I move amendment No. 16:
In subsection (1), lines 46 and 47, to delete "sublet or subdivided" and substitute "sublet, or subdivided into holdings of less than the equivalent of 30 acres of arable land.
Section 12 relates to the prohibition of letting, subletting or subdivision of certain holdings without the consent of the Land Commission. In this amendment I am concentrating on the question of subdivision and I am suggesting to the House that the consent of the Land Commission should not be necessary for subdivision where the area concerned is not more than 30 acres of arable land.
I cannot see any good reason why the Land Commission should come into such a question. In fact, this represents a type of development that we should be very quick to foster in this country — the voluntary subdivision of some of the larger farms — because I do not think you need very many statistics to show that the output goes up as the size of the larger farm reduces. It is becoming almost impossible today on the larger farm units to avail fully of all the advances of science and all the scope for intensification which can be availed of to the fullest on the family-sized farms. Consequently, the Government in this Bill, far from putting any obstacles in the way of subdivision, should give it positive encouragement and there should be no question at all of getting the authority of the Land Commission where the area concerned is of the equivalent of 30 acres of arable land.
We have read statements in the past by authoritative figures in our national life on the obstacles put in the way of subdivision by the Land Commission. In fact, I think Most Reverend Dr. Lucey has spoken against them on many occasions. There have been denials by the Minister concerned that there were any obstacles or any procrastination on the part of the Land Commission. I consider we are entitled to an explanation from the Minister on the procedures adopted in the case of subdivision and the reason for the delay at present in regard to them.
Now to come to the 30 acre sized farm. Thirty acres is just the upper limit. Below this limit it should be possible to have subdivision. It is reasonable that the Land Commission might be asked to pronounce on the feasibility of this. It is possible to have subdivision below 30 acres where an adequate viable unit has been created and where the local agricultural instructor certifies to this, that the conditions of the land are such that it can provide a living and also that it takes full account of any enterprises like a large scale pig unit or market gardening or other activities that considerably increase the effective output of the farm.
First, let us concentrate on amendment No. 16. I put the limit at 30 acres. In doing this I am trying by every means possible to counteract the nationally disastrous policy of the Government in pronouncing that you require 40 to 45 acres of arable land for a family sized holding. That policy cannot be condemned too strongly, and that is why in this section I want to protect voluntary subdivision from the disastrous effects of that policy.
In looking at such a policy we have to take the over-all picture into account. That shows that of the farms in Europe in the Common Market area Belgium has 82 per cent of its holdings under 25 acres and the percentage for France is 53, for West Germany 77, and for the Netherlands 69. We with 54 per cent of our holdings under 25 acres are, indeed, very favourably placed in that picture. This shows up again the disastrous impact that this idea that nothing under 40 to 45 acres is viable can have on our national thinking. It can have the great psychological effect on our whole agricultural community. I must here quote what I think is the best that I have got on this matter, and that is the Minister himself two years ago, when he gave what I consider a very rational and fine pronouncement on what was an economic farm. It is in the NFA Yearbook, 1960, and it was considered so good and so pertinent by the Land Commission that it was published in the Land Commission Report for 1961. There are parts of this that really typify my whole argument here. I believe that the Minister meant exactly every word he said, and I know positively from experience in farm apprenticeship schemes and elsewhere that they represented the consensus of thinking in the Department of Lands at that period. The Minister said:
In my view it is as fallacious to generalise that a businessman's future success must be in direct ratio to the foot frontage or floor space of his shop as it is to lay down a standard unit of land upon which any occupant—or even the majority of them — is bound to succeed economically. All we can do is to speculate on the desirable minima in our circumstances and, due to the limited amount of land available, we must be extremely careful to cut our national cloth according to our measure. I feel that getting the area together in a compact workable unit, as is done under rearrangement schemes by the Irish Land Commission——
and as also would be done under the process of voluntary subdivision—
is even more important economically than the actual extent of the unit, as it enables the occupier to utilise his time and endeavour to best economic advantage with resultant higher output return.
The Minister then quoted from an agricultural attache who had spent nine years in Denmark and who said:
Denmark is a country of small farms—of a total of some 200,000 about a half are less than 25 acres. The typical Danish smallholder's farm would be about 15 acres, he would keep about 7 milking cows, fatten some 20 pigs a year and keep a flock of 200 hens.
The Minister was quoting from an article published in 1956 by Mr. Ronald Ede, who was British agricultural attache in Copenhagen for nine years. The Minister continued:
It is beyond doubt that the farming economy of one of our main competitors on the European market is largely based on units of under 25 acres. In Denmark, too, the minimum area considered necessary as a viable unit is as low as 8 hectares —— equivalent to 20 statute acres — but this may have to be increased somewhat. We are very fond of quoting what the Danes can produce and how well they can do it. Would the lesson to be learned not appear to be that it is not so much the size of our holdings here that matters as how we utilise them? At all events, on the foregoing figures there cannot be much realism in the view that 33 acres of good Irish land is inadequate for a viable holding.
I completely endorse the Minister's view on that. I appeal to him to get his colleagues in the Cabinet to return to that viewpoint as soon as possible before irreparable damage has been done to the Irish farming framework. The Minister also said:
If it becomes generally accepted in rural Ireland that no farmer could live reasonably on less than say 50 or 70 acres of land the psychological effect would be to turn thousands more of our young people away from the profession of farming as a way of life.
Again he is perfectly correct and we should watch very much in the future this point. The Minister gave another considered view when he said:
Indeed there is some statistical support for this view in past experience. Some few years ago the size of standard holdings for Land Commission allotment purposes was generally raised from 25 statute acres of good land (or its equivalent in land of varied quality) to 33 statute acres (or similar equivalent). About that time, too, some economists and armchair theorists began preaching the doctrine that there is no future for successful agriculture except upon large units of land completely mechanised.
It may not, therefore, be pure coincidence that the latest full Census of Population confirmed a striking acceleration in the drift from the land as borne out by the census statistics.
That was the opinion of the Minister at that period, and I want to know what influence in the past two years caused such a drastic change in Government policy. We might accept that a drastic impact might be made by a considered scientific judgment, but that is not so in the present case, because all the results published by the Agricultural Institute in the past two or three years have stressed the fact that far more could be produced out of our acres than we dreamed could be produced. The Agricultural Institute show facts and figures and experiments to prove that the case quoted by the Minister of the 33 acre Land Commission farm in Meath is not by any means a unique achievement. In fact, it is quite commonplace according to the advice and teaching of the Agricultural Institute.
It is quite reasonable to expect people to make £30 an acre, and have a family income on a 30 acre farm of £900. As long as we have people raising families in the cities on £10 or £12 a week, we cannot say that 30 acres of land which are capable of producing £18 a week is too small for a farmer to live on. There is no consistency there. This is wasting our greatest national resource and, consequently, I appeal to the Minister to exclude voluntary subdivision above 30 acres of really good arable land from this disastrous policy. If a farmer wishes to subdivide we should encourage him to do so.
Let us consider the position of a farmer with 60 to 70 acres of good land who has got two sons at home. We know that in the past it was more or less a dogma of the agricultural community that a son should not occupy a farm which was smaller than his father's farm, no matter what size his father's farm was. It was always accepted that the farm would go to one son, and something else would be done for the rest of the family. If another son wanted to go into agriculture, we had to try to procure an additional farm for him. That was before we realised what could be done by intensification. Now we try to get the farmer to see that if he subdivides his land he will have adequate capital, and he can still produce a very fine living. He can have his two sons living side by side where they can co-operate, and thereby make a greater success of the business.
I am contending that the man with 60 acres is entitled to do that if he wants to. If he gives his farm to one son, the task of getting a 40 acre farm for his other son is enormous. It is the equivalent of finding £10,000. The first son on the home farm would be left heavily in debt, and the second son would start off in a similar position. Neither would be able to work his land intensively, but if the farm were subdivided it would be quite possible to build a house under the small dwellings schemes, and the capital which would be required to intensify would be only a fraction of the capital required to acquire land for the second son. If the farm were subdivided there could be practical co-operation between the two sons. It would ensure an efficient and highly productive 60 acre unit. The two sons would be in a position to start one of the more intensive enterprises, such as pig or poultry production. Some very impressive figures were given in the public Press recently by the Minister for Agriculture in regard to poultry production.
I am appealing to the Minister to exempt holdings above 30 acres from the scope of the Land Commission in my first amendment. My second amendment seeks to delete subsection (2). The general principle is that the Land Commission, in deciding whether to give permission, should get a report from the local agricultural inspector. Some of the questions to be asked are: what type of family income does the proposed subdivision offer, and what scheme has the prospective occupant got in mind for intensification? Having got that information, the Land Commission would be in a position to approve the subdivision. If the chief agricultural officer of the county, on the advice of the local agricultural inspector, certified that the scheme would provide a family sized income, the Minister should automatically accept his recommendation.
I am afraid subsection (2) might be used in a disastrous fashion. It provides:
The power of the Land Commission to withhold their consent under this section shall be so exercised as to prevent the creation or continuance of holdings which, in the opinion of the Land Commission, are not economic holdings.
Land Commission and Government policy are tied down to the idea that an economic holding must be greater than 40 acres. I am afraid subsection (2) will be wrongfully used, and I think it should be removed from the Bill. Therefore, I commend the two amendments to the House.