estrange attacked the Bill, following the same line as the other Fine Gael spokesmen. He condemned those sections which propose to improve the machinery at the disposal of the Land Commission for the acquisition and division of land. At the same time, he appealed to the Minister to apply the provisions of the Bill to his own part of the country, not merely for the purpose of relieving congestion there but also in order to provide land for landless men. Could anything be more inconsistent than condemning the operative provisions of the Bill and, at the same time, advocating the application of the principles of the Bill to his own part of the country?

I welcome the Bill. It represents a sincere and genuine attempt to grapple with one of our national problems, namely, the relief of congestion in the western counties and in those other parts of the country in which it exists. It is the duty of the Government and it is our duty as public representatives to do our best to put an end to the land slums that exist in certain parts of the country.

We hear a great deal about the sacred principles of land tenure, fixity of tenure and free sale. They were mentioned several times in the course of this debate. They have been talked about up and down the country by the opponents of the Government. We, on this side of the House, are as much concerned to preserve these sacred principles as is anybody else. I submit that, sacred though they may be, they lose their sacredness if they are abused. If it is a fact that there are holdings, the owners of which are absent from the country or do not work them, leaving them derelict or semi-derelict, and do not produce for the nation the things they should produce, then I do not think these principles can be held to be unassailable.

Senator Fitzpatrick said that he would support this Bill in so far as it did not interfere with the constitutional or other rights of the owners of land. The question is if a person has land and is not working it, or lives away from it and allows it to become derelict, has he a constitutional right or any right to that land? We must consider this question in relation to the land slums we have in certain parts of the country. When we consider the thousands of families who have to live on small holdings and eke out a miserable existence on them we must naturally turn our minds to these people who have land and are not using it in the proper way, or as the words of the Land Acts put it, "according to proper methods of husbandry".

As regards the powers this Bill will confer on the Land Commission for the acquisition of land, I want to point out there is no fundamental departure from the existing position. The first encroachment, if I would call it such, on fixity of tenure and free sale was made in the 1923 Act. In that Act there was also provision for the acquisition of land to relieve congestion. When that Act was passed, there was no outcry about the violation of the principle of fixity of tenure. There was no outcry because people realised it was necessary to acquire land to deal with that problem. What is being done now is that the machinery at the disposal of the Land Commission is being improved and strengthened. There is to be a more expeditious approach to the problem and with that proposition those of us who have an interest in the problem are in agreement.

As I said, a person cannot be regarded as having a constitutional right to property if he is not using that property in the right way: for his own benefit, the benefit of his family and the benefit of the nation. The land is our greatest material asset; it is the foundation of the country's economy and it is up to us to see that that asset is properly used. We all know that land is very valuable and as it is valuable those who have possession of it have a duty and a responsibility to make proper use of it. If they do not discharge that responsibility, they are a liability on the community and it is right and proper for the Minister and the Government, and for us all, to take whatever measures are necessary to put an end to that liability.

Much has been said about what should be the size of holdings. I listened to Senator Quinlan yesterday trying to persuade us that smaller units of land could be adopted. He gave instances of certain small holdings in the west on which intensified production has been carried out. It is all right to mention isolated cases like that. I know that a holding of five or ten acres could be made a viable unit if it is situated beside a town or city so that market gardening can be carried on, but we are catering here for the country as a whole and for the people who live in the country, and I support the proposition that from this on a viable unit of land must be somewhere around 45 acres. I know, of course, as has already been referred to here, that smaller units have been parcelled out heretofore but I am afraid that in some cases it was found that a farm of 25 acres, or even 30 acres, was not an economic proposition. We must make sure that in tackling this problem we will not add to the number of uneconomic holdings we already have. By the passage of this Bill, our aim is to reduce the number of uneconomic holdings and to settle people on viable units of land.

The Minister has been accused of taking drastic compulsory powers, but however they may be described, if they are necessary for the fulfilment of our policy to relieve congestion, then we are all for these powers. There has been talk about the political head of the Department of Lands interfering in this matter of the acquisition of lands. There is no such interference. What the Minister is doing here is providing the necessary machinery and it will be up to his inspectors afterwards to put that machinery into operation. There will be no further interference by the Minister. Everybody knows that is the position.

We hear about political pressure on Ministers. We have been listening to it for years, even when other Governments were in office there was supposed to be agitation or political pressure brought to bear on the Minister for Lands. The fact of the matter is, in regard to the question of acquisition and distribution of land, that no Minister for Lands in any Government could interfere with the jurisdiction of the Land Commission. That will be the position after the passage of this Bill.

Senators Stanford and Cole referred to section 12. I see nothing wrong with that section, which provides that the sub-division, letting or subletting of all agricultural land in the State shall be subject to Land Commission consent. The purpose of the section is to ensure there will be no further fragmentation of holdings, that there will be no further additions to uneconomic holdings throughout the country. Our purpose in the Bill is to put an end to as many uneconomic holdings as we can. I know, of course, that it will take years to make an impression on this great problem but we must do our best. We have not enough land to go round to satisfy the requirements of our people, but we must do what we can with the amount of land we have.

As I see it, the policy of migration is the most effective way of dealing with congestion in the western counties. No matter what anyone says, I think this migration policy, migration from western to eastern counties, has worked. Those migrants have justified the trust the people of the country placed on them: they have made a success of their holdings. Not merely that—they have brought fresh life into their new surroundings.

As I said before, in former years the amount of land allotted to these people was rather small but some of them took land in their neighbourhoods in conacre and added to their family revenue in that way. I submit that this policy of migration must be continued if we are to make an impression on the problem of land congestion in the western counties. We shall give every support to the Minister and the Land Commission in carrying out that policy.

Senator Fitzpatrick referred to section 13. I see nothing wrong with that either. It is designed to prohibit the sale of land after proceedings have been instituted by the Land Commission to acquire that land. It is only right and proper that if the Commission proceed to acquire land and if the person who owns that land has recourse to some subterfuge, by way of sale or otherwise, that the Commission should have machinery available to prevent that to make sure that the land in question will not pass out to somebody else and that the Land Commission will be given the opportunity of adding to their pool of land for the relief of congestion.

Senator Stanford and others referred to section 45 which gives control over the purchase of agricultural land by non-nationals. I compliment the Minister for having brought in that section. It is necessary in the circumstances of the times in which we live. We all know very well that land on the Continent of Europe is much more valuable than it is here, valuable though our land is; we know there are people on the Continent who have plenty of money, who can come in here and bid for land against our people. It is a problem which had to be tackled, a problem which has often been referred to. Section 45 is, therefore, a wise provision and the Minister was right to insert it in the Bill.

On the question of providing land for landless men who have been taking land on the conacre system over the years, we should all like to see those people provided for, but our first duty is to the uneconomic holders throughout the country. It is only when the uneconomic holders have been provided for that we can direct our attention to the provision of land for landless men. It is unfortunate that the pool of land we have is not great enough to cater for all. All the Land Commission can do is their best with whatever land there is at their disposal.

As I have already stated, if we wish to make an impression on the problem of land congestion we must give the Land Commission the necessary powers. Some of the very people who have been condemning the Bill—Fine Gael spokesmen, Deputies and so on— realise that just as well as I do. In proof of that, if we take up the Order Paper of the Dáil, we shall see questions put down by those people asking why such and such a holding was not acquired and asking, to use their own terms, about the propriety or otherwise of acquiring such and such a holding. We cannot have it both ways. If we consider the propriety of acquiring land here and there throughout the country, we must also consider the propriety of giving the Land Commission the necessary machinery to do so. We cannot blow hot and cold at the same time.

There have been many lengthy speeches on this measure and I do not propose to follow the bad example. I am not surprised at these lengthy speeches because the land question always gives rise to much debate and controversy. In passing, I am reminded of a story told about a certain Land Commission inspector who went down the country to divide land. When he came back his colleagues inquired of him of how he got on. "I got on fine," he said. "I pleased nobody". It is very difficult to please everybody in this matter of land division.

In conclusion, I congratulate the Minister on his forthright approach to this matter of land acquisition. It is a sincere effort to tackle the problem of land congestion and to put more people on economic holdings.

Perhaps I might begin——

On a point of order, I think I was up, Sir. I thought the order of speaking was to go around.

I have followed the list given to me.

Perhaps I might explain to Senator Desmond that, owing to the restricted time I have to make a speech here, because of having to go into the Chair periodically, I am being afforded a certain amount of leniency in my pitiful plight.

All right.

Somebody said somewhere else that the State exists to serve. If that be so, I would assume it is a very natural corollary that the legislative enactments of the State should also be there to serve. As each day passes and as each piece of legislation is being considered, I, for one, am becoming more wary, cautious and extremely apprehensive at the manner in which citizens' rights, either to a great extent or to a small extent, are being filched away by legislation. That, I suppose, is something over which we cannot exercise full control having regard to the circumstances of our times. But it is something about which we should all be watchful, particularly in matters connected with land division and allocation. Our whole history is so bound up with the land that it behoves us not alone to be faithful to ourselves in our times but to provide with equal fidelity for the future and not to be unmindful of the sacrifices of the past, to preserve the achievements of the past in all aspects of the Land War and in all aspects of land dealings since native government was established.

Nobody will convince me that the people supporting the Government in this House and in Dáil Éireann are not equally agitated as we are about the preservation of these rights. We may differ in methods, but I am sure there are people opposite me supporting the Government who must be as apprehensive as we are about the ultimate implementation of the machinery provided in this Bill. There are aspects of this Bill which are good. There are tidying up sections and removal of doubts sections. But those sections that are good are merely extensions of good enactments already on the Statute Book. In my view, they are largely padding to cover up the sections that contain a great degree of what might be described as legislative ruthlessness and putting into people's hands a power which should be reserved for the judicial and quasi-judicial seat.

When I talk about putting power into the hands of the political head of the Department, I am not speaking of the present political head of the Department of Lands. I am talking of the political head of the Department, whether the Government be Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael or anybody else. I do not think any of us is naïve enough to believe that there is not political pressure exerted during all Governments on the political heads of all Departments, including the Department of Lands, so that some favour may be done for a political supporter here, there or elsewhere. The great protection in the Land Acts for the political head of the Department was the absence of a provision such as section 27. A Minister could always say to Deputies and Senators of his Party or any other Party: "I have no function in this matter of the acquisition and allocation of lands. That is a matter for the Land Commissioners, who will have to rely on the impartial reports of their inspectors." In my experience—and the present political head of the Department has similar experience which, I think, will have the same result—the inspectors of the Land Commission and the Land Commissioners have exercised their powers with an impartiality that cannot be praised too highly. They have done their best with extremely limited resources.

When we talk about farms of 45 acres being the minimum viable unit, we are really putting our heads in the sand and avoiding what is a mathematical fact: that such viable units are not there unless another country of this size, or even bigger, suddenly emerges from the sea to provide us with them. If we are to preserve in this country the same number of families, only maintain the status quo, where are we to get the land to enable us to implement the rosy promise contained in the Bill?

The people have discovered and have refused to accept the well-preached or over-preached ideas contained in this Bill on behalf of the Government. In certain areas this has already been discussed as an issue. They are congested areas—Roscommon, South Leitrim and East Galway. The matter has been debated fully after Mass and on fair days up and down the country. The average man is no fool. He knows, as a former Minister has said, that when a man puts his hat on his head, his pipe in his mouth and walks down to a ballot box what he will do. The reference was to the lack of necessity for the tallyman outside.

In these circumstances I am afraid of section 27. I do not fear its abuse. I fear more the invidious position into which a Minister is being put by this, whether he knows it or not. After all, let us be politically realistic about this. The Minister is empowered to instruct a senior inspector to inspect a certain holding with a view to ascertaining whether it should be acquired or not. Where does the Minister get the information that motivates him in that direction? It must emanate from a Deputy or a Senator, or some section of his Party organisation. I think the exercise of Ministerial function in that manner in relation to property is sacred, and, of course, I do not hesitate to agree with Senator Ó Ciosáin that it loses a certain amount of its sacredness when there is abuse. But, until abuse is recognised and defined consistently, it cannot really be termed abuse.

What is wrong, therefore, with this Bill is that it brings in for the first time in relation to property, and particularly land, in this country a dangerous element of political peep-holing that has got, curiously enough, bureaucratic blessing. We hear a lot of talk about bureaucracy. I have the greatest respect for our Civil Service, for its integrity and for the manner in which that integrity is maintained and exercised. But there is no stone that can resist forever the lapping of a wave or the influence of a current. It is most important to maintain an independent Civil Service that will act as a brake for the people, as the servant of the people as it was originally intended, rather than doing the will of the particular Party in power at any particular time. I am speaking generally and not against any concepts of the present Government that might be shared by other people.

There are many things in this Bill which other people have said are essentially Committee points. But, in dealing with land, and the Minister will agree, there must be preserved a fair balance as between the large holding and the small holding. One is complementary to the other. If you are going to preserve that balance, you are necessarily inhibited from having migration on the scale on which we would like to have it. Migration can do so much and nobody is in a better position to agree with Senator Ó Ciosáin than I am on the excellent manner in which the migrants have acquitted themselves in Meath and Kildare, or wherever they were sent or from whatever county they came. Even the local people admit that now.

Migration can only achieve so much and, having achieved that, what are you to turn to? Somebody said that a smaller holding, ten or 15 acres, can be a viable unit if it is near a town. I think with proper advisory services, with proper machinery and proper marketing organisation, it could be a viable unit if worked to the full, even though a considerable distance from a town.

I think there is a lot to be said for the Dutchman who, when he returned home and was asked his opinion about Ireland, said: "It was all holidays and headlands." The answer is not the size of the unit but the amount of work that is put into it and the extraction from it of the greatest possible return. For that reason, of course, advantage should be taken of all the schemes in every Department, particularly the Department of Agriculture, to increase that productivity.

I think section 27 is dangerous. It puts the Minister into a most awful position in that a Deputy or strong political supporter can say to him: "You have the machinery; you have not the excuse you had before now that this can be done by the Land Commission; you have the machinery and you must use it or I will stop subscribing." Again, I am speaking generally. There is too much of a temptation in that to strengthen the hand of the strong man behind the scenes and to weaken the hand of a Minister which should be strong.

I think Senator Fitzpatrick is correct when he talks about constitutional and other rights. I think Senator Ó Ciosáin is wrong in the concept that if you are not using your property for the benefit of yourself and your family, it should not be left to you. I think the accepted concept in regard to the use of property is that you are not to use it so as to injure others and, that being applied, I do not see why these rights should not be preserved. With regard to taking over land from smallholders, land that is either let or is apparently derelict—I am talking about small holdings in the west of Ireland which I know about—the fullest possible inquiries should be made and these holdings should not be acquired until these exhaustive inquiries have been made and, even then, only with reluctance.

It is a well-known fact that at times on a small holding, particularly with the increased cost of living and increased difficulties, people sometimes have to let. A sole survivor might find himself in the position of having no capital and having to go away for a certain length of time to earn money in England, America or somewhere else. We see that happening. If there is a series of deaths in a family, it results in debt. If a man has a run of bad luck with animals over a period of one, two or three years, a debt mounts up over which he loses control. Again, though this is not frequent, but I have seen it happen, people find themselves engaged in an unsuccessful law suit. That very often gives rise to a debt which puts people into an impossible position. When a man has to go away in such circumstances he should be given the greatest possible time. In the Land Commission court— and this is my experience—when that case is made before the Lay Commissioners, they listen to it with great understanding and great sympathy. Sometimes they allow up to two and three years for those people to come back. Some come back and some do not. People do not always give a genuine excuse but the genuine ones emerge.

There are a few small points in this Bill about dependants. I remember when the Fatal Accidents Bill was brought in some time ago in the Dáil. It was later repealed and its provisions for dependants are now largely incorporated in the Civil Liability Bill. I had the view myself, and then I heard Senator Cole, whom I support in this matter, that adopted children should be included in the list of dependants. I want to go a step further. I want to have it the same as the Civil Liability Bill and to include illegitimate children also.

It is not the general picture by any means but sometimes there are circumstances which would render it necessary that such a child should be regarded as a dependant of the one person who would be left on the holding after some time. I am sure Senator Cole will put down an amendment in regard to adopted children but I shall put down an amendment to the effect that "members of a family" will include adopted children and the illegitimate children.

I am very sceptical about section 10 which is for the purpose of removal of doubt. It provides in effect that when the Land Commission hand over possession of a place to anybody they are no longer responsible. They should not hand over possession until the roads, rights of way, drains and fences are in order. Sometimes the Land Commission leave places in a condition which it is difficult to understand. I do not know why they do that, whether it is that money runs out, or what the reason is. I know of several instances where trouble arose. The example given by Senator Fitzpatrick about the bridge is just one of many where difficulties arose.

I am wondering whether, when the money runs out, there should not be a further allocation the following year for the purpose of finishing drainage and fencing and leaving the farm in such a condition as to obviate trouble between neighbours about trespass and so on, or flooding, or the fact that a drain is carrying too much water into neighbouring land, which trouble may give rise to a law suit that may prove to be disastrous from the point of view of one neighbour or the other.

There is no use in saying that the county council has the power after the Land Commission hands over possession, when the Land Commission had the power and the opportunity and the money to put everything in order so that when people went into resettled holdings or into enlargements they did so in the full knowledge that there were proper roads, paths and fencing, which would obviate trouble or dispute between neighbours.

The provision in section 12 about subletting without the consent of the Land Commission was always there. Application had to be made to the Land Commission for consent to the subletting of a holding and the Land Commission always dealt with such applications very fairly, in my experience, and it was very seldom that consent was refused and when it was the refusal was justifiable.

This question of annuities may operate in favour of people with bigger holdings that command bigger prices but my experience before the appeal tribunal in fixing a price after acquisition of small holdings in congested areas was that the price was such that the annuity it would yield on the actuarial basis as initiated in this Bill would be very small indeed. What will happen about the house? Can they continue to live in the house? Another Senator has raised the point: would the fact that they were allowed to live in the house reduce the annuity? I would assume that it would because if the land were given to somebody else it might involve the building of another house by the Land Commission.

There is a great deal of detail in this Bill which will have to be thrashed out very carefully on Committee Stage. There has been much controversy about this Bill both in Dáil Éireann and in the country. We in this House will re-establish—and it needs reestablishment—the people's confidence in us as a legislative assembly if we approach this Bill in an almost all-Party committee manner and try to hammer out the whole thing in such a way that it will result in the greatest good for the greatest number, that it will result in the continued faith of our people in democratic principles and Parliamentary machinery generally and, above all, that it will keep Ministers of State above suspicion in the matter of allocation or acquisition of land and, in the last analysis, that it will keep our people's respect for our Civil Service at an extremely high level, which is very necessary indeed.

On Committee Stage, then, we will all of us, I take it, have amendments. I should like to see amendments coming from the other side of the House, in an attempt to show that membership of this House is on a vocational basis and, when it comes to deal with a matter in which we are all interested, a piece of property, the land from which we all came and upon which we all rely in the last analysis, we will all make a combined effort to place on the Statute Book a piece of legislation that will not alone be a tribute to ourselves but will show that we know the purpose for which we were selected to be members of this body and which will increase the stature of this House and make it something that is held in respect by all of our people.

May I at this stage suggest that the House should adjourn from 1 p.m. to 2.15 p.m. and say that we hope it will be possible to call on the Minister at 3.30 p.m. to reply, if that be the wish of the House?

Is that agreed?

I should like to join in the hope and will do my best towards realising it. That is as far as I can go.

That will be the general target.

Listening to Senator L'Estrange and some other Senators speaking on this Bill, one would think that all the ills of the small farmer of the west of Ireland were caused by the Minister for Lands of this Government. We had historical quotations last evening but no reference at all was made to the architect of the west of Ireland in the person of Oliver Cromwell. There are three factors which have contributed to the present position in the western counties: Cromwell's campaign, "To hell or to Connaught"; the great hunger and our proximity to a highly industrialised Britain.

Speakers have bemoaned the depopulation of the countryside and the flight from the land. It has been asserted that the tendency to leave the land is not confined to this country or even to European countries, that it obtains in America and even Japan; that it is a modern trend; that people are not prepared to tolerate the conditions under which their parents lived and avail of the opportunities now available to make for themselves a more comfortable life than was possible for their forbears.

It is not fair of any Party in this State to accuse another Party of being responsible for transporting people out of this country. I do not think it is the intention of any political Party to do so. It is a mean form of propaganda to suggest that it has been provided for in the Second Programme for Economic Expansion that so many more thousands will be transported off the land of Ireland. This is a national problem and it should be approached as such. All Parties should put their best foot forward in trying to solve it. I welcome the statement of the previous speaker in relation to the method of approach to this measure.

I come from a county which, I suppose, could be described as the poor relation of Connaught. When people speak about what should be done for the West they seldom remember that Leitrim is part of that western seaboard. We have a three mile coastline between Sligo and Bundoran. When considering the West of Ireland, I hope they consider all the counties and not a particular county. In the words of the ballad "Ná tiocfaidh tú liom go Contae Liathdroma?"— Will you not come with me to County Leitrim?—I hope to show the House why this Bill is justified as far as Leitrim is concerned.

The total acreage of Leitrim is 337,000, including larger rivers and lakes. Of that, 262,000 acres are under pasture, hay and crops. The remaining 115,000 acres are mountain, rough land and waste land. The number of agricultural holdings is given as 10,149. The number of farmers with cattle who joined the scheme for the eradication of bovine tuberculosis is just 8,000. The difference between these figures is some indication of the process of amalgamation that is steadily taking place in this country and is to my mind a striking indication of the necessity for this Bill.

In the case of Leitrim, according to a survey which has been carried out, the average holding is 33 acres of so-called arable land and that does not include the mountain and rough grazing. The total population of the towns and villages of Leitrim is not equal to the population of a goodsized provincial town in another county. Consider the lack of industry there and the small uneconomic holdings on which large families have been reared. What are the people of Leitrim to do, in common with those of the other western counties? Surely it is not suggested that they should remain and try to eke out a meagre existence under the conditions which their parents endured before them? Those people must go.

There is a great deal of theorising in regard to the western part of this country and to our small farms. I think that some of the people who speak on the matter are completely out of touch with reality. They should pay a visit to the west and carry out a personal examination. They will find that nobody is driving the people off the land but that the people have opted, for their own betterment, to get out and to try to improve their standard of living and way of life which cannot be done in the circumstances in which they have been expected to live in a county such as Leitrim.

As most of us know, this Bill has resulted from the report of the InterDepartmental Committee on their inquiry into the problems of small western farms. As a public representative in one of the counties to benefit, I was delighted that action was taken so quickly by the Department of Lands to implement the recommendation in that report. The Department of Agriculture, also, took immediate steps to implement recommendations in that report. They notified county committees of agriculture that they were prepared to subsidise staff for advisory services. In Leitrim, today, we have the maximum advisory staff in relation to the number of farmers in the county. We have advisers in relation to every 800 farmers.

There has been a lot of talk about the viability of a farm and an economic holding. I believe the matter is dependent on the ability of the man living on the farm. That applies in business also. We have people who have made a success of farming and we have people who have failed at farming. We have people who have made a success at business and people who have failed at business. We have had successful politicians and unsuccessful politicians.

I have here a copy of the report of a sub-committee set up by the Leitrim County Committee of Agriculture to examine the proposals outlined in the Western Small Farms Plan. The final composition of the sub-committee was representative of the County Committee of Agriculture, the County Council, the Vocational Education Committee, the County Leitrim Federation of the NFA, the County Leitrim Federation of Muintir na Tíre, the County Leitrim Federation of Macra na Feirme, the County Leitrim Federation of the ICMSA, the County Leitrim Federation of the ICA, Kiltoghert Co-operative Society and Killassnett CoOperative Society. That sub-committee, in relation to farm size and Land Commission policy, recommended as follows:

While we accept the policy in the report that, ideally, the minimum acreage for an economic holding should be 45 acres of good land, or in the region of 60 acres of average Leitrim land, we believe that this could not be achieved in the immediate future without wholesale migration of nearly 60 per cent of the farming population. We feel in aspiring towards that standard additions of land, when available, should be made to small holdings, even though it is not possible at present to bring them to the accepted minimum standard size.

The second recommendation is:

We are aware that farm incomes are governed more by the ability and initiative of the farm family than by the farm size, and that the number of acres in the farm is not necessarily a measure of the size or profitability of the farm business. This has been clearly demonstrated in the accounts kept by farmers in this country in conjunction with the Agricultural Advisers, and as part of the County Committee of Agriculture's Farm Management Prize Scheme.

Therefore, on the question of a viable farm and an economic farm, I feel that one man's opinion is as good as that of another.

In relation to the type of land in Leitrim and the question of 45-acre holdings, the county is divided into two rather distinct regions, north and south Leitrim, by Lough Allen and Slieve Anierin. It was my friend, Senator O'Reilly, who stated at one stage that it was never intended to be a county, that it was a geographical monstrosity. South Leitrim and some of north Leitrim is characterised by drumlin hills giving it an appearance which has been described as like the top of a basket of eggs. These hills are composed of a stiff impervious clay with a very shallow top soil, which itself has a high clay content and is impervious to the free movement of water. The land between the drumlins is usually either peat or cutaway peat, or in many cases a lake. Therefore, one cannot compare the man with a 33-acre farm in Leitrim with the man living in Meath, Westmeath or Kildare.

However, it is encouraging that some of our people are anxious to remain on and make a living. It is a peculiar fact that although there are people drifting from the land, at the same time there are people clamouring to get land. There is not a public representative who has not been approached for land at some time on behalf of somebody. Visitors to our shores during the summer season find it hard to understand that we have such a high rate of emigration and so much wasteland. This Bill will at least solve that problem. Any land that is not being put into production will be given to somebody who is prepared to make use of it.

Problems will arise, I presume, in regard to allocation as there have been problems in the past in the Land Commission, and the fact that the Minister has brought in this Bill and made provision in section 27 in regard to inspection is an indication that the methods used heretofore were not as expeditious as they should be. We know that when land was acquired by the Land Commission, a considerable time elasped before it was divided or allocated. Unfortunately in my own county, there have been over the past number of years 300 applicants waiting to be migrated and out of that number only three have been considered in that number of years. There is one man—he was in the precincts of the House yesterday—with a family of 11 who has been waiting for 18 years to be migrated from a farm of 70 acres in Leitrim which is scattered all over the countryside. That man at least deserves credit for the fact that he remained in this country and did not follow the example of many of those who had not the guts to stay and face their problems. Such people should be given every encouragement when it comes to the allocation of land and every effort should be made to enlarge their holdings.

There is the problem of the people who have left. They have left farms and houses derelict. Some of them have not gone through necessity. Others, in the case of the five-acre or ten-acre farm, have gone having built a house with the aid of grants from the State and the county council, possibly with borrowed money or having got help from a brother or sister, and had no option but to leave in order to find money to keep the place going. I have no doubt that when the Bill becomes law sympathetic consideration will be given to these people who are prepared to come back, as I know many of them are. It is time we were realistic about this matter. People talk about western farms and about depopulation but how many of those who are talking would be prepared to live in these conditions or to live in some of these remote districts in which some of these people are living?

In County Leitrim there is also a problem in regard to the activities of the Forestry Division. In regard to the type of soil in Leitrim, the numbers of uneconomic holdings and depopulation, it was said by somebody on more than one occasion that the people of Leitrim should have been paid for living on the land they were living on. Others claimed it should have been planted. There is a scheme of afforestation going ahead there but unfortunately I do not see any provision in the Bill for it. While the Forestry Division have power to purchase, they have no power of reallocation. This is a problem which has arisen in north Leitrim and the Committee on Small Farms to which I have referred made a recommendation in their report in regard to the development of forestry in the county:

Where a holding is acquired or about to be acquired for forestry and any portion of it would form a useful addition to a neighbouring small farm, then that portion should be added to that small farm by the Land Commission following a consultation with the County Committee of Agriculture. Many cases are known where local smallholders were most anxious to acquire portion of an adjoining holding taken over by the Forestry Division in order to bring their holdings to an economic size but their claims were refused consideration.

That is a problem in Leitrim and perhaps a provision could have been inserted in the Bill where a person could avail of land which has been acquired by the Forestry Division. It may be all right for somebody to say the Forestry Division do not acquire arable land or agricultural land, but having heard of the type of land we have in Leitrim, Senators will agree it would be splitting hairs to say they are planting anything other than the type of land we have. The Forestry Division have not got the power of allocation and I would ask the Minister, especially in relation to north Leitrim, to consider that aspect of afforestation and the enlargement of existing holdings in the area.

There are a number of sections in the Bill which I welcome. One is the section dealing with the right of way to fishing waters. Leitrim and some other western counties are now developing coarse fishing as a tourist potential, and getting rights of way to fishing waters has been a difficulty heretofore. It is a good thing that the Land Commission are making provision for that in future.

I was amazed that there was so much controversy in regard to section 12 because as an auctioneer I know that under the original Act the consent of the Land Commission had to be sought at all times and very seldom was it refused. Any land that was offered for sale was always subject to the consent of the Land Commission. Therefore this controversy in regard to section 12 is a storm in a teacup. I do not agree that the people of Ireland are as much concerned about that section as a political Party in this country would lead us to believe. Leitrim, Galway and Roscommon are cases in point. We know why the election in Galway resulted in the return of a particular candidate.

It is my opinion that the majority of the people in Leitrim are in favour of this legislation. Their one anxiety is to have this Bill passed and the methods adopted to obstruct it have affected their chances for the future. It is felt that the Bill should have been passed 12 months or 18 months ago and that all the people concerned would have benefited by now or perhaps would still be in the country.

Business suspended at 1 p.m. and resumed at 2.15 p.m.

In respect of the section dealing with advances to farmers for purchase of land, I should like to support the plea made by Senator Cole for people who have holdings which are not within the category of 45 acre farms. Provision should be made in the Bill for advances to those people to enlarge their holdings. That is very essential, especially in the western counties. I should be interested, too, to know what the position is in regard to freehold property? Will people who now have their land bought out qualify on the same basis as those who hold land under the Land Commission, both in regard to allocation of land to enlarge holdings and in regard to the purchase of holdings?

The section of the Bill exempting the Minister and the Land Commission from certain liabilities and obligations is one with which I do not entirely agree. I feel if the Land Commission have had these responsibilities in the past, they should continue to have them. The same thing applies in regard to rates. As a member of a local authority, I feel there is a little too much responsibility being passed on to local authorities. I come from a county where the rate is 57/6 in the £ and the return from a penny in the £ on the rates is only £600 and we feel this question of passing on these responsibilites to local authorities should be examined.

I know there is a Commission sitting on the matter of rates. It may be all right with the rural community due to the fact that they are getting relief of 75 per cent on agricultural land. Property owners who are paying the full rate are unfortunately not getting the advantages of legislation. They may be denied certain things such as housing grants and other aspects of legislation. The day is coming when the farmer as well as the town dweller may have to face the obligation of increased rates on his buildings because when the seven-year term is up in relation to a new house, he must meet the full rate. The time is not far distant, to my mind, in view of the fact that since supplementary housing grants were introduced, a number of people are now facing the full rate on buildings, when the subsidisation of agricultural land will be negatived by the rates they will have to meet in rural Ireland in common with the people of the towns and villages.

A lot of propaganda has been made out of this Bill. The people of the constituency from which I come are waiting for its enactment. They feel it should have been enacted before now. They consider it a step in the right direction and are looking forward to its implementation.

Previously, propaganda was made in relation to the heifer scheme when we were told it was to the detriment of the small farmers and to the advantage of the big farmers. In Leitrim between three and four thousand farmers have benefited under the scheme and there has been an increase of approximately one-sixth in the cow population in Leitrim. The indications are that we may exceed the target set in the Second Programme for Economic Expansion.

There is nothing more I want to say at this stage, other than to congratulate the Minister on coming to the defence of the west with this Bill. We know from history that when Ireland lay broken and bleeding, she looked for revenge to the west.

That is where we got it.

At last a Minister of an Irish Government has now endeavoured in some way to undo the work begun by Cromwell.

I wish to raise a point before I speak on the Bill. I think it is agreed that 65 minutes from now the Minister will get in.

If possible.

The point I am making is that if I knew how many speakers were to come, I should certainly not take more than my share of the time because I do not want to see anybody debarred from speaking.

Personally I do not want to limit anybody unduly.

Is there an understanding that the Minister will get in?

Senator Hayes said we hoped for that but there is no agreement.

Could we have an indication now of the number of speakers?

Six speakers.

We shall not get out on this side of 6 o'clock, so.

There are at least two very good aspects of this Bill. There may be some doubts and there may be some changes in clauses under the examination which Senators are entitled to make. It has been shown in the debate in both Houses that a measure of this kind is bound to be closely examined but at least we now have a Bill to deal with the problem that nobody disputes exists. It is a pity we did not have some such Bill 30 years ago. We have been managing our own affairs for a little over 40 years and, allowing that the first ten years might have been rather difficult while we were trying to settle down, at least for the past 30 years we have been coming of age, so to speak, and we recognised during all that period that the problem of congestion is there and the problem existed of trying to cater for all people. That was the ideal of those who established the State and made the supreme sacrifice to ensure that we could do what we have been doing in that 40 year period.

At last we are giving this matter some attention but I wish it had come much earlier. The problem which has been there all the time is closely connected with the problem of agriculture all the way through.

There is general agreement no matter what Government are in power that the problem of agriculture is very important and so is the related problem of what is commonly called, at least in some parts of the country, the flight from the land, which has been referred to by some very eminent people who have given their views on how it could be met. Not much notice has been taken of that other than to agree generally that what they were saying was true. We know that the Bill is intended to deal with problems that create at least portion of the reasons for the flight from the land, perhaps not all. We know people will change and will travel, as they have a right to do in what may be regarded as the fast moving world of today. But it is well known that from congested areas there is a bigger flight than from anywhere else. That has been known for many years. It was not so pronounced in the past; perhaps people were not able to move as readily as in the past ten or 15 years.

The idea of "congested districts" seems to have come from what are known as the Congested Districts Boards, introduced in the Irish Land Act, 1909. That name was framed by an alien Government trying to convey to our people that they were going to make an effort to ease the sufferings and hardships they had imposed on them. During that period no one owned his own holding except under conditions which were then laid down. We all know the punishments that were inflicted on our forefathers and fathers. They were banished to districts where they could not easily exist, to make room for people who had no rights at all. We all know that history. We know our people were banished to the mountainsides, to the bogs and other places. We have to undo the hardships and sufferings that were then created. We now have the power to do that.

I think the words "uneconomic holdings" would be more suitable than "congested districts" or "congested areas". In those areas people may not be living very close together but their holdings may be uneconomic. West Cork is mentioned in the Bill but there are also people living on uneconomic holdings in mid-Cork. They find it difficult to live on uneconomic holdings, though they may not be congested, and they move away eventually and try to live somewhere else.

The Minister said:

There are other parts of the country which by modern standards must also be regarded as substantially congested...

He also said his inspectors will examine areas outside those mentioned in the Bill. I am wondering how those inspections will be made. Are there any arrangements for discussions with the local people and the local nonpolitical organisations which are interested in the districts in which they live? Will the Minister's inspectors consult with those people before coming to a decision that a particular holding or area is congested? Will they be examined if they are uneconomic? Some holdings in the area where I was born and in other areas, too, not many miles from there, are completely uneconomic. Some people have tried to remain and exist there, and quite a number have gone away to live somewhere else, if not in this country, in some other country. They cannot be blamed. It is the job of the people who make the laws in this country to try to make people reasonably comfortable if they are to live on the land and rear families.

I have heard it said that the flight from the land is not peculiar to this country but that it is happening in quite a number of countries, particularly continental countries. We cannot be guided by that. I know some people will always travel, but most people leave the land only if they cannot get a reasonable standard of living. Holdings are not locked up unless there is a spirit of complete despair among the people. The experience of their forefathers and of their fathers and mothers is bound to influence smallholders when they think of rearing and educating their families.

We all know that with the modern trend towards mechanisation, costs can be kept down, and fewer people employed while production is maintained at practically the same level. I have heard talk about production per acre in this debate. The Minister said a holding of 40 to 45 acres can be regarded as reasonable. I think that statement needs examination. Is it made on the basis that all the land will be of a certain standard? It might be possible to live on a 40 to 45 acre holding in one part of the country where the land is of a certain standard, but it might not be possible in another part of the country where the land is poor.

What is the production capacity of the land in the congested areas which the Minister has named? What is the production capacity of the land? How many acres are arable? What will they grow? Will they grow beet? Will they grow wheat? I know smallholdings, and so does every other Senator, on which it is impossible to grow an acre of wheat or an acre of beet. It may be possible to grow root crops, but even these will not give the same production as they will on good land. I do not think anyone will deny that. There are other holdings in other areas on which it is possible to grow any and every crop.

What then is the yardstick in regard to these 40-45 acre holdings? It is possible now to test soils. There are areas in which people are afraid to go down more than five inches; if they go deeper, we know the type of clay that comes up. Senator Mooney described the soil in Leitrim. Soils differ and where the productive capacity of the soil is low, that should be taken into consideration in deciding the size of holdings. Forty acres of good land could be the equivalent of 60 acres of inferior land. What method will be adopted to achieve a satisfactory solution to this problem? Local agricultural colleges can test the various soils. We are very glad to have these colleges. We have this problem of varying production from the soil. My experience is that people do not like leaving their holdings. They infinitely prefer to remain in the old homestead, if they can make a living there; but making the living is the difficulty.

Congested areas are set out in the Bill. I think there is some congestion in every county. Our people, 60, 70 or 80 years ago were given cottages with an acre of land. I do not know if people now remember when the first cottages, with an acre of land, were built, but I remember the sudden consciousness of a duty to house people who had been regarded as nobodies before that. Whether it was the Congested Districts Board or the 1909 Act I do not know, but our people were housed by those who had injured us and made us suffer before that. Apparently they thought then they would do something different and they started to house our people and they built these cottages. The first cottages have not been so very long in existence. The families that were reared in them would prefer to remain in them.

How do we propose to help them? Will they be classed as congests? They are available for distribution? I do not Because they have cottages with one acre of land, is it the intention to ignore them now? Are they regarded as having a suitable standard of living? They get employment. They are industrious. They keep a cow or two. In the past the grass for those cows was found on the roadside. Generally one of the children stayed with the cows. Main road grazing was always out of the question. It was also regarded as illegal. Occasionally people were warned to remove their cows. When we took control, the authorities took a more lenient view of that. I do not think there were any prosecutions. What is the position now? Traffic has increased so much that these people can no longer graze their cows on the side of the road. Unless they are lucky enough to get facilities elsewhere, they have to dispense with their cows, cows which were most valuable to them.

What are we doing to help them? I believe they should be included in this measure. There is some arrangement under which they can get a few acres in certain places, but there has never been any declared policy to give them something better. In fact, as far as I know, the acreage attaching to the new cottages now being built has dropped. All the cottier gets now is a small plot of ground with his cottage. He is worthy of consideration. He should be classed as a congest and entitled to a proper holding. It is important that we should treat all our people on an equal basis.

How many holdings are congested? This is not the first time the Land Commission have endeavoured to deal with the problem of congestion. Congests have been moved from uneconomic holdings. We were told yesterday they have been moved to Meath and other places. It should be possible to give details of how many uneconomic holdings there are in the country. How many acres have we available for distribution? We should also have the answer to that question. Local authorities know exactly where every £ goes. They know the medical expenses, the nursing expenses, and all the rest of the expenses. They know what has to be provided for in advance. They know exactly what they are talking about.

Do we know that here? How many congests have we? How many acres are available for distribution? I do not think that is too much to ask. Are local people in the particular areas asked for their views? I know they have their local representatives but there is more to it than that. Is it purely a case where the Land Commission inspectors decide what is a congested area, as I am calling it, or an uneconomic area or holding, where a person is trying to live and finding it difficult?

I heard it said today that we had a tourist talking about headlands and something else. All I know is that a headland is a portion of a field where there is room for the horses to turn. You may not plough up the headland. I came to this conclusion that he had not looked at all the areas or looked at uneconomic holdings. If he had he would have seen where a man, if he was not able to plough, came with a spade and tilled in to the ditch so that he would get the greatest possible production from the particular piece of land. Even at that, his production would not be very good. That is why I ask whether it is the inspector who decides everything. If it is, he should have his figures and know the requirements so that he would know what to suggest in dealing with the matter.

If an uneconomic holder is changed from where he lives because he cannot exist there, and brought by the Land Commission to another place where the Land Commission provides him with a house, and with some other building, do they also provide him with the equivalent of what he may have left behind? A man may have lived on an uneconomic holding in a congested area and may have found it most difficult to make a living and may be given a better holding by the Land Commission on which he would have a better standard of living but he may be leaving behind him very good buildings. For many years now most people in the country have had reasonably good dwelling houses and out-houses. I am talking now about people who had a bit of land. I do not want to be misunderstood. A man may have had a comfortable house that he had built through his own energies and also reasonably good out-houses, haybarns, haysheds and so on which he erected at his own expense. Is this taken into consideration by the Land Commission inspector? Will such a man get something which is the equivalent to that or, if not. does he get the wherewithal to erect the same kind of building? I should like to know if he is protected in that way.

I understand that where local people get a few acres adjoining where they live there is some question about the rents they will be charged. That question would want to be examined. Will they be charged what are called full rents? Because a local person got some land attached to what was an uneconomic holding, he should not be charged any more than he was already paying on his holding. There should not be a greater charge because he got the land. He got it because he was entitled to it. The Land Commission will not give anything away lightly. Indeed, they cannot because they have not got it. I should not like to set any extra charge and I know the Minister would not want it that way either and I am sure he will answer that point.

I should also like to know where do the Land Commission come in where absentee landlords decide to dispose of their estates. We have absentee landlords drawing a portion of their wealth from estates created under the old regime and which we have not yet disposed of. We are a young nation, of course, and we hope to see the day when a person will only claim that he has any rights under the laws we make and not under the laws made by somebody else. I heard of a case of a lord—I do not know how they still retain these titles; it is something foreign to us——

Lord Snowdon.

I am not referring to these people at all. I do not know them. I heard it reported that Lord Midleton who owns an estate in Midleton—I do not know if the place is called after him or not—is now disposing of it. If that is so, what about our people? Our people in the area are a very industrious and hardworking people and will they be in a position to get the property?

He is going to sell it to the Irish.

What rights have the Land Commission in this? The people there, who have established themselves, are our people and they have certain rights. I do not know if the Minister is aware of this report but all I can say is that it is the right of the people there to own what is there, whether ground rents or anything else. I do not like to get away from the Bill, but we are continually hearing all this talk about rents on property and estates. It is about time we got that problem settled completely, once and for all. A man decides to buy land with which he proposes to do something for his betterment. The seller comes along and says: "We shall make a bargain". The bargain is made, and the man is then told: "For the rest of your life, you will pay me ground rent".

Where do the Land Commission come in in all this? The Commission are the people who should be empowered to decide all these matters affecting land and ground. I have no objection to people being asked to pay dues to keep the nation functioning but I have the strongest objection to all this talk about places like Midleton and about ground rents. As far as I know, the Government have something in mind to remedy this situation, and the sooner the better. It is about time all that was stopped so that when a person owns his house, he will not be told in a few years that his lease has expired and that he must renew it. People come to me and ask if the Land Commission have got anything to do with it.

That has nothing got to do with the Bill.

Perhaps that is not appropriate to the measure before the House but I touched on it because of all I have heard about it. I am glad the Bill is before us to give us an opportunity to have this talk. There are some good things in the Bill but there are some things on which we do not agree. Later, on Committee Stage, we shall have the opportunity to voice that disagreement. In a democracy such as this, we are entitled to disagree one with another.

So much has been said on this Bill, there has been so much unwarranted criticism, that I find it hard to be objectively critical of the operations of the Land Commission in the past. This is not the first Land Bill I have seen introduced. It would be fair to say that the keynote of discussion generally on previous Bills was criticism of the Land Commission's slowness. The image that would appear to have emerged from the previous debates was that the Land Commission was a big giant asleep.

I would say it was a fair enough criticism because the Land Commission have not succeeded in doing what it was hoped they would do under previous Acts. Each Minister for Lands coming to the House has sought additional powers. In the 1950 Bill we were promised great things. There were the problems of the congested districts, of rundale holdings and of people compelled to live in miserable conditions. At that time those problems were to be tackled with zest, energy and drive. I was vain enough to hope that solutions would be found, but the Land Commission seem to have fallen back into the old rut and the problems remain.

Another Minister for Lands from the same county produces a measure now seeking additional powers and some people seek to paint a picture of the Minister as a giant suddenly awakening who will grow hair out of his nose and, with his big nails, get ready to grab up land from farmers instead of landowners and apparently give that land to people from Tanganyika or elsewhere. A few people seek to paint that picture of the Minister. He may not be a very good looking man——

We said nothing about his looks, no matter what we may think of him.

I cannot accept that at all.

He has a grand smile over there.

They are misreppresenting the Bill, suggesting that some evil will flow from it.

The Senator is misrepresenting the Minister.

Let us examine what was being attempted. In the congested districts there are problems that have not been solved and it appears to me that under the restricted machinery available to the Department, neither the power nor the mechanism is there to deal with those problems as effectively and quickly as they should be dealt with. Hope is in my heart that something really effective will be achieved by the operation of this Bill.

Hope springs eternal.

We must face the fact that many Senators who have spoken talked about landowners and farmers and made no attempt to differentiate between a farmer and a landowner. People talk about fixity of tenure and freedom of sale. I am afraid many of them have not read their history very closely. Landowners and farmers are two distinct, different groups. What is being attempted under this Bill is to create a situation whereby the Land Commission will be empowered, I hope in a speedy and businesslike way, to do what they have not been able to do previously —take land from the owners and give it to the farmers.

This is not a simple question. During the days of the land agitation, before the Ashbourne, Wyndham and other Land Acts were passed, the Irish people were dealing with landowners and tenants, some of the latter being on a rent basis, some with leases and others tenants at will. The agitation then was to have land acquired from the owners and given to tenant purchasers on a land annuity basis rather than a rent. We still hear people talking about rents. I do not think it is fair to the memory of the people who struggled so hard to abolish a land rental system to continue to refer to land rents instead of purchase annuities. Probably it is lack of thought but it is not fair to the people who fought so hard for the right of tenant purchase.

A new situation has emerged in our times in the congested districts, as it has in the north of Scotland, because of the struggle for existence. In the congested districts we have a low marriage rate among the smallholders. You end up by having small landowners who often call themselves farmers but who do not farm the land. They are as big a problem as the large landowners of 100 years ago who did not work their land properly. Just as it was considered good public policy 100 years ago to set up machinery to purchase land from these landowners and give it free to farmers with family responsibility, it is also a sound policy today. That is what this Bill proposes to do.

All over the west of Ireland people have land and are not using it. Adjacent to these farms married men are trying to raise their families on small pieces of land. I have experience of the conditions in Mayo and the rundale position in Mount Jubilee and Geesala. I would regard it as an insoluble problem but I hope somebody can do something about it. All over the west you have older people not using their land. They call themselves farmers but it would be more exact to call them landowners. Machinery is being set up under this Bill to entice these people to sell their land to the Land Commission so that it can be given to young married men. That is a great thing, but I hope the Land Commission will not kill it by being slow in implementing it.

I would like to be critical of the Land Commission, but it is hard to be so in view of the approach to this Bill by some people who should know better. It is a good thing that men in the congested districts will be given advances to buy land of their own choice so their farms can be used for the relief of congestion in the locality. I hope that that also is not killed by the slowness and red tape that can develop in Government Departments. I hope there will be a new spirit in regard to the speed and enthusiasm with which the Land Commission will attack this problem. If that is not shown, this Bill will fail. If it fails, the only real answer will be to abolish the Land Commission and set up a Department of Lands and have a certain amount of decent patronage. It might be that that would work quite effectively.

Go back to the American system.

I could say things, but I will not say them. When people begin to quote Fintan Lalor at me, it makes me sad.

You often quoted him yourself.

In regard to sections 12 and 13, dealing with letting, the people I should like to attack are the Land Commission themselves. It is true powers are being taken to deal with this question of letting and subletting. The final test is whether this is in the public interest or not. I suggest it is not. The people who are letting lands and doing the things this section hopes to prevent are not smallholders but landowners.

What about the small farmers in the west?

I did not interrupt Senator L'Estrange. If at this stage we cannot distinguish between farmers and landowners, we have lost our connection with the past. At present people have far more rights under this Bill than they had 100 years ago when the estates were taken over for resale to the tenant purchasers. I hold that public interest is involved in the letting, sale and distribution of land. In the long run our people and our land are our most valuable assets. Sections 12 and 13 are endeavouring to ensure that land will not be played about with by landowners to the detriment of farmers. Otherwise, there is no hope of keeping a population in the congested districts. People leave congested districts for want of sufficient land to make a decent living. Even yet when land is offered for sale in congested districts, it commands a price above its economic value. Any honest person who examines the position will agree that is so. Land in a congested district can fetch as much as land at the side of Tara Hill. There is surely something wrong in that.

I fully agree with the powers being taken in regard to letting. My only fear is that they will not be used as they should be used and that they will be used in the same slovenly, old-fashioned way in which the Land Commission seem to have operated for so long. The Minister may say that they had not the powers. That is the same argument as was used by another Minister for Lands from Mayo in favour of the 1950 Act. I remember that because I made a similar case. During the debate on the 1950 Act, I said the only thing I ever knew the Land Commission to be speedy about was the collection of annuities. They speeded up the method by which they could collect annuities. I think that was a good thing because it prevented people becoming involved in expense. Nobody now objects to that.

As I said, a great part of the trouble in the West is the fact that land is in the hands of people who do not farm it. That is the problem to be tackled if we want to maintain a reasonable population in the congested districts. I hope the Minister and the Land Commission will see to it that really effective work will be done under section 12.

May I say in passing that the Land Commission themselves can be the biggest sinners in regard to the letting of land. They let to the highest bidder without any regard to the situation of the land or the need for it among the smallholders. The local cattle dealer can come in and buy up the land under the nose of the small farmers. That land in many cases has been let on the 11-months system from year to year. Often good land in the hands of the Land Commission is taken before the Land Commission can get as far as parcelling it out to migrants or smallholders, as the case may be, if it is in the midlands. That is something for which I think the Land Commission should be criticised. It has happened and is happening.

I believe people on the land are doing important things in our economy—the people and the land are the two important things. The Minister should try to do something about this. I may get the answer that there is always trouble about title, troublesome people and all kinds of difficulties. There should be some way whereby a situation will not emerge where section 12 will be used against the Land Commission. Some other body should implement a similar section, perhaps the Department of Agriculture.

If there is not an agricultural outlook in the Department of Lands and in the Land Commission, they are at cross-purposes. While it may be out of order to discuss agriculture on a Land Bill, I will say in passing the sooner there is a closer relationship in relation to agriculture as between the Department of Lands and the Land Commission, the better for the people and for the country.

In regard to the question of migration, in purchasing land in the congested districts I am hopeful that under this Bill the Land Commission will move into County Leitrim and buy up the land which is for sale there and give decent parcels to the young man who is trying to raise a family.

There is another bad thing. Where there are good relations between neighbours, very often because of their methods of investigation, the Land Commission get information from one neighbour about another. Then, relations are not quite so good when the land is divided. I suggest that is inevitable. It has been said that people bred on the land are the heart of all revolutions and I suggest there is something in that. People have to live with or without the Land Commission and, as far as is possible, in dealing with congested districts, the Land Commission should operate in such a way as not to create bad relations between neighbours. The concept of charity is an important thing.

It is a good thing to move in and buy land where there is an auction, or ask people to sell land and take an annuity. That is one of the ways by which progress can be made if it is attacked speedily by the Land Commission.

With regard to migration, I think enough work is not being done. The bigger type of farmer, not landowner, in Mayo, parts of Galway and parts of Roscommon should be enticed to move if there is congestion. A local organisation such as Muintir na Tíre, or some local person, should say: "If you move to County Kildare or County Westmeath, I will ask the Land Commission to give you an exchange holding." A lot of useful ways can be devised to make farms more viable or economic.

When an application goes to the Land Commission, it is the uncertainty that is damaging for those people who apply. A man in County Leitrim may have reasonable hope of getting a farm from the Land Commission but it is hard to know whether he will get a reasonable holding until the actual contract is signed. There is a tendancy then not to farm the farmland which was previously well farmed. He is living in hopes from one year to another. The indecision and lack of finality is one of the objectionable features I see here. Sometimes it destroys the standard of farming, through not keeping up the land and manuring it. Once indecision arises, there is no progress. The farmer, hoping he will change, does not continue to be as good a farmer as he was before. That is something the Land Commission should keep in mind and try to avoid.

Again on the question of migration, there should be speedy action and decision taken one way or another with the least possible delay. I should also like to refer to the question of the big houses in the west of Ireland, which was raised by Senator Stanford. There was something in what he said about these Georgian houses. We should not forget that these houses were built by Irishmen. In many cases they are untenable for private owners now because of costs and because we are living in a different age. I remember one particular case of a family from the Anglo-Norman invasion whose residence and property were taken over by the Land Commission. This residence with Adam ceilings, as in this House, was taken over and the Land Commission were about to pull it down. The man who owned it, naturally because of long association with it, was pleased when some authority was found to take it over. Such big houses were built by the efforts of the Irish nation. Now that we have demand for old people's homes, these houses could be turned to some such use.

On the question of the acquisition of land from people who let it, so far the machinery does not seem to have been effective and I hope section 35 will give added power and that it will be used with speed, discretion and commonsense. If it is not so used, remember, there could always be another round on this. I hope to live to see the day when another Land Bill will be introduced. I may even see a proposal in future for the abolition of the Land Commission and the setting up of a Department of Lands which might achieve something. We now give this charter to the Land Commission in the hope that they will make some attempt to deal with this problem of congestion and land resettlement generally. I hope it succeeds. I hope the Minister's hopes will be realised and that the Land Commission will develop a new spirit and will deal with this problem speedily and effectively. If this fails, we will have to do another bit of thinking so as to prove whether we can get another Bill which will give more power to the Land Commission or abolish it altogether.

This Bill we are discussing is one of the most important and far-reaching to come before us in recent years. It proposes fundamental changes in two of the three rights, and indeed I might say in the three rights, for which the Land League was formed to assert and the land war fought to attain. Some of its provisions are commendable but its main purpose is to strengthen the power of a Government Department at the expense of the farmer. Our Constitution declares the right to private property and while nobody would maintain that the right of ownership cannot be restricted we should be very careful in examining any legislative proposal to weaken the grip of the ordinary farmer on his holding. The land is our most precious possession and while the creation of economic units is a most desirable objective, it is my view that some of the powers sought in this Bill are not necessary to achieve that aim.

There are at least three sections, sections 7, 13 and 35, which I object to and those have already been mentioned by previous speakers. Regarding section 7, there are many cases outside the congested areas where it would be a real hardship on a small farmer to have to pay the full annuity on an enlargement allotted to him by the Land Commission. I take the case of a farmer owning ten or 12 acres who qualifies for 20 or 25 acres on an estate acquired by the Land Commission in, say, Laois or Offaly. Would it be fair or reasonable to expect him to pay the full annuity while his counterpart coming in from a congested area is subsidised to the extent of half the annuity by the Land Commission?

Regarding section 13, I say the right of free sale is a fundamental characteristic of the ownership of land and should not be restricted without good and sufficient reason. The men who fought and won the land war would look with suspicion upon any attempt to hamper the farmer's right to offer his holding for sale.

At the present time the Land Commission have their active and efficient officials throughout the country and they must have a very good idea of the various holdings which they may wish to acquire. Why should they have power to prevent a man from offering his farm for sale in the open market, just by serving an inspection notice on him, especially now when the Land Commission have power to buy land in the open market and to pay full market value? The farmer should not be restricted in any way but should be allowed to put his farm on the open market and, if the Land Commission like to come in, they can buy it.

I do not suggest that there is any intention to abuse the power which the Minister is seeking in the section under dispute but it is conceivable that political pressure might be used to have a notice served on some farmer who was about to sell his farm and who happened to be a supporter of an Opposition Party. I also feel that the section would encourage agitation and prying by people looking for the division of a neighbouring farm. If it became known that a farmer was about to offer his holding for sale, local Party supporters might use pressure to get the Land Commission to serve an inspection notice. That would be hardly fair. The fact that the Minister, who is necessarily a Party politician, could order the service of such a notice lends point to the danger of possible abuse of the section.

Section 35, as I see it, is an unfair and unwarranted intrusion on fixity of tenure. Surely, in this age of modern transport, a farmer should not be subject to the risk of having a draw-farm taken by the Land Commission simply because it would be more than three miles from his home and when it would take a farmer only three minutes to get to it? Many excellent farmers whose record of production and employment is second to none are completely dependent on a holding which is over three miles distant from their dwellinghouse.

I am well aware that, in practice, the Land Commission may not at present wish to exercise this wide power in such cases. My contention is that it would be dangerous to put such a far-reaching power on the Statute Book. We cannot foresee what future Governments may decide but for my part I would not permit any compulsory acquisition of an outside holding which is giving adequate employment and production and which was not required for the relief of local congestion. The implication of this section would also result in depressing the value of draw-farms and would enable the Land Commission to buy such holdings at an artificially low price.

As it is late in the evening and the Minister is anxious to get in, I do not wish to detain the House but I would say in conclusion that where a farmer works his holding to the best advantage and gives good employment he should be free from the threat of compulsory acquisition.

Like others here, I wish to compliment the Minister on the courage he has displayed in bringing in this Bill. That courage is backed by the fact that the Minister was born in a congested area and has served as a public representative for one of the most congested counties in Ireland and has had the experience of being Minister, in which capacity all the problems he is trying to solve have been made very clear to him.

I have seen quite a number of Land Bills passed by the Oireachtas. We have heard a great deal of talk about the principles of fair rent, free sale and fixity of tenure. Most of us fail to realise that those three matters were dealt with and disposed of a long time ago. In the early stages, when some of our first Land Bills were introduced, the landlord was still in existence. Although the landlord's powers had been curtailed by previous legislation, he still operated the rack rent system; he had the option not to allow the tenant to sell his holding and was a law unto himself in the matter of land.

Each Land Bill that has been introduced and in particular each Land Bill that has been introduced since we came into office, has been opposed by the same people. The first Land Bill to which I refer is that of 1933, in which it was proposed to reduce the annuities by one-half. It would be interesting to study the debates on that Bill. Some members of the Opposition must have studied them and learnt them by heart. The arguments have been repeated ever since in the same language. Not one syllable has been changed. "Confiscation of private property" was one of the expressions used and that expression has been used in connection with every one of the six or seven Land Bills introduced since then, including the Bill under discussion today.

The Land Bill of 1923 was the first Land Bill introduced here. The people who are talking about powers being given to a Minister today are the people who represented the Party which at that time gave the greatest of all powers ever given by the Oireachtas to a Minister.

Why are they not sufficient, then?

He was Minister for Lands and Agriculture. We know pretty well how that Act worked. What they have said about Fianna Fáil is most untrue. These are things which they did at that time and which are in their minds since and now they are trying to make allegations against Fianna Fáil.

Comment was made on Land Commission delays in dealing with lands and, up to this, the delays were a disgrace. I am glad the Minister has taken the necessary steps to short circuit delays. Heretofore, if a farm was reported to the Land Commission it took from three to four years before the land was finally acquired. I am glad that there will be a vast improvement on that length of time. That is one of the most important clauses in the Bill.

Our earlier Land Bills dealt entirely with large estates and according as they were acquired and divided the pool of land got smaller and smaller. The 2,000 acres and the 1,000 acres have disappeared. We are now down to the hundreds and even the hundreds are not now available.

If anybody checks on the questions asked in the Dáil in relation to land acquisition and division he will note that the very people who tabled the most questions are the people who are opposed to this Bill. It is obvious that the questions were merely political bluff used mainly by the people on the Opposition. They know in their heart of hearts, although they oppose this Bill, that the derelict farms should not be left there. The land is there to be tilled, cultivated and put to use to feed our people and, if we have a surplus, to export it.

I know counties where Land Commission houses were built 20 or 25 years ago and which now have grass growing up to the doors and windows. Those houses cost the Land Commission a lot of money to build but now some of them have only a bag stuck in the window. Senator L'Estrange saw that too.

If the vast majority of the people were aware of the manner in which these lands are handled they would not be prepared to leave them with those people for 24 hours because they do not deserve them.

Why did they get it originally?

They do not even grow cabbage or potatoes for themselves. They go into the towns and compete with the townspeople in purchasing these commodities. They are all over Roscommon, as Senator L'Estrange knows.

We saw them, and in Mayo, too.

I am prepared to give the Minister all the power he requires to take over holdings which are not being used, because it is a disgrace. That is the type of land the Minister is getting after, mainly.

Senator L'Estrange says an issue was decided in Galway and Roscommon. That statement is as far removed from the truth as a lot of other things——

In Roscommon, the Taoiseach said it was the principal plank in their programme.

When people come to me about land they say, for instance: "Johnny McGinty has a holding up for sale. Get the Land Commission to take it over. We want to increase our holdings." Their one anxiety is to make their holdings more economic. The big areas of land have gone. Those in the midlands and elsewhere cannot be got at. We are now reduced to small holdings which are for sale. I do not see why the Minister and the Land Commission should not be empowered to step in to take over those holdings provided the owners are paid the market price, if such a thing can be said about the Land Commission.

I do not believe that in this country there is a market value for land that is for sale. The market value of land is such that in an area where there are people with a lot of money any land for sale by auction there will fetch a higher price than land of a similar nature which is for sale by auction in another area where there are not wealthy people who are anxious to purchase it.

There is no real standard that one can lay down in relation to the price of land, as one can do in relation to the price of a bag of sugar or a pound of tea. No price is laid down and no market value is fixed. Under the 1950 Act, the market value of land was more or less fixed but to my mind that was more of a hindrance than a help to the Land Commission in their efforts to acquire land. When a Land Commission inspector appeared with a view to bidding for a farm the puffers were there to push up the price, and so on. These matters are now being dealt with in quite another way in this measure.

In my part of Galway and in county Galway generally, there is an enormous number of holdings ranging from £2 to £6. People have gone away leaving holdings behind them of 45 to 60 acres. They do not go through force of circumstances, through poverty or because they had not a good way of life. Some of them went, as some of my own friends went, because some of the family who had gone away were having a jolly good time and encouraged the father and the mother to go over to them. In one case a friend of mine who had emigrated and sold his holding wrote to me to ask if the Land Commission could step in and buy back the holding for him.

The Minister is making a great effort in this Bill to bring all the uneconomic holdings up to 40 or 45 acres. There is no Minister we could ever produce in this country who would be able to do that because the area of land is not there. However, what we should do and what we are trying to do is to see that every acre of land that is available will be taken over to bring up the holdings as high as we can in the shortest possible time. There is nothing wrong in that.

It is too late now to go over past history but let me say that under the 1923 Act we dealt with land on the basis that if you were a fairly wealthy man with the land well stocked and a bit of money in the bank the Land Commission decided you would be able to pay back your annuity and they gave you more land. If you were a person with one staggering cow, a half dying calf and four or five acres of land and nothing else, then you got nothing. That was under one of the first Land Acts we brought in and we have done away with the powers the Minister had which could result in that sort of thing. We have fixed £10 valuation and said to the Land Commission: "Before you can give land to anybody over £10 valuation you must fix up the people under £10". If a man has only a cow and a donkey it is very hard to expect him to do very much. We must try to put him in a position to make a livelihood and that is what we are trying to do today. If an industrious man who is living on a small holding wants to better himself the provision is here whereby he can hand over that land and get land elsewhere for which the Land Commission would provide him with the money.

I have to rush what I am saying because I do not wish to take up too much time, but these are the essential things that are required. We must do our best to keep as many people as possible on the land.

Ní raibh ar intinn agam aon fhocal a rá ar an mBille so mar is dóigh liom go bhfuil na pointí go léir pléite ag na Seanadóirí eile ach chuala mé caint chomh mí-mhacánta sin nár fhéad mé fanúint im thost.

I did not intend to speak at all today but I have heard so much of what I consider cheap talk that I could not go away from the House without saying a few words. It was a sad contrast with the discussion on other days when there was dignified, constructive criticism that was a pleasure to listen to whether one was in this or any other Party. There was a deluge of implications, insinuations and innuendoes that most of our TDs and Senators had no integrity or honesty whatsoever. It is a sad thing that it should go outside the House that this is the mentality of some of our people. We bemoan that we cannot get more people and we might say people we would expect to come forward in public life, and I am not a bit surprised when this is the carry on. My only assessment of the people that make these insinuations and innuendoes is that suspicion haunts the guilty mind.

For me this Bill is the Bill of the small man in whom I am most interested. It is a Bill that will keep the rich from getting richer and the poor poorer. In my own area I have seen too much of it happen and I have seen many a small parcel of land that would have made the difference between an economic holding and an uneconomic one being bought up by the nearest businessman because he had plenty of money, and if he did not buy it the biggest farmer in the area bought it because the small farmer had not enough money to buy it. I welcome the day that somebody has come to the rescue of these people.

I have heard a lot of statistics. I am not too good at statistics but I am wise enough to know that statistics like words and sentences when taken out of their context can prove anything. I hate to use clichés; there is a horrible little cliché which says there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics. We have also heard about Henry VIII, the Land War and Davitt, and poor Fintan Lalor got a very rough deal altogether. However, no Party can claim that it was only their ancestors that fought for the land. At least we are all one on that problem and that is something that could have been omitted from the debate.

I was amused at statements made about the declining marriage rate. I am glad there is a woman here to listen to what the men have to say. It was all laid to the feet of the women. I put it, for a change, to the feet of the men. We have too many selfish men in Ireland who are neither prepared to take on responsibility nor to give up their freedom. I can assure the House that an unselfish man is far more important to any woman than all the washing machines, motor cars and good houses that they can have.

I congratulate the Minister on what he has done and on his courage, as many Senators opposite have done. I hope we shall go away from the House, every one of us, with just one sentence to preach, that land has far more responsibilities than it has privileges. Responsibility is the most important thing in life.

There were many exceptions made, that one could not do this thing and the other could not do that thing but provision is made for the exceptions. Senators who are in this House longer than I am know it is very bad to legislate for exceptions. Legislation is for the general good. When this Bill is in operation, we shall see many hundreds, whose ancestors were evicted and whose holdings were divided among other families so that the rich became richer and the poor poorer, getting a better chance. We will see many of those people coming into their own at last.

I think the last speaker is to be congratulated on the quick way she has picked up the formula.

It was expected this morning that the Minister would get in at 3.30 p.m. It is now 4 o'clock and it is usual to adjourn at 5 o'clock when the Seanad sits at 10.30 a.m. The Minister will require at least an hour to reply. He should be given an opportunity to get in now.

There is nobody else on this side who wishes to speak. In fact, there have been comparatively few speakers from this side.

I shall not delay the House very long. I listened to the various points of view during the past two days and I was amused at some of the suggestions made.

We are discussing a Bill of very great importance to a large section of our people—the agricultural community. I believe that the Land Commission will be primarily responsible for the implementation of the Bill. They are a very responsible body but hardly any member of this House has given them any credit for the great work they have done over a very difficult period during the past 30 years.

I have had long experience in the public life of the country. People criticise the Land Commission in relation to the despatch with which they carry out land division work. Everybody will agree that they were not slow in this Bill which has been discussed here for the past two days and which was discussed for many months in the Dáil. Criticism has been aimed primarily at the Land Commission in respect of speeding up their work and acting in a proper and businesslike way.

The slow-moving Land Commission might have been all right 30 years ago when poor land was available for distribution and when farms all over the country were derelict or half derelict. The situation is different now. If a farm of land is put up for sale now, unless you are on the spot, it may be sold in two days and unless the Land Commission are empowered to move fast, then all efforts will be in vain. In my opinion, this Bill enables the Minister to act quickly with regard to the acquisition of land.

Much has already been said on this Bill but there is one point I should like to bring to the Minister's notice. A lot has been said by many speakers about the depopulation of rural Ireland and figures have been given that so many thousands of people are expected to leave the land over the next few years. I have lived among country people since my boyhood and have seen the hardships which they endure. One of the main reasons why people leave rural Ireland is perhaps to get an easier livelihood in Britain. They get good work in the city and industrial employment in preference to living on the land. That is understandable. I have experience in my area of a townland where there were ten farming families and today there are only five. The five families who disappeared were wealthy and were some of the most comfortable members of that community. They lived there but they never married. Whole families lived together and they took on other holdings and attached them to their own. Those families have now disappeared. That is what is happening in the midlands where the good land of Ireland is situated. Fifty years ago, families did not emigrate. They had no industrial grants to get. They became rich and lived happy together until they all died out.

There is one suggestion which the Minister missed in the Bill. I have heard intelligent men who have spoken on this matter of depopulation in rural Ireland but I fail to find a man yet who has suggested any means of improving that position or bringing about a change. The only man I ever heard making one concrete proposal in regard to that was the President of Ireland, Mr. de Valera. When dealing with this matter many years ago, he stated——

He said we could have 20 million in this country.

I do not know about that but he said the main reason for the decline in the rural population was the late marriages of the farmers' sons and no marriages at all. Farmers' sons sometimes do not marry until they are 50 years of age and then they are old men. Mr. de Valera, who was then Taoiseach, said he thought it would be advisable that some plan be put into operation whereby the son could get a house built on the land, apart from the family home. He could get married to some farmer's daughter and bring up his own family in the new home.

I am very sorry, having regard to the very laudable provisions in this Bill, that the Minister did not go further and do something about this matter. If there was not a 100 per cent success in regard to it, I believe there would be some advantage in it. It is deplorable to see a young man working on the land, killing himself working 20, 30, or 40 years and when he wishes to get married to the girl of his choice, is unable to do so because his father or mother would not be pleased if he brought that girl into the home.

That is one of the main causes of depopulation in rural Ireland. It is the main point I wish to make on this Bill. I regret, with the many laudable features contained in the Bill, that something has not been done for these people. A lot was said about this Bill in the Roscommon and East Galway by-elections. Do not mind that because it will all die down, but people who live in Galway, Mayo, and Leitrim will be waiting very anxiously to see if there are provisions in the Bill which will give them a better living than they have had in the past.

I shall deal very quickly with the few points I wish to make. I come from a congested area. In Kerry we have 21,000 agricultural holdings and 13,000 of these have valuations from £2 to £10. These people, in the past, found it very hard to live in some of these small holdings. Therefore, the families of these people had to emigrate. The only thing they had to take away with them was determination and a good national school education. The result was that they went into the highest positions in the countries of their adoption. Even at present Irishmen and their descendants have nearly taken over charge of the countries they went to. In our own country they have spread into the towns and cities and are in charge of them today, all descendants of smallholders. Therefore, these smallholders are the backbone of the country and it is time legislation was brought in to help them. The holdings are too small to support a big family, only one of whom can remain while the others must move out. That is the cause of emigration. If there were sufficient industries, these people need not emigrate.

Much has been said about security of tenure. My own farm was vested in 1909, as was all that area at that time. Shortly afterwards cottages were to be built and the local authority took over land from these farmers compulsorily. They had power to do it. Where was the security of tenure? It was right that houses should be provided for the labourers who went into them. Later I became a member of Kerry County Council on which I spent a number of years and it was our task to secure land to build cottages and we secured it compulsorily. We found that the last of the people from whom we acquired land had not even got title because they had been deterred by the cost, with the result that we had to have a compulsory purchase order made.

I remember one case in which too much land was taken from a farmer making his holding uneconomic and at that time there was power to take land from another farmer to give back to the first so that his farm would remain economic. I am surprised now to hear people talking of security of tenure and suggesting nobody can interfere with title. They can: if land is wanted for railways, water courses or any of those things, it can be compulsorily acquired. A county council may take land for roads and the Minister for Transport and Power can take land for aerodromes. I am sure that all Departments can exercise compulsory purchase power when it is required for the common good.

In my own county a farm was put up for sale and was not sold. It seemed the owner would not get his money and he wanted to keep a dwelling house there for life. The auctioneer told him to get in touch with the Land Commission. He did so and the Land Commission bought the farm which is now being divided and he is being left the house and a few acres of land. That is something this Bill will do for such people. A few other farms were put up for sale in my locality and were bought by the Land Commission and will shortly be divided and I am sure local smallholders will benefit from the distribution.

I thank the Minister for introducing this Bill which I think in the course of time will prove to be a good Bill.

A great deal has been done in the past 30 years or so to improve conditions in the congested areas, but it has now become quite obvious that any further real progress depends on the Land Commission being given greater powers. There are still many places which can be well improved and this Bill is now introduced to help the people concerned. The Land Bill is a proof of the Government's aim to tackle seriously the main problem of the smallholder, in a way which, while maintaining absolute security for all farmers, will enable holdings, which are now too small, to be brought up to a larger size. In many cases, even where land was available, the Commission have not been able to acquire it because when the owners sold it, they did so by private treaty to persons who already had too much land.

Why have Fine Gael opposed the Land Bill? They say that they would like to see congestion cured, but have offered no alternative to the proposals in the Bill. Senators and Deputies in Dáil Éireann on the opposite side of the House object to the increased powers given to the Land Commission to enable it to step in quickly when land becomes available. Yet, by what other means do they think the Commission can speed up the relief of congestion?

Most Senators have agreed in general with the principal points in the Bill. While it is quite clear that no large areas of land have been sold to aliens, it does now seem, however, that a few Irishmen have found ways to facilitate the buying of farms by foreigners, using legal subterfuges which enabled the purchasers to avoid the special duty. In other words, lawyers have found loopholes in the law, and the Government have decided that they must be closed before any general harm is done. As a result of the decision, the Land Bill has been amended so as to set up a system of direct control by the Land Commission over the purchase of rural land by aliens.

With very few exceptions, the non-national who wishes to control or buy land, either as an individual or by operating through a company, will not now be able to do so without the prior consent of the Land Commission. The control over such sales has been transferred from the Revenue Commissioners to the Land Commission who are better geared to find out whether much land would be involved in transactions of this kind. They are also in a better position to find out whether the law is broken or evaded.

These new provisions will ensure beyond doubt that there will be absolute control over all sales of farmland to aliens. In the past couple of years, there have been allegations that big amounts of land have been sold to foreigners. Very little evidence was ever produced to show that these allegations were true. Now the Government have acted before any damage was done or progress made in the wrong direction.

There is no doubt that there have been a few isolated cases of a sale or two to foreigners. Protest against this has been raised by the Opposition. In fact, I am informed that one of the principal speakers, opposing this Bill, has already negotiated the sale of a farm to an alien at what was described as a top-notch price. It was a pity this owner did not hang on as his price now would have hit the £40,000 mark as land has gone up in value more than 100 per cent during the past two years.

There is no real panic necessary when this Bill is passed. I am informed from a reliable source that the rights of the landowner in most cases will not be questioned. It is only in extreme cases of farm neglect that the Land Commission will step in. Even then the landowner will be given time to make good. Proper notice will be given to him of the proposal to take over, and if the landowner has a reasonable case, he will not be interfered with. Mention was made yesterday in the debate that owners of mountain lands which are used for sheep grazing will be hard hit by this Bill. This is not a fact. Who is interested in a mountainy farm? This Bill is being introduced to bring the industrious farmer away from the mountains and boglands, provided that is his wishes. There is nothing to prevent him from staying where he is but I am confident he will grasp at this opportunity of a change for the better.

In the Dáil, a Deputy who is also an auctioneer, was afraid that the auctioneer's business was at an end, but I can assure this Deputy and others like him that the business of auctioneers will soar sky high, as from now on the Land Commission will, in certain cases, be obliged to buy land in competition on open market. This is a Bill of security to the farmer. His ownership of the land will be secure and safe. He can sell on the open market and he has his land at a fair rent. Last but not least, all a landowner needs to secure a letting of his lands for grazing or tillage is to notify the Land Commission. His claim will be examined and I can assure all concerned that there will not, as mentioned by the Opposition Party in the Dáil and Seanad, be any hardships on any landowner.

I compliment the Minister on the introduction of this Bill. The flight from the land is not taking place to any great extent out of the country, but to the many industries set up throughout the Republic during recent years by this Government.

I must compliment Senator Mrs. Ahern and Senator Hogan on the humour they brought into the debate, and I am sure some good will come out of it later on.

This is a very important Bill for rural Ireland and, indeed, it is a vital Bill for the congested areas, and for the counties on the western seaboard. I regret, therefore, that Senators on the Opposition side of the House did not see fit to adopt the same constructive, statesmanlike approach to the matters here involved as Senator Lindsay adopted earlier. Here and in the House below, that should have been the approach to this Bill. I propose to deal with the fair criticisms that were offered by the Senator when I come to that stage. At all events, a number of things were said here and, lest they go by default, I must keep the record right.

This debate was opened by Senator L'Estrange on behalf of the Opposition who alleged that I was a member of a "city Government", that I had done absolutely nothing, since I assumed my present responsibilities, towards solving the congestion problem, and that no progress whatsoever was made in dealing with the land problem in this country. Now, speaking as a member of this "city Government" who lives down in Castlebar in the far west of Ireland, let me put this on record for the Senator's edification. For the purpose of comparison, I want to take the year before I became Minister for Lands.

The figure for detailed inspections for the purpose of acquisition in that year was 30,825 acres; last year, 1964, it was 68,717 acres, an increase of 123 per cent. The figure for other inspections that took place for the purpose of acquisition in 1959 was 21,382 acres; in 1964 it was 33,477, an increase of 56.5 per cent. The total figure for inspections in order that the acquisition machine of the Land Commission would make an impact for the relief of congestion in the basic year which I have quoted was 52,207 acres; in 1964 it was 102,194 acres, an increase of 96 per cent. The amount of land acquired and resumed in 1959 was 15,780 acres; in 1964, it was 22,249 acres, an increase of 41 per cent.

The total land intake in 1959 was 29,503 acres; in 1964, it was 37,127 acres, an increase of 26 per cent. In the machine at the end of the year 1959 for the purpose of acquisition, there were 27,500 acres; in 1964, 68,000 acres, an increase of 147 per cent. The amount of money provided in 1959 for land bonds for the purpose of land acquisition was £533,872; last year it was £1½ million, an increase of 181 per cent. Cash provision for the purchase of land for the relief of congestion by public auction in 1959 was £30,000; last year the amount provided was £270,000, an increase of 800 per cent.

In passing, let me say the greatest amount provided by the Coalition Government so beloved by Senator L'Estrange for cash purchases of land for the relief of congestion in any one year was £19,000. I should like the good Senator to consider those figures before he makes allegations that nothing has been done by this "city Government", with me a "city man" in control of land since I took over this office.

The Minister is making a comparison with the figures of another Fianna Fáil Minister.

The Senator would have apoplexy if I compared these figures with the best efforts of the Coalition Government. Indeed, the financial winds created by their own mismanagement blew them out of office and the Land Commission machine was shut down. That is their record and their story, but we will never go back to that stage.

The people did not believe the Minister in East Galway.

Before this goes any further, and before a storm blows up, I would ask Senator L'Estrange to gag himself, or to leave the House if he cannot bear to listen to the Minister.

Joe Lynch put the Senator in his place.

We will have a storm in a few seconds if this is allowed to continue.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I sincerely hope Senator L'Estrange will keep quiet, and I sincerely hope there will be no storm. I rely on the good sense of Senators on each side of the House.

We will have no storm if the winds do not blow.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

One way to make them blow is to threaten. The Minister, to continue.

It is alleged that free sale is being abolished by this Bill. We have the same old story trotted out here about the shocking thing it is to interfere in any way with the three F's. Let us get down to realities now in this year of 1965 and realise that these much quoted three F's have no longer any reality today. Fixity of tenure, free sale and fair rent were relevant in the days when the Irish farmer was merely a tenant at will and could be turned out on the roadside at the whim of his landlord. If he did any improvements, his rent could be increased. He was in the position of a serf.

We are too inclined to forget that we are dealing here with a congestion problem created largely by the fact that our people were driven to these mountain fastnesses in Cromwellian times. The suggestion that there is something sacrosanct about taking over land has really no validity, in my opinion, in this modern day and age. Every Senator who has any experience of dealing with land knows that for many years one could not subdivide a farm and sell it without the consent of the Land Commission. Where was the free sale there? What is not generally known, apparently, is the provision in section 65 of the 1923 Act, which has been the law of this country since that year. I will quote the relevant provision for the benefit of Senators:

Where the Land Commission have after the date of the passing of this Act made any advance for the purchase of a holding or parcel the proprietor thereof shall not subdivide or let the holding or parcel without the consent of the Land Commission and every attempt at subdivision or letting in contravention of this provision shall be void as against all persons and in any such contravention the holding or parcel shall at the option of the Land Commission vest in them.

Every letting of land was subject to a land purchase annuity since 1923, outside of conacre, which I shall deal with in a moment and which does not appear in the Acts at all. Any letting for a year, two years, or three years, was absolutely void not alone between the parties but as against all comers and the Land Commission could, following the passing of the 1923 Act, resume the land.

That has been the law of this land since 1923 and it has reference to all land which is the subject of a Land Commission annuity. I should say that about 90 per cent of the land of this country is controlled under that provision. It is also true to say that, if you bought off the annuity, you were entitled to subdivide without the consent of the Land Commission. That position became known and some landowners found that, by buying off the annuity, they could fragment their holdings at will. What we are doing under the section in this Bill, and it is something to which some Senators object, is making the one law for all the land in the country. The law against subdivision and fragmentation which applies now to 85 or 90 per cent of the land will apply to all land in future. Because of the misrepresentation that has taken place, one would imagine we were seeking some fantastic power. Nothing could be further from the truth. Could there be anything more illogical than the State providing millions—mark you, this is an expensive business—to build up economic units and, at the same time, allowing anybody at his own will and pleasure to fragment his holding in any way he wishes? It certainly does not make sense to me and I am sure it does not make sense to sensible men inside and outside this House.

The building up of these units should be the concern of all of us. The congestion problem poses one of the greatest social challenges we have to meet. The allegations that this Bill will result in a further depopulation of rural Ireland are completely unfounded. As everyone who lives in a congested area knows, there are several vacant holdings; the people have gone out of them because it was impossible to make a living on them. These armchair critics in our cities and towns, living remote from the realities of the situation, who suggest that our people are prepared to starve in holy poverty on valuations of £2 10/- to £3 are just living in outer space. Why should these people accept the standard of living of their forefathers in famine days?

Those who think young people today will accept that situation have really no knowledge of the true position in the congested areas. Already too many of these have gone. One Senator stated that there are 300 in Leitrim on a waiting list for migration. The same picture obtains in every congested area. To suggest that young people today will starve on these units is to ignore the realities of the situation.

The aim of this Bill is to anchor in the congested areas a population which can survive in modern competitive conditions. I have never suggested that one can provide overnight, or even in the long term, 45 acres of good land for everybody. What I have suggested is that that should be the aim and we should go on building towards that national objective. As a matter of policy, some few years back I directed the Land Commission that future migrants' holdings should be created on the principle of 40 to 45 acres of good land. That should be the aim. That has been done.

We all know this is a matter on which one cannot generalise. As I have said on many occasions, what may be an economic unit in one area, depending upon the type of land and the availability of markets and so on, would not be an economic unit in another area. For instance, in Lusk or Rush, outside Dublin, I am sure you could have a very good viable unit of perhaps five or six acres. The pattern changes from place to place and from time to time but I will get on to some of the rather peculiar figures quoted by Senator Quinlan in a few moments.

On this issue of what can be done and what should be aimed at, I should like to quote a report I received on a follow-up study of some migrants. We asked the local agricultural instructor to make a study from the economic point of view of how certain migrants fared and this is what he said of the area in which he worked. The study was made in the year 1962. He said:

There are many such settlements in the country. The owners are all from the congested areas. They have a will to work and have a market for milk at an average price of 2/-a gallon. They have family farm incomes from £700 to £1,000 per year.

That is net.

Even with a smaller price of 1/6 per gallon a well run farm could achieve the same income.

The instructor deals with townlands, in County Kildare, which were divided among these migrants. They were divided and allocated and many had a poor start, but now, because of the tenants and the markets, the district is one of the best small farm areas in the country. He gives detailed particulars of each migrant family that shared in the division of that particular estate in County Kildare. The lands were divided in 1952 and divided into seven farms with buildings; six had dwelling houses and appropriate outhouses. Four of these farms were 34 acres in area, two were 36 acres and one farm was 56 acres. I should say at that time the aim would have been around 30 to 33 acres of first-class land or an equivalent, if the land was not first class arable land.

The farms were allocated to migrants from the congested western areas of whom three farmers were from Mayo, three from Leitrim and one from County Kerry. The first start off was a system of mixed farming and then they went ahead and got into the dairy business and went on with their own milk production. The standard of farming, he reports, was relatively high. All the land is fertilised each year with balanced fertilisers and the feeding stuff needed on the farm is home-produced and the standard of management and stock keeping is good.

He gives particulars of how each farmer works his land and then proceeds to the financial returns for the year 1961. Farm accounts kept during the year 1961 revealed that the output per acre was about £50, expenses were £20 per acre and the return for the farmer for work management slightly over £30 per acre, that is, about £1,000 per year.

This is an economic report by an independent local agricultural instructor whom we asked to follow up on how these migrants, who came from different congested districts, fared on migration. I am sure if Senator Quinlan were here, he would find it hard to accept that this can be achieved on these compact units. These men came from places of ten to 15 acres, generally fragmented and intermixed with other neighbours' land of cutaway bog, and possibly some right of commonage up to the mountain. The report I have read is an indication of what can be achieved by these men, given a reasonable chance on a compact holding. That could not have been achieved by these people on rundale estates in the west. The place is not there for them; the land is not of that quality. The hope for these men outside migration must lie in the enlargement of their units to give them sufficient liberty to produce as much as they can and make a livelihood that will keep them fixed there on the land. That is the object of this Bill.

It is quite true, as some Senators said, that there is a certain amount of consolidation going on in some congested areas amongst some of these people. That has been going on for a very considerable time and more of it will go on. The difficulty at the moment is that where, for one reason or another, one of these small holdings in the congested areas comes on the market, it is the man with the long purse or the local shopkeeper or people of that kind who are able to buy it and cut out this consolidation which would be a good thing.

One of the sections of this Bill which deals with enticing old or incapacitated landowners to surrender their lands to the Land Commission for the relief of their neighbours has been attacked as being a provision to depopulate the west of Ireland. That section is aimed at old men who are living on their own with nobody to succeed them. Anybody who knows the conditions in these congested districts today knows that contrary to the position 50 years ago, when there was a row between Pat and John as to who would inherit the small farm, today Pat and John are over in Birmingham and are not prepared to come back and take the responsibility of keeping the old people. There are hundreds of these cases across the congested districts and when I read and listen to some of these purists talking about what should be done to entice these people to come back in the economic conditions of the day and settle down on £3 or £4 valuations amongst the rocks in the congested areas, I simply conclude that they do not know what they are talking about. Indeed, these very people invariably would starve to death on small farms in Mayo, Galway or Leitrim, inside 48 hours. They themselves take very good care that they will be far away from the snipe grass in the congested districts.

It is of course refreshing to hear Senator Quinlan quoting Peadar O'Donnell and statistics on this issue. For instance, among all these figures he quoted I got rather confused and lost with the learned professor, as, I feel sure, did many other Senators. A typical instance of the fallacy of the figures being chucked about in this way was his suggestion that we here had the largest average of arable land per farm of any country in the whole of western Europe. He suggested the average acreage of arable land held by our farmers was 40. Of course he forgot the imbalance of our population and land ownership and utterly overlooked the fact that 30 per cent of our best agricultural land is held by eight per cent of our population.

If anybody suggested in the area from which I come that the average acreage of the farmers in the west of Ireland or, indeed, anywhere west of the Shannon, was 40, the people would laugh. It is statistics like these, chucked about without any reality, that create all the smokescreens on this issue. He said we should follow certain lines of thinking on this issue and he admired the preaching of Mr. Peadar O'Donnell on how he would attack this problem.

Mr. Peadar O'Donnell was down in my county not very long ago talking on this issue, again, among an audience not composed of farmers, not composed of those living and working on the land. Indeed, the chairman is reported as having apologised for the absence of farmers at that meeting of the groaners' association, but it is refreshing to hear some of the latter day saints like Mr. Peadar O'Donnell coming down preaching to Mayo farmers about the wonderful spiritual values to be achieved by living on those £3 or £4 valuation holdings.

I do say, of course, that our hardworking farmers have a sense of humour and they are entitled to be entertained. They get a kick out of listening to those people who are prepared to come down, at tremendous expense to the management, to solve our problems for us. They do not stay very long: they take very good care to get back to the cities from whence they have come, but we always like visitors in the west of Ireland and it is an interesting form of entertainment.

Some of the criticisms of some of the sections of the Bill obviously stem from misunderstanding either of what is intended under the particular sections or of the existing law. Some Senators were rather inconsistent in suggesting that this Bill is useless for the purpose which I claim it will serve, while at the same time appealing to me to apply it to their own counties or constituencies, even though they say it will become completely ineffective. That does not make sense.

The reason for the definition section and the schedule to the Bill on the congested areas is that the congested areas are already defined under the 1909 Land Act. These are the real land slums; these were the land slums as defined for the old Congested Districts Board. They were areas in which it was found, because of the poorness of the land and the poverty of the people, that special provision had to be made for them in the old days, even to the extent of getting the people seed.

It is in these areas that we must concentrate our attention from the point of view of priority. They are, of course, the areas from which there is the greatest emigration. I do wish we had people like Senator Quinlan to dish out his brand of statistics to people like my parents who had ten of a family. He says it is not necessary at all to spread out land units. He suggests you should go up, put a spire out of these holdings, I suppose. What will you do with the other nine children if you have a family of ten on a holdings of £5 valuation? They must go somewhere, and of course they do. As I said before, in this day and age they will not come back.

Power is taken here to deal with pockets of congestion no matter where they exist throughout the country. We must, of course, start in the areas where the greatest need is, under the section scheduling an area as being a congested area. Once that is done, by whatever Minister for Lands may be there at the time, the individuals living within that area will be entitled to all the rights, all the privileges provided under this Bill for the congested areas. Therefore, where an area outside the present defined area is scheduled, this differential about paying the economic price, through the rent, for the land will not apply. In the same way, these people will be entitled to avail of the self-migration provisions of the Bill and of the annuities for old, incapacitated landowners.

I said in the Dáil, and I repeat here, that the officials of the Land Commission are making an assessment of these pockets of congestion wherever they are outside the scheduled congested areas and they will recommend in due course which are the most urgent to be dealt with. While I accept what has been said by Senators here and by Deputies in the Dáil, that there are congested pockets here and there in practically every county, I do not accept that there are the same problems, the same intensity of congestion as in the counties scheduled in this Bill.

Down through the years there were different caighdeáin as between the people in the west and in the rest of the country. In the west, the object was to build up to a holding of £10 valuation. We succeeded in doing that in 20 per cent of the cases and there are thousands and thousands of cases to my knowledge where the holdings were vested on valuations of £2 10s., £3 or £4 and were left there, regarded, on being vested, as being off the Land Commission books. Where the land was available in the west, the holdings were brought up to £10 valuations and stopped there, but when you came east of the Shannon, the standard was to be £30 to £33 valuation. In the latter cases, the people had, No. 1, far better land with which to try to help themselves and, No. 2, far bigger valuations. The problem was examined by a far different standard and the people got a far better chance than the people catered for under this Bill.

I concede that the land units in the early days of land settlement by the Land Commission of 22 acres and so on were unrealistic and that in places the Land Commission did create new land slums; but a lot of water has gone under the bridge since those days. We are living in different times now. We are living in an age when a man from my part of the country on a valuation of £3, if he cannot get a reasonable living, will not stay there when inside 24 hours he can be across the water earning £25 or £30 a week. These are the economic laws that regulate the situation in this day and age. Anybody who chooses to ignore those laws is simply living in the clouds.

With these conditions, therefore, it is vitally necessary that we take urgent action to consolidate the population in rural Ireland that can exist there in modern conditions and that we give them as many modern amenities as we can to entice them to remain there. Unfortunately, there are hundreds of small vacant holdings scattered throughout these congested areas. Many of them have been let for 25 or 30 years. We have in this temporary convenience letting the worst system of land user in the whole of western Europe. The people who take these lettings are concerned only with getting as much as they can out of the land while they have it without putting back anything into it, because whoever owns it over in America, England or Australia may let it to a neighbour the following year.

I have had letters from some of these people in Australia and America since the Land Bill has been publicised. These are people who have been gone for 25 or 30 years and whose lands have been let. They talk about preserving the old homestead and what a shocking thing it would be to interfere with it. These people have as much intention of returning to the old homestead as I have of flying to the moon. It is this kind of sentimental thinking that clouds issues of this type. These lands are vital in this day and age to try to build up reasonable units in these areas. These absentees absent for so long are just as detrimental to our nation and economy as were the absentee landlords of old. The nation cannot afford them any longer.

We always get the extreme case posed by public representatives of the widow who needs to let her lands for a few years or the man who becomes ill. It is suggested that this Bill and all these provisions are aimed at these classes of people. Of course, everybody knows that that is utterly ridiculous. The Land Commission do not go after anybody of that kind. They do not go after the man who works his own land. Everyone familiar with this problem knows that the man who is a bad user, who has been absent for years and who lets his land year after year for years, is the type of man the Land Commission get after in all these cases.

The Land Commission do not propose under the powers taken in this Bill to set out acquiring the farm of a widow who is left with a young family in tragic circumstances and has to let her land for one year. Indeed, I would like to see the Minister for Lands who would stand over such a policy. I would like to see the number of questions he would have from the local Deputy inside 24 hours of a Land Commission inspector going near an unfortunate person of that kind.

It is necessary to deal quickly with the case of absentees, and therefore it is necessary to take the powers set out in this Bill. As a practical approach, this has already been done: the Land Commission have been asked to compile a register of lands in the different inspectorate areas that have been let for a period of over five years. The intention is that when this Bill becomes law these people will be written to and asked whether they are prepared to come back to their farms or whether they will sell their lands to the Land Commission for the relief of congestion.

As anybody familiar with Land Commission practice knows—I think Senator Lindsay adverted to this fact —in compulsory acquisition proceedings, even under the existing law, where a man represents he is over in England for the purpose of earning some money to build up his stock or that he has some family tragedy and needs two or three years to get on his feet, in every single case the Land Court adjourns his case for two or three years to see will he live up to his undertaking. I have personal experience of hundreds of such cases. It is true that in many of these cases this excuse is just used for the time being. Indeed, there has been much criticism of the Lay Commissioners for leaning over backwards in giving too much latitude to many of these men who have been gone for a long time and whose cases have been held up and no Land Commission action taken.

The fact remains that the practice now is, and will be in the future, that in any case in which any reasonable excuse is made, the individual concerned will get every chance to come back to his farm, provided the Commissioners are satisfied he has the genuine intention of doing so. At all events, a start has been made to get after all these derelict holdings. If a good inroad is made, it could make a very big impact on the economy of the adjoining landowners in the west. I do not say it will provide the desirable target of a family farm of from 40 to 45 acres of good land, but it can make all the difference between making it possible for a man to live there and to bring up his family and his closing the door because he can see no hope of making progress in the future.

I want to tie up this particular provision with another provision that has been criticised very much here, that is, the one which sets out what is a residential holding and that the individual must live on or within three miles of that holding. Again, it is trotted out by those who want to misrepresent that every man who has what they call in Leinster a draw farm and what we call an outfarm, working it in conjunction with the home farm, will have it taken from him if it is over three miles away. There is nothing further from the truth.

Everybody knows that in many instances the outfarm or the draw farm may be an essential part, where it is properly worked, of the home farm or parent holding. It is a regular pattern throughout rural Ireland and there is no intention whatever of interfering with those people who are living there and working their land. It was necessary for me, however, to devise ways and means to make certain ranches vulnerable for the relief of congestion on which we want to create migrants' holdings. Some of these ranches, some owned by people who do not live in the country at all, but London or Paris or in this city, are let and I am saying that these lands should, where required, be at least vulnerable to the Land Commission for acquisition.

We have many a wealthy businessman doing a fiddle with the tax laws by siphoning off money to these farms, by which he is keeping a leg on the bottom for the future. They are not concerned with the relief of congestion in rural Ireland. They are not living there. Others buy Irish farms and are living abroad for one reason or another. In these cases it was necessary for me to find a definition that would catch these fly-by-nights, and this is it. Again, these powers will not be used to militate against the family farm that is controlled by a family company, as some Senator mentioned. There is no intention of touching these people at all. It is very simple and the Land Commission will know the users of the lands and if an individual farmer who is living there and working on it decides to register a family company and give shares in the company as between his family, that is perfectly all right and these people have nothing to fear.

This definition was necessary to get at the class of people I have mentioned. It is essential to step up our migration programme from the congested areas, more essential now than ever. When we have eight per cent of this class of people owning 30 per cent of the best land in Ireland, I think at least those non-residential people's ranches should be vulnerable to the Land Commission for the relief of congestion before other land is touched.

Again, it has been alleged in the Dáil and outside that these are dictatorial powers and are unprecedented. The law for many a year in this country under previous Land Acts has been that if there is congestion in the immediate vicinity of a farm, whether the man is working it properly or not, or even though he is living there and has no other method of livelihood, the Land Commission have the power to walk in and take that land for the relief of congestion. They talk about free sale and the awful powers in this Bill. That has been the law for many a year in this country. The only relief that man has, if the Land Commission decide to use that power, is under one particular section, and if he has no other means of livelihood and is living on that farm, he is entitled when the Land Commission take over to demand a holding up to a certain value elsewhere from them.

It is quite obvious to me that either some people who have been speaking on this Bill in the Dáil or here do not know the existing land laws or they are misrepresenting some of the powers being sought in this Bill in order to create a smokescreen outside. That at all events is the position as the law stands, and you have defences being removed and criticised here in the "adequates" section by some other Senators. When we come to that particular power and that particular section, these again are necessary if we are to make any progress in solving this land slum problem in our time.

Since I became Minister for Lands, I have spent hours every week the Dáil is sitting answering questions by Deputies on every side of the House as to why certain lands are not taken, and as to what are the reasons for the delay in Land Commission action in all these cases. From these very same people when I produced a Bill to cut this red tape and try to make some impact, we have a song and dance about the three F's. It is rather amusing to hear some people talk about their approval of this Bill, but of course you must not touch the landowner. I should like to see the individual who can produce the omelette without breaking the egg but undoubtedly some of the speakers on this Bill have found a way of doing that. While pressing me and the Land Commission to go ahead and make an impact on the relief of congestion, when we seek the authority and the legal machinery, as we are doing in this Bill, to make an impact on that national problem, then the land of every farmer in Ireland is sacrosanct, whether he lives in Dublin or in Timbuctoo. We must get down to realities on this issue.

I should like the critics to tell me what is wrong in making such lands vulnerable, where the owner has offered the land for sale during the previous 12 months. The man had made up his mind to sell that land. For one reason or another, he did not proceed with the sale. If there is a change in his circumstances, as some Senators suggested here, and if he had family trouble and then things worked out all right, I am sure the Land Commission would be quite sympathetic in any such case of particular circumstances that urged him to sell at a particular time and then caused him to change his mind. But if a man has decided in his wisdom to sell his land, what is wrong with making that land vulnerable for the relief of congestion? I do not suggest that the Land Commission will run in with horse and artillery after every man who puts up his land for sale.

This business has been going on down through the years and the landowners frustrated the Land Commission when they went to move in for the relief of congestion. The pattern was this. A man may have his farm let for five or ten years and maybe growing weeds and thistles among his neighbours, and a report is sent in. Perhaps the neighbours go to the Land Commission. Perhaps a Deputy has made representations after getting information from the people concerned and he goes along to the Land Commission to report this matter and to ask them to consider taking over Pat Browne's land in a certain village. The fire starts there with a junior Land Commission inspector. He has to take the story the way he gets it. It goes up to the senior inspector in that particular office. He decorates that file and passes it on to the divisional inspector. We have four of these men dealing with four different parts of the country. The divisional inspector does his part and passes it on to the senior inspector in Merrion Street. He decorates the file and passes it on to the Lay Commissioners. That is for the purpose of signing a notice that simply says to this man: "On such a day, a Land Commission inspector will call to inspect your lands to see whether they are suitable or not for the relief of congestion." The Commissioners have to authorise this. It goes down the hierarchy the same way—from the chief inspector to the divisional inspector, from the divisional inspector to the senior inspector and from the senior inspector to the junior inspector.

This would take six to 18 months after the poor man came in to report on Pat Browne. The junior inspector goes out and inspects this land. He makes his report on the user of the land, gets the history from the neighbours and that report goes all the way up and ultimately reaches the Lay Commissioners. It is on that report that the Lay Commissioners decide whether they should acquire these lands for the relief of congestion or whether they should leave them alone.

The statistics are that under the existing procedure 50 per cent of these reports finish when they come to the Lay Commissioners. There is no further action ordered by them to take these lands for the relief of congestion and of the other 50 per cent of these reports, where they order the publication of the compulsory acquisition list in Iris Oifigiúil and where they make a follow up for compulsory acquisition, in approximately only one-third of these cases do the Land Commission succeed in getting these lands.

Senators may not be aware that last year and for the last couple of years and particularly since I provided for the payment of auctioneers' fees to those concerned, over 50 per cent of the intake of land to the Land Commission is on a voluntary basis. But, that was the procedure.

I quoted a moment ago the acreage of land involved in cases of this kind in a year. In 1964, the number of acres inspected was 102,194. This was on preliminary inspection to enable the Lay Commissioners of the Land Commission to decide whether they should acquire the lands for the relief of congestion or not, because these commissioners have no other way of ascertaining the facts and because the Land Commission in their wisdom are not prepared to take the representations or the allegations either of the Deputy who calls or the tenants themselves who, naturally, are anxious to get anything that is going for nothing. Everybody is. Therefore, the Lay Commissioners have to wait until they get this independent report on the individual concerned from their own inspector and it is on that that they decide. That will still be the law. It is the Lay Commissioners of the Land Commission and only the Lay Commissioners who can decide after the passage of this Bill what land will be taken and what land will not be taken.

What I am doing in this section which is being criticised so much and about which all these allegations are made as to how I will get after my political enemies by having their lands inspected, is that instead of this accruing red tape from the junior inspector to the senior inspector, to the Lay Commissioners of the Land Commission, I am taking power to delegate the signing of this notice to the four divisional inspectors in charge of the four parts of our country for Land Commission purposes so that if the local people come into the local office and say, for instance, that Pat Murphy is advertising his land for sale this week and it is badly wanted for the relief of congestion, that junior official can pick up his phone and ring the divisional inspector, wherever his office is, and the divisional inspector can there and then sign the preliminary notice to enable the junior inspector to go out and make a report on that land. That report, in the very same way as is done now, goes up to the Lay Commissioners and it is on that report and on that report only that the Lay Commissioners will decide whether that land should be taken for the relief of congestion or not.

I pointed out that last year there were 102,194 acres inspected. It is suggested by my political enemies in the Dáil and here that I will burn the midnight oil going through these cases, finding out by the colour of the handwriting as to which of them are Fine Gaelers, and which are Fianna Fáilers and which communists.

This is what is being aimed at in this section and the very people who are my loudest critics in every Land Commission debate in the Dáil, and on every Estimate, about the failure of the Land Commission to move in and to take these farms, about the slowness of the Land Commission, about how crude a machine they were, about how hopeless they were in dealing with this problem, are the men who are preaching the awful thing it is that this power should be given for the divisional inspector to sign a notice authorising the junior official to go in and make a report quickly, to see are the lands of X suitable or unsuitable for the relief of congestion.

Incidentally, this proposition rather amuses me: I will be inundated, according to the Opposition Deputies and Senators, with pressure from my own Party, from my own henchmen. to have all the lands of all my political enemies inspected throughout the length of this land. What is political pressure? Is it political pressure for Deputy Dillon to arrive in my office week in, week out, and demand that such land be inspected for the relief of congestion? He does it and so do 90 per cent of the Fine Gael Deputies and, I am sure, Senators, representing rural Ireland. That is their job. I get questions, week in, week out, in the Dáil asking me why X's land should not be acquired for the relief of congestion. What greater political pressure is there than that? The owner is publicly crucified. The question of his land is put before Dáil Éireann, before the Minister for Lands, and a demand made that that land should be acquired for the relief of congestion. I wonder can we ever get away from the political "mist that does be on the bog" in connection with the land, when we all know that these are the facts and the realities.

The Minister was very good at it when he was in Opposition.

I was not bad. I did my share of it. I am telling the Seanad and the country what I propose to do but when I see the crocodile tears shed about the political head of the Department of Lands becoming concerned for the first time, as is alleged here, with taking over land or the inspection of land, I wonder have our friends over there completely lost their memories because I was in Dáil Éireann in 1950 when the 1950 Land Act was being passed. It was not a question of power by the political head to order inspections but, for the first time since the foundation of this State, power was taken away from the Land Commissioners and given to the then political head of the Land Commission to have the final say in the rearrangement of all the land in the congested areas. For the first time since the foundation of this State the special exempted power that was reserved to the Land Commission to deal with rundale estates, to deal with rearrangement, was given to the political head of the Irish Land Commission, the then Minister for Lands.

It was suggested in the Dáil when I pointed this out—I attacked it at that time because that was not a question of inspecting the lands; it was a question of deciding whether Pat should get four acres or John five acres—that this was to hurry up these rearrangement schemes. The fact remains that on a rearrangement scheme, even though you must get agreement, the Land Commission inspector tells any recalcitrant man who is not prepared to take what he is getting: "If you do not take that, we will wipe you out and you will get nothing." This was one of the reserved powers taken from the Lay Commissioners of the Land Commission at that time and given to the political head.

That, I am sure, gave rise to the story in the west, talking about what has been alleged against Fianna Fáil cumainn here, that the boys of whatever kind of cumann they called it there gathered around the ashes and the chief henchman got out the tongs and stroked out a patchwork and said: "John, that is for you; Pat, that is for you." But then Jim came in with a letter from Joe and he struck it all out. That could be done only by the power that was given by the then Dáil to the then Minister for Lands. These are the people who are frightening the whole of Ireland about this shocking power that I am taking to delegate to senior inspectors the right to sign this preliminary notice enabling the junior inspector to inspect lands and to send his report up to the Lay Commissioners. I think that should put this power and this section in perspective for the Senators who are interested in this matter.

Senator Stanford made the point, and I am sure he was sincere in making it, that he was concerned about the power of people to make conacre lettings. Again, there has been misrepresentation about this. Any lawyer who knows anything about the Land Acts knows that conacre lettings were always outside the Land Acts. It is asked by some people that if this is so, why should I not write it into the measure. Why should I write something into the measure which would indicate to any lawyer that he did not know what he was talking about?

A temporary convenience letting for 11 months, or what we call in the west of Ireland the eatage of the grass, does not create a tenancy under the Land Acts and never did. It is not within this Bill at all. People will be free to make conacre lettings as they always did and they are not being interfered with. I have been saying that until I am blue in the face.

I have found from experience with this Bill that, when you are dealing with people who keep repeating a lie in the hope that somebody will believe it, they are right. With matters that were quite clear to me and which I just wrote off by denying them, I found some people were frightened outside. That is why I have to keep harping on these legal truths under this Bill so that the public will not be codded any longer by allegations.

Some Senators have made suggestions which I propose to deal with on the Committee Stage about primary and secondary annuities and about bringing cousins and illegitimate children within the definition of this Bill for that purpose. I shall consider what has been said. I thought over this matter. I have suggested to people— not in the Dáil but to people who have made these suggestions to me outside the House—that there is a simple way for those concerned to make provision for these people if they so desire.

If he contemplates taking an annuity, the landowner can make a simple deed giving the individual concerned—whoever he or she may be, a cousin or an illegitimate child—an interest in the land. That will enable the Land Commission to provide this secondary annuity for the cousin or for the illegitimate child, or indeed for some people who might not be any relation at all. Consider, as sometimes happens, a farmer, particularly if he is getting on in years and has nobody living with him, who takes a child out of the county home or possibly out of some reformatory or some school like Letterfrack and in due course becomes attached to the child and is anxious to make provision for him. In a case of that kind, although the child would not be a drop's blood to the person concerned, a legal way of enabling that child to participate in the annuity that has been suggested here would simply be to give the child a joint ownership in the lands immediately before the annuity is fixed. I mention that for the sake of those Senators who were evidently under the impression that there is no way at all of dealing with cousins or illegitimate children.

A number of criticisms were made which are really matters of administration and do not come within the ambit of the Bill. I shall deal with roads and bridges first. It has been suggested that the Land Commission go away and leave them but should maintain them. That was never the position. The Land Commission are not a road maintenance authority and never were. In the division of an estate where there are improvement works which are very costly—draining, fencing and where perhaps a new road is made by the Land Commission— the work is done out of the improvement Grant in the Budget Estimate for which the tenant pays pretty dearly.

I concede straight away that there is a loss on resale in practically all of these cases of 25 per cent or more but, as far as these roads and fencing and drains are concerned, the Budget Estimate for improvements is a very substantial figure. The Land Commission do a reasonably good job there but then it is for the local authority to take over these roads and to maintain them. The Land Commission has not the staff, the machinery or the engineers to do any such work. In most of these cases, I think the local authority move in and take over.

Under our regulations—certainly since I became Minister for Lands— the roads being made will qualify for taking over. Under the new Planning Act, my people have to consult— they already do, where they can— with the officials of the local authority where they are making a lay-out of this kind.

The section wiping out the liability of the Land Commission in certain cases has been misunderstood by some Senators. That section has been inserted because of a gentleman in County Roscommon named Kelly who has a strong sense of litigation. There was a drain that was cleaned by the Land Commission in the rearrangement of land and they had moved away for years. However, Mr. Kelly's poor cow fell into this drain and he brought an action against the Land Commission and succeeded. By the time that was sorted out, another cow fell into it and Mr. Kelly brought a second action. This section is not designed for the purpose, as some Senators seem to think, of unloading something on to public authorities that was not their liability before.

Senators will see the absurdity of the position where the Land Commission have rearranged an estate, possibly brought in migrants, made drains, carried out improvement works, have gone away and have not the right to go inside the gate, and there is suddenly started a liability of some kind like Kelly's cow. Whether she went in or was pushed in, I do not know. It was a good while ago. The fact remains that it was necessary to provide against such a situation and that is the purpose of the section.

I do not know if there are any points that have been made that I have not dealt with. If there are, I can deal with them on Committee Stage. These powers sought in the situation which I have envisaged are absolutely necessary if the Land Commission are not to be stultified in building up the land pool for the relief of congestion in these areas. It has been suggested, I think by Senator Quinlan, that in other countries this does not happen, and he referred particularly to Italy. I do not know anything about Italy but in the other countries of Western Europe I know of, they have a law, and a very strict law, about land user. They have it even in England. Where land is let go wild, into rack and ruin, it is invariably taken over by an agricultural committee on their recommendation, and that goes for the Scandinavian countries and indeed for Holland where they charge the full cost of the reclamation of the polders from the sea to the persons who are to get any of that land. Not alone must they pay the full cost of it but they must show to the authority there that they have the agricultural training, the experience and the capital to work that land intensively and if they do not do so, they will get it where the chicken got the axe.

Senator Quinlan suggested that the landowners in Italy were not vulnerable, that they were not touched at all and that they were completely sacrosanct as far as their land units were concerned. I cannot see that there is any comparison between the farmers in southern Italy and farmers in Ireland. It is just as realistic to compare the conditions of the Chinaman with a quarter acre of rice who is prepared to put up with these living conditions as it is to compare our farmers with those in Italy. At all events a society which produced a Mr. Capone of the Mafia or a Mr. Valachi of Cosa Nostra or in fact whose conditions have produced the largest Communist Party outside the Iron Curtain does not particularly appeal to me. If the Senator is right, I think they left it too long without interfering with the land structure in Italy. At all events, we do not propose to do this here.

The aim of this Bill is to speed up the work of the Land Commission and to enable the Land Commission to deal expeditiously with building up national land units and relieving this terrible land slum problem we have in these congested areas which is due to our history. The nation owes immediate relief to these people. If we do not move quickly and if we do not get these powers to make these lands vulnerable to deal with the problem, then there will be an exodus of these people that cannot possibly be stopped. This is a practical way of doing it and I am glad that in the main, with a few exceptions, Senators appreciate the aims and objects of this Bill.

Question put and agreed to.
Committee Stage ordered for Wednesday, 3rd February, 1965.
The Seanad adjourned at 5.45 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 3rd February, 1965.
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