I do not want to trespass on the patience of the Chair by going into a wide discussion on this matter. We shall no doubt, when we come to other sections of the Bill, be able, within the rules of order, to have a fuller discussion on this matter. What I just wanted to do was to take this opportunity of informing the Senators who raised this matter, which I unfortunately neglected to deal with when I was replying to the Second Stage of this Bill, that in the allocation of estates we are conscious of the desirability of facilitating the purchase of these big houses by people who are able to maintain them by allowing sufficient land with them.
I am sure many Senators will have the view of the taxpayer which I want to put on this section. Let me reiterate that there is no comparison between the people in non-congested areas such as Counties Meath and Kildare and the people in the congested areas of the west. As I pointed out in the discussion on other sections of the Bill, down through the years there were different standards applied by the Land Commission to people in the non-congested areas from those applied to people in the congested areas. When I pointed out that the standard to be aimed at in the congested areas was £10 valuation for the type of land that was there, just like under this Bill my standard for a family holding was 40 to 45 acres. That may be something to be wished for because we all know in the congested areas throughout the country, it will certainly take a long time to achieve that. That target may never be achieved in many cases. At any rate it is a very desirable aim. We must keep in mind the target or aim, or caighdeán, as we say in Irish, in the congested areas was £10 valuation. There are thousands of cases in the same congested areas that were vested and written off by the Land Commission where rearrangement was achieved on £3, £4 or £5 valuation, which is utterly unrealistic in this day and age. That was the best they could do in accordance with what they had available at the time but there was one rule for these unfortunates in the congested areas. It was an entirely different rule in these areas from that applied where land was divided in the eastern parts of the country. Without gilding the lily at all, there was a vast difference between the land of Meath and Kildare and that in the congested areas of the west.
In addition to all this, you have in the non-congested areas that vital thing, the availability of markets. If you look at the Schedule to this Bill, you can take it by and large that many of these counties on the western seaboard, including the Gaeltacht areas, are very remote from markets, centres of population and many of the economic advantages that people in the midlands and the east of this country have.
Senators will realise there is a vast difference in having a few acres of highly productive land within striking distance of a market for a vast variety of products and having the same amount of land of a very indifferent nature situated in such remote parts of the country that the cost of transport alone would virtually write off any reasonable outlay for intensified agricultural production.
What Senator Boland stated is quite true, that down through the years, where competition was keen for the land, in very many instances the Land Commission were frightened off purchasing or taking over an estate or a farm on the mere ground of economics. Having paid all that money for it, having considered what the resale value would be to the tenants, what the loss on resale to the Land Commission would be, taking into account not alone the price which was highly inflated in the Land Commission's opinion but also the loss on resale and the vast improvements that would have to be done, they just pulled out. Indeed, the Land Commission have to this day that power built into the Land Act.
As Senators well know, under compulsory acquisition, for the relief of congestion, a person whose land is being acquired has the right to appeal to the Appeal Tribunal and produce evidence before a judge of the High Court, if he is not satisfied with the price offered. It is the judge who determines the market value of the land. If the Land Commission in that instance are of the opinion that the amount fixed by the judge is excessive, that it would make that land too expensive for Land Commission purposes, then they have the right to withdraw. They have in fact done so on many occasions and still do so from time to time.
Let me compliment Senator L'Estrange, in this connection, for his long memory and research into what I said on the 1950 Act in the Dáil. Let me also assure him my system of finding the market value of land is the one applied by the High Court at the present time and that I was wise in my time in advocating that particular type of way of arriving at the market value of land. I have had several deputations from time to time on this question. I distinctly remember receiving a deputation, before we took over Oak Park Estate in Carlow, which, I think, could well be classified as a typical case for the purposes of my argument of land being taken over in non-congested areas, portion of which would be used to deal with what we call local congestion in the vicinity of it.
There was a substantial take-over in this case but before the land was taken over, these people assured me — I accepted what they told me — they were paying from £20 to £25 per acre per year, year in year out, for conacre, to enable them to make a reasonable livelihood. Most of them had smallish farms. Of course, their land was quite good but the vast majority of them— at all events, all those who were on that deputation — represented that the general pattern in the area was that they were paying these outlandish rents for conacre. They assured me, irrespective of the price that might be paid by the Land Commission for that land, they would be very happy if the Land Commission took it over and enabled them to get an addition from these lands. They, like country people generally, had things worked out and were quite satisfied they would be paying nothing like £25 per acre on what they would get from the Land Commission. It would certainly be much less.
I have had that same proposition put to me week in and week out by people all over the country in non-congested areas, and indeed even in congested areas, where one can understand that view because of the intense land hunger. I have letters each week asking me to urge the Land Commission to take over or purchase certain land, irrespective of the price, and that they would be very happy to pay the economic price for it. Of course, when you strip this business of any sentimentality, why should they not be because they know, and it has been happening, that unless the Land Commission step in, in cases of this kind, such land is acquired by the big farmers, the big shopkeepers and the big local gombeen man expanding all the time?
These people realise, if they are to solve their problems, they must rely on the intervention of the Land Commission. Some of them rely on themselves and by their own efforts and by the help of emigrants' remittances and one thing and another to build up their own user of land. But I think, in this day and age, from the taxpayers' point of view it is quite a fair proposition that outside the congested areas, where there is no question of rundale or rearrangement but just a question of people on land who desire to get more land, the Land Commission should provide the wherewithal, in other words, finance them — because that is what the taxpayer is doing — in getting that addition with payments repayable by very easy instalments over a period of 60 years.
I think it was Senator Stanford — and, possibly, others — who made the point that, perhaps, after a number of years the position of migrants should be re-examined. However, I shall come to them in a moment. I want to finish with the people in the non-congested areas who are desirous of enlarging their holdings or improving their standard of living, in other words. Let me remind the House that under our new standard of a family farm of 40 to 45 acres a greatly increased number will now be regarded as uneconomic and in these non-congested areas you will have numbers of people who, perhaps, now have what we might call very good holdings in the west — holdings of 33 or 35 acres of good land — and many of these people will now ask the Land Commission, where local lands come on the market, to step in and acquire these lands to bring their holdings up to the national standard that we are trying to achieve. It would not be a bad thing if the State put up the necessary money and acted as banker for these people—because that is what we would be doing—to enable them, through the Land Commission, to improve their lot.
So far as I have met them and so far as the representations go that have been made to me, these people are quite willing and would be quite happy if the Land Commission would aid them in this way. Those who are concerned here with helping people in non-congested areas—apart from the intensely congested pockets to which I have already referred and which can be dealt with by a declaration under section 4, I think — would do well to reflect on the other side of the penny, if this section was not there because I have pointed out that the Land Commission is there, and, indeed, its predecessors in title, the Congested Districts Board was there, for the purpose of relieving congestion.
There is a very substantial demand on the taxpayer year in year out to deal with this problem. Use of any of that money outside the congested areas will inevitably slow down the work to a lesser or greater degree of solving the problem in the congested areas which is the primary problem of the Land Commission. Therefore, if Senators are wise in providing a means of helping these people who, however we regard them in the west as being economic must be regarded at this present time as not being up to family farm size, then this section, as Senator Boland has said, will be a great aid to them because the Land Commission in this situation will undoubtedly purchase places notwithstanding the competition of the local wealthy shopkeeper or the local large farmer, that they would not touch if this section was not there because the Land Commission budget is not unlimited; indeed, a very substantial amount goes every year. I think that out of approximately £3 million that my colleagues in Government gave me last year to deal with this problem at least £1 million went on this subsidisation at the taxpayers' expense.
I want to make quite clear that not alone do I think this proposition is a fair one for the people in the non-congested areas considering their position, the chance they had through the years, considering the vast difference financially that proper land utilisation can make to them in comparison with their poorer cousins in the congested areas, but I can assure the House that what I have said about the representations received from people of this kind shows that they are quite willing to pay the full economic price if the Land Commission comes in and stands between them and the man with the long purse. They would be quite happy if the Land Commission steps in to enable them to achieve their heart's desire by getting a portion of the lands for sale.
Coming back to congestion and the migrants, I think I said yesterday that Senators might be surprised at the fact that it is not, in many cases, easy to get migrants to agree to cross the Shannon and start a new life in holdings over here. Senators may have thought I was rather facetious in saying that many of these people regard Meath and Kildare as backward places but I can assure the House that I was quoting the words of these people to me. They say that they have their own way of living in the west, that they have friendly neighbours and so on and many of them would regard being transported to Kildare in much the same light as if they were asked to live out their lives in the Congo.
