Land Bill, 1963: Committee Stage (Resumed).

SECTION 13.

Mr. Fitzpatrick

I move amendment No. 29:

To add to the section a new subsection as follows:

"( ) This section shall not apply to the transfer by an owner of land to the child of that owner."

As the Seanad is aware, section 13 of this Bill suspends dealings with lands where a provisional list under subsection (2) of section 40 of the Land Act, 1923, had been published until the termination of the proceedings under the Land Acts for the acquisition of the lands and it also suspends dealings with lands for a period of three months where a notice has been served following an inspection. The object of my amendment is to provide that that suspension shall not apply to the transfer of the land in question from father to child. I do not think this should be very contentious and I am hopeful that the Minister will see fit to accept it. I presume that the object of section 13 is to ensure that the position of the Land Commission will not be adversely affected following the publication of the list or the service of the notice by a transfer by the owner of the land to some third person. Presumably, the position of the Land Commission could be adversely affected if a person, who was not working the land properly himself or was not residing within three miles of the land itself, sold and transferred the land to another person who was prepared to work it properly or to live on it. I do not think there should be any objection to that if the transfer is from the owner of the land to his own child.

As a matter of fact, it might be a good thing in certain circumstances if the hand of the owner who was not making use of the lands and was not residing on them were forced a little to make him transfer to a member of his own family. I think, by and large, it is a good thing that farmers' sons should be encouraged to succeed their fathers in the ownership and working of family farms. I could see the force of the Minister's point in preventing the Land Commission being prejudiced, as I have said, by a sale to a complete outsider, but I strongly urge on the Minister and on the House that a sale on a transfer by a father to a son is in a totally different category and should be treated as such.

The Land Commission will not be prejudiced if the son who succeeds does not work the farm or does not reside on it. They can only be prejudiced if the son who succeeds the father under the transfer operates on a different basis to his father, operates on lines which would make it unreasonable for the Land Commission to take over the land. If the son who acquired from the father under the transfer did that I think it is highly desirable and should be encouraged.

Mr. McDonald

I should like very much to support this amendment. For years back agricultural organisations and people interested in stemming the flight from the land have been advocating that the farmers' sons should be encouraged to marry at an early age, and time and time again I have heard lecturers advocating that farmers should build a separate house on the farm and transfer portion of the farm to a son and make him take on responsibilities of his own.

People who have an interest in the preservation of the population in rural Ireland are certainly of the opinion that unless the marrying age of the Irish farmer is reduced and unless they marry at a younger age the position will continue to deteriorate. I can see where a young man wants to marry and if this section is passed as it is a farmer will be prevented from transferring, shall we say, portion of the holding to his son and thereby the arrangements will have to be left in abeyance for a matter of months. Anyone who knows the temperament of the older Irish farmers must surely realise that it is difficult to get round some of these older people to even consider making a transfer of this kind.

If this transfer is made more difficult by introducing a freezing period of three months plus, I think the entire job would be altogether more difficult. I feel if the Minister accepts this amendment it will certainly not cut across the policy we have been advocating over the past few years and the efforts that have been made. Muintir na Tíre made a very exacting survey in County Limerick a few years ago on this particular marriage settlement question. The farming community have constantly been told the way these problems are tackled in other countries. If this Bill is now to more or less put a stop to that practice, which has only recently started in this country, I think it would be a retrograde step. I would, therefore, ask the Minister to accept this amendment which will in my opinion in no way interfere with the section.

Mr. Cole

I have a great deal of sympathy with this amendment. I imagine the Minister would like to modify considerably the qualifications of the child and the prospects of whether he or she will make a good farmer and make proper use of the land. All of us know places—I know them myself—where sons, who would normally succeed, have gone away from the farm because they could not get any support for making greater use of the more modern methods of farming. They left their fathers, not because they could not agree on other matters, but that they could not get any support for any progressive use of the farm.

If this amendment were accepted I believe it would help considerably a great many of those cases. I do not believe, as Senator Fitzpatrick has mentioned, that it will hold up the work of the Land Commission very much. They can limit it to a term and if there is no change made in the use of the land they can then apply to take over the land. I should like to support the amendment but I should like something done in regard to the qualifications of the child.

Mr. Desmond

I consider the amendment, as set out by Senator Fitzpatrick, a reasonable one. In fact, it could be said that it is more than reasonable. As I, and I am sure others, understand the position, a farmer or the owner of land coming to what he regards as the end of his days decides to make a will. He is naturally anxious that the property, whether it is large or small, should go to the right person. In some cases it does not happen that the man makes a will but in 99 per cent of the cases it happens that way. The man usually gives his property to some member of his family. Very often he gives it to the eldest, who is usually a son, if he is on the land with him. Even if he is not on the land, it is natural that he will give it to one of the family.

The amendment says a child of the owner but we all know—and I am sure the Minister himself knows—of cases where there may be no family but there might be a nephew or, perhaps, a brother's child, whether it is a boy or a girl, helping that man, who had no family of his own. That relation lived happily with the man. That owner, knowing that individual very well, knowing the services rendered to him, would like to leave the place to him. I do not know where the Lay Commissioners would come in there at all. That has not been the practice. I do not believe the Minister has ever received any complaint that there have been abuses in matters of that kind. It may not have gone completely right in some cases because family relations did not agree with the will. Somebody would, perhaps, think it was a different member of the family who should have been considered as the owner but I have never heard of any case in the country outside of that where there might be a dispute. There might be something to be said if there was a question of a stranger coming in from some place.

An Cathaoirleach

The Senator must come to the amendment before the House.

Mr. Desmond

I am just trying to build up a case around the amendment, to show that there might be some case of abuse. I consider the amendment is reasonable and I should be very glad to hear what case the Minister can make with regard to it.

Mr. Mooney

I personally do not consider there is any need for the amendment in view of the fact that when notice is served on the owner, he will have to show reason why he can transfer or sell his farm. I have no doubt the Commissioners are sympathetic enough with every case that is put to them. One of the things which struck me about the Bill is that we are spending so much time on small things, trying to create a problem where there is no problem, that we are not concentrating on the solution which the Bill was intended to provide — the relief of congestion. There are people waiting for the passage of this Bill to get some benefit from it. At the rate we are going we will still have some of the speakers on the Opposition side having something to talk about and delaying the passage of the Bill.

Mr. L'Estrange

That was uncalled for.

Mr. Mooney

The owner of the land, when the notice is served on him, can explain why he is selling and to whom.

Mr. Fitzpatrick

Before the Minister replies I should like to say something arising out of Senator Cole's contribution. The amendment, as drafted, is narrow enough and it does not need any further restrictions. If the son, to whom the farm is transferred, does not own the farm, does not reside on the farm on which the father did not reside then he will be in no better position than the father and the Land Commission will be in no worse position.

Minister for Lands (Mr. Moran)

There are obviously some very naïve Senators in this House and I do not believe Senator Fitzpatrick, who moved this amendment, is one of them. The section is designed to deal with one of the greatest abuses we have in this country, that is frustrating the Land Commission, jumping the legal gun because of the red tape which is involved in this process at the present time. It has been conceded by anybody who is concerned with this particular Bill that a section like this is essential. The only argument we have had about this section was on the length of the freezing period. I had a deputation from the National Farmers Association to discuss this matter with me and they afterwards wrote to me:

We appreciate the necessity of empowering the Land Commission to take prompt and effective action in certain circumstances but we consider that the Land Commission prohibition under this section on transfer, letting and subletting should be limited to one month.

I indicated in the Dáil that the freezing period would be six months but as a result of the discussion with the NFA that was reduced to three months on Report Stage with certain provision set out in the section for a further period in certain circumstances. The mover of the amendment tries to convey the impression that the case he is contemplating here is that of the normal working farmer in the occupation of a normal farm, which, of course, is completely at variance with the type of people we propose to deal with under this section.

After the passage of the Bill, there will be no more intention on the part of the Land Commission to move in on any ordinary working farmer who is working his land according to the usual methods of husbandry, and has his residence on the land. There is no intention whatsoever to attack that kind of man, and such a man has adequate defences open to him under the law. The law now is, and has been for quite a long time, that irrespective of whether a man was working his land, or resident upon it, if there was congestion in the immediate vicinity, the Land Commission would be entitled to move in and take over the land. Although that power is there, the mover of the amendment started off discussing this section as if the powers were to be used in the case of an ordinary farmer who was, perhaps, holding on too long and not transferring to his son. The same strain was taken up by Senator McDonald.

This section will apply in the case where land has been let for years. Possibly the owner is living abroad and under the present procedure gets a section 40 notice; he then gets busy and sells the land to get rid of it before the Land Commission under their present cumbersome procedure have time to publish a notice in Iris Oifigiúil. If the land is advertised for sale by the owner within the previous 12 months the ordinary defence would not be open to him and this section would apply. As I have said elsewhere, I think that where land is for sale, and there is good reason for acquiring that land for the relief of congestion, such land should be vulnerable to the Land Commission for acquisition. It is suggested here that there should be this way out by transferring to the son, even though the land is required for the relief of congestion. It would not be a case in which the owner was living abroad or had land let for a number of years, and a bad history of user. It is suggested that if we put in an amendment of this kind enabling him to defeat the Land Commission procedure in such a case by transferring to the son we would be doing a good job. Of course, it is obvious that this could be used as a device to defeat the whole purpose of the section.

If a man were living in England for the past 30 years with his land let, and he heard the Land Commission were after it for the relief of congestion and transferred it to a son in New York, who sold it to someone else the following day, the Land Commission procedure would be frustrated. Another Senator wanted the land to go to a daughter or a nephew, and so on. The idea of allowing the owner to transfer is quite all right if we are dealing with the ordinary family man. That does not come under this section at all, as Senators who have read the debate in the Dáil are well aware.

I do not think the Minister should insist on his legislation for what I think must be the minority in the west. Certainly his description bears no resemblance to farmers I know in the midlands.

Professor Quinlan

I have listened very carefully to the debate on this amendment and I would appeal to the Minister very strongly to reconsider his attitude to it. His whole attitude is based on the suggestion that the amendment is not necessary, that the Land Commission do not do this now, as we know, and that they have no intention of doing so in the future. That is a very bad approach to legislation and one that we as a responsible legislative assembly should not adopt. We have been told again and again that when the Bill leaves this House all that matters is what is written in the Bill, not the pious hopes of the Minister or the clarifications or views expressed by any Senator—only what is written in the Bill and what the lawyers can make out of it.

There is here in this amendment a very legitimate and reasonable aspiration that a man should be able to pass on his property to his son. The father might have had differences with the son or might even have been farming it badly or so on and the Land Commission might quite properly come after him but at that stage he still should have the right to pass the farm on to the son, provided that the son is taking over in a bona fide manner, which the Minister can guarantee to achieve by rewording the amendment. Provided that is the case the son should have the right in law to receive the farm from his father and not have to depend on the practice of the Land Commission at that period.

The Land Commission, if ruthless enough, could say: "We have got this farm into our power and we are not going to give it up and that is the end of it," and nobody could dispute that with them. It would not be done now. The Minister would never approve of that but this Bill, like the Acts of 1923 and 1933, will probably remain the Land Act for many years and we do not know what pressure the Land Commission will be under or what change of policy will take place, and consequently we should ensure that the son has a right in law to receive the property from his father even if the father had been remiss in the past and farmed badly. The son deserves his chance but he must be a bona fide recipient of it. His chance should not be left to the discretion of anybody which is capable of changing its policy in that regard from year to year.

I appeal to the Minister to bring in an amendment on the Report Stage that will satisfy both the legitimate wish expressed here in the Seanad, to enable the son to achieve his succession, and the other object the Minister has in view. The Minister is concerned that there will not be any jiggery-pokery by long distance from London, New York, perhaps Biarritz which has been mentioned in dispatches in the past or other places around the globe to keep the Land Commission from achieving their legitimate purposes. The Minister can do that and I appeal to him to do it on the Report Stage.

Mr. Moran

I can assure the House, to quote Senator Quinlan about jiggery-pokery that a tremendous amount of it has gone on from London and New York since this Bill was first introduced in anticipation of jumping the gun. From my experience, I am very suspicious of providing an obvious means of another way out. I really think Senators have got off to a wrong start on this section which, as I have emphasised already, is recognised by all concerned with this problem as being necessary. Let me emphasise again what I cannot emphasise too often, that this section is here for the particular purpose of getting after the individual in the category set out in the Bill who has a long history of bad land user, who has possibly had the land up for sale, and in very many cases, of beating the individual who has been habitually up to now, even though he is in England or New York, beating the Land Commission by effecting a quick sale before they can put what I have described as a legal plaster on that bad holding.

There is no case that comes to my mind at the moment that I have ever come across where, if there is a question of a transfer to a son, the Land Commission did not accept the situation. They always do. It may occur that a son in England is a waster and a habitual drunkard and I do not know if it is suggested that this individual with a long history of bad land user or letting his land, if the Land Commission got after him, should defeat their purpose by transferring to such a son. Again, I ask Senators to consider, in case there was a son who was willing to come back and work these lands, how it is that it would be left to the last moment to the Land Commission to move in with their notice and then this son would be resurrected for the purpose of frustrating the Land Commission proceedings.

Section 13 does not prohibit transfers. It merely gives the Land Commission power to control so that they can stop undesirable transactions. It gives control for a period of three months. If a proposition comes up with which the Land Commission are satisfied they withdraw their notice. That is the end of it. Quite obviously, they would not pursue a case with a history of the father letting the lands, even though he had gone away to Jericho for the past twenty years, if he had a son who was prepared to come home and take over. The Land Commission would obviously regard that as a desirable solution. Indeed, where we are compiling a register under this Bill of holdings that have been vacant for a long time my information is that people are being written to wherever they are and told that if they are prepared to come back, take up residence and work the land it is all right but, otherwise, the Land Commission propose to take over and compensate them for the lands.

That is the position and I think the way Senators have gone wrong in this matter is getting the idea that this procedure will be used against the ordinary resident farmer who is working his lands in the ordinary way. There is nothing further from the truth and the realities of the situation. This procedure is designed to cover the individual who knows he has no case against compulsory Land Commission proceedings. I want Senators to realise that in such a situation it means that this is a man who has been letting his lands for a long time and is not entitled to avail of the provisions in law, what we call the "adequates". He knows he has not a hope, and I assume is so advised by his advisers, of succeding under the ordinary law. Therefore, in order to frustrate the Land Commission he jumps the gun and sells before the Land Commission procedure can go through.

This deals with a situation which has been a regular occurrence over the years. Any Senators who represent congested areas are well aware of this fact and, even though the sons may be in New York, Australia or England, in many cases, to spite the neighbours, people will effect transfer or a conveyence to a forty first cousin who is living 20 miles away.

Mr. Fitzpatrick

The amendment does not ask that.

Mr. Moran

The Land Commission wait and see how they get on. I have said that the suggested or theoretical facts put forward here would obviously be acceptable to the Land Commission and, in any case, I could visualise they would accept a son and withdraw the proceedings. There has never been a case in my experience, and I am sure in the experience of anybody else concerned with this matter for the past 30 years, in which I have seen the Land Commission refuse the petition where either the owner, a son or any near relation was prepared to take up residence on the land and work it. The same would be the position here.

Irrespective of what has been said here, it has been suggested that what I have said is far-fetched. It is no such thing. To my own knowledge it is the type of evasion that has been going on. In the county from which I come time and again I have had letters from people in America saying what a desperate thing it is to interfere with the family homestead and they have as much intention of returning to the family homestead as I have of flying to the moon. In many cases people know land will be reported and that some of the neighbours have been agitating about vacant land or lands let, and to spite these they would transfer to any distant relation for the purpose of frustrating the Land Commission proceedings.

If the House thinks I am taking a snap judgment on this, I shall have another look at it between now and Report Stage. What I have said has not been said lightly. It is my experience and the suggestion I have thrown out as a method of evasion, the transfer to a son for the purpose of frustrating the Land Commission proceedings and the son, the following day, making a deal with some of his relations, would defeat the whole purpose for which this very section is here to deal.

Mr. Fitzpatrick

I am glad to hear the Minister say that he proposes to have another look at this before Report Stage. I should like, finally, to put on record a few points that have occurred to me since the Minister started to speak and which I feel may be of help to him. On the Second Reading of the Bill I said I feared that in order to carry out some very desirable sections of this Bill the Minister was prepared to invade the reasonable rights of farmers and landowners. If the Minister does not yield something on this reasonably framed amendment, I can only consider his refusal to do so a classical example of the invasion of the reasonable rights of the people I have spoken about.

The Minister asked if a farmer wants to transfer his farm to his son why does he leave it over until the last moment and until the Land Commission move in. The Minister, from his vast professional and political experience and his experience of country people, knows as well as I do that there are many farmers in this country who are unreasonably prepared to hold on to their holdings, even against their own sons, to the very last moment. As a result, land is not made the best use of. The Minister is, therefore, perfectly well aware, and I am satisfied he is, that the only thing that will bring some of these old, and not so old, men to their senses and to their sense of responsibility to their family is the threat of the Land Commission moving in to take over. Then, the family will unite and blood becomes much thicker than water and then the father and the son who did not see eye to eye in the past and who disagreed on fundamental matters in the past will come together in order to keep the farm in the family name and the father will end by handing it over. That is the experience everybody has.

I want to make it perfectly clear the amendment which I have put forward here will not hinder the relief of congestion. If the Minister and the Land Commission want the farm for the relief of congestion and if it is vitally necessary to them, they are welcome to it, as far as I am concerned. They are entitled to it and have plenty of powers to take it.

The second thing I want to say is the amendment which I put forward does not seek to perpetuate the derelict farm or to perpetuate the wrongful or inadequate user of a farm. If the son is not prepared to take over and work the farm properly, the Minister can put a modification into the amendment and the Land Commission can take whatever action they wish to take under the law.

The Minister says all he wants to do is to get after the individual who has a long history as a bad user of land. He has the machinery to do that and he can put the son on trial for a number of years if he wants to do so. There is no use in the Minister saying to me in reply that the Land Commission have power now to put him on trial. I say the son of a farmer should not be left at the mercy of the Land Commission or at the mercy of the Minister. Land owners should still have some rights left, especially when they seek only to exercise those rights in respect of their own children.

The Minister, in answering the case I made, went very far outside the amendment. I leave it to the House to judge whether it is a wide, far flung amendment or whether it is too narrow, as drafted. It reads:

This section shall not apply to the transfer by an owner of land to the child of that owner.

The Minister, when he spoke about transfer of land to outsiders, spoke about jumping the legal gun of the Land Commission but this amendment certainly does not extend to strangers. It is no more than an appeal to the Minister to recognise the right of a father, even if he has been guilty of failure to use his land to the best advantage, to transfer that land to a son, provided (a) the land is not required for congestion and (b) the son is prepared to use it. I do not care what language the Minister uses to amend or modify my amendment, so long as it guarantees to the owner of land the right to do as he wishes.

Mr. Moran

All I want to say is that the Land Commission would not be there at all but for the fact that land is required for the relief of congestion. A man could have a farm for years in a congested area which is vitally necessary for the relief of people on £2, £3 or £4 valuation. The Land Commission duly get after this person and serve notice under this section. The owner can defeat that notice by making a transfer overnight. He can transfer it to a married daughter living in Dublin. Generally speaking, those concerned with this problem know there is wild land hunger and fantastic prices paid for land in the congested areas. There are people who accumulate land in those areas, possibly shopkeepers or cattle dealers. If this device is there, this person can defeat the Land Commission notice by transferring the land to a married daughter in Dublin. He can sell, inside 24 hours, to the local shopkeeper. Anybody who is familiar with rural Ireland knows that that is the position and that it is used as a means of evasion. However, as I said, I shall have another look at this. I still say, in genuine cases, as suggested by the Senator, if a case is put up, there will be no question of the Land Commission not withdrawing their proceedings.

An Cathaoirleach

The Chair would wish, at this stage, to ask Senators to consider seriously the necessity of avoiding repetition.

Mr. McDonald

The Land Commission were not the most popular institution in this country some years ago when they were acquiring land for four per cent Land Bonds. However, the Land Commission have adopted the policy of paying the market value for farms and if that policy is continued——

An Cathaoirleach

Surely that is not in order on this amendment. Can the Senator relate it to the amendment?

Mr. McDonald

It relates to the difficulty they have been experiencing in acquiring the land but if they continue paying the market value, then the Minister will not have to say that farmers are jumping the gun. If the farmer gets the same price from the Land Commission as he would get from someone else, I cannot see his objection to selling to the Land Commission.

An Cathaoirleach

Is the amendment being withdrawn?

Mr. Fitzpatrick

I shall withdraw my amendment as the Minister has promised to have another look at it.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Fitzpatrick

I move amendment No. 30:

To add to the section a new subsection as follows:

"( ) On being notified by a person (hereafter called the prospective purchaser) that he has entered into a contract to purchase land the Land Commission shall on request from the prospective purchaser state whether any notice has been served pursuant to subsection (2) of this section in relation to such land and any such notice served within the following six months following the date of such notification shall be served on the prospective purchaser in addition to the owner."

I readily admit that this is largely a conveyancing amendment which I trust the Minister and I will understand, whether we agree on it or not. If this section is passed as it at present is, it means that once the notice is published in Iris Oifigiúil, or once the notice referred to in subsection (2) of the section is served, all dealings in the land are frozen until proceedings in the Land Commission are terminated or for a period of three months. Another subsection says:

Any attempted or purported sale, transfer, letting, sub-letting or subdivision in contravention of this section shall be null and void against all persons.

As the Minister will appreciate, that is going to place a solicitor, acting for a purchaser or, indeed, a purchaser, acting for himself, in a very difficult position in relation to investigation of title. He will have to find out whether, at any time up to the date that he registers his transfer of conveyance, such a notice has been served. Subject to correction, I think, if before he perfects his title by registering his conveyance in the Registry of Deeds or by registering his transfer or the transfer of the land in the Land Registry, the notice is published in Iris Oifigiúil or the notice served, he will have lost title. I quite readily concede that publication in Iris Oifigiúil is not so important because a person can check up on that, but I should like to know if the Minister has considered the difficulty that may confront the person who buys land in respect of which the notice has been served, the notice mentioned in subsection (2).

My amendment seeks to ask the Land Commission to keep a register of such notices and to inform the prospective purchaser whether or not the notice has been served. It goes on to suggest that once a prospective purchaser puts the Land Commission on notice that he is interested in purchasing these lands or has signed a contract to purchase them, the Land Commission shall serve a notice within six months on the prospective purchaser. I do not think that is unreasonable.

My amendment has been put down for the purpose of putting forward this argument, and for the purpose of asking the Minister to provide protective machinery for the prospective purchaser. Quite possibly the machinery outlined by me is not the best possible.

It may not even be practical, but I urge on the Minister that some such machinery is necessary for the prospective purchasers, and to make the work of their advisers tolerable.

Mr. Moran

This amendment is unnecessary and would be impractical. The first part of the Senator's amendment would mean that the Land Commission would be constantly answering standard queries from purchasers all over the country. This is a matter which is done at present, and I suggest should continue to be done by requisition on title between the solicitors concerned, that is, the solicitor for the purchaser and the solicitor for the vendor. The second part of the amendment could be used to frustrate acquisition proceedings by compelling the Land Commission to serve copy notices on prospective purchasers who may be men of straw.

Whatever views the Senator may have, I would like to refer him to subsection (5) which provides:

Whenever a provisional list or a notice referred to in this section affecting registered land is published or served, the Land Commission shall furnish a copy of the list or notice to the Registrar of Titles who shall, upon receipt by him of such copy, make such entries in the appropriate register as appear to him to be necessary.

The Senator has evidently overlooked the fact that when we serve a notice it will be in the Land Registry in the particular folio concerned in the sale.

Mr. Fitzpatrick

The Minister has said this can be dealt with by way of requisition on title between the solicitors for the purchaser and the vendor. As the Minister knows, requisitions on title merely ask for information and get answers.

Mr. Moran

Which constitutes a binding contract.

Mr. Fitzpatrick

Which constitutes a binding contract and entitles the prospective purchaser to follow the vendor for damages, but what use is this if the vendor has cleared out of the country or if the vendor is a man of straw?

As we all know, there are delays in the Land Commission. One of the Minister's arguments in favour of the Bill is that there are delays in the Land Commission. Subsection (5) provides: "Whenever a provisional list or a notice referred to in this section affecting registered land is published or served..." Is that the provisional list mentioned in subsection (1) or would that cover the notice served under subsection (2)? At any rate, subsection (5) provides:

Some time could elapse between the serving of the notice and its forwarding to the Land Registry. I know from inquiries made in the Land Registry that delays can take place there. We have the Central Land Registry here, and presumably those will be sent to the Central Land Registry, but practitioners are entitled to search in one of the many district registries throughout the country, and it will be days later when the information comes down. All I am asking is that the Minister should set up a register of these notices so that they can be inspected in the Land Commission immediately they are served. There is something controversial about this section but there is nothing controversial about the amendment. It merely seeks to protect the purchasers and to make the work of their legal advisers easier.

Presumably when this Bill was being drafted, it was drafted from the angle of the Land Commission, or with a Civil Service slant. It is not unreasonable that I should come in here and put up these arguments from the point of view of the legal practitioners who will have to get over this type of difficulty. In all seriousness, I say to the Minister he should not take a firm stand on this amendment now, but should afford himself an opportunity of considering it and perhaps discussing it with representatives of the Incorporated Law Society, or the Rules Committee under the Registration of Titles Act and, if necessary, bring in an amendment on Report Stage.

Mr. Moran

There is no necessity for me to consider this for two minutes.

For donkey's years, notices have been published in Iris Oifigiúil, with no registration, no notification to the Land Registry, and no notification anywhere. There was the ordinary requisition on title as the Senator well knows in proceedings pending or threatened. That was for the protection of the purchaser. There is not a bit of difference in this except that for the first time we are notifying the Land Registry and they would be prohibited under the law from accepting a transfer in any case unless the consent of the Land Commission had been obtained. So the solicitor concerned can do what he has done for the past 50 years. He can either furnish an ordinary requisition on the title or write to the Land Commission and ask them have they any proceedings pending or threatening. The solicitor acting for the purchaser can, and should, and must, unless he is negligent, bespeak a copy of the folio concerned and make search in the Land Registry.

There is no necessity for this amendment. As a matter of fact, it is being made far easier here than it was before to ascertain in a simple way whether the Land Commission have moved or have not moved and whether proceedings are pending or not pending.

Mr. Fitzpatrick

I am not satisfied with the Minister's reply but I shall not press the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. McDonald

I move amendment No. 31:

To add to the section a new subsection as follows:

"( ) Any land owner who wishes to dispose, by way of sale of his property, as a unit, shall be free to do so, and shall not have to seek the consent or approval of the Land Commission under this section."

The Minister in reply to the Second Reading debate at column 361, volume 58 No. 5 said:

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.

If the Minister means what he then said I do not imagine he will object to this amendment because if a farmer sells his holding in one lot to a landless man the result will still be the same number of holdings or farms; if he sells it to a smallholder it will mean that another farmer will have a more economic and viable unit, and the latter will be the more likely to happen. For that reason the Minister should consider the amendment. The vast number of sales in the midlands, at least in the arable parts, are of small holdings of under 30 or 40 acres and if the Government in their efforts to tackle and settle this problem of congestion want to do away with red tape are going, in the process, to entangle the genuine farming community in never-ending rolls of red tape, it would be a pity. This is a reasonable amendment because in no way will it affect the position of the congests. Furthermore, the Commission will have the opportunity of going to the auction and buying the holding or the farm and if they are the highest bidders this is the way it should be.

It has only been in comparatively recent years that the Land Commission started paying the market value for a farm and since then the farmers' antagonism towards the Commission has almost vanished. Nowadays people do not mind the Commission inquiring after holdings—I am speaking for the midlands—and it was only when the Commission were acquiring farms and paying in practically useless four per cent land bonds that people took exception to the Commission. If the Minister accepts this amendment it will certainly not mean more red tape for the ordinary hard-working farmers in the midlands, the men who earn their bread by the sweat of their brow and who are working seven days a week every week of the year. It will allow them a right they have enjoyed for over 100 years, that is, the right of free sale. If the Minister should say that it defeats the purpose at least he could qualify the amendment by allowing it to apply in areas which are not congested areas.

Mr. Moran

This section has nothing whatever to do with the ordinary hard-working farmer of the midlands or any other hard-working farmer who is working his lands or is in possession of them. The only point of the section is to prevent landowners from carrying out quick sales while they are subject to inspection or while proceedings are going on. The cases involved are the kind of cases where there has been a long history of bad user and so on. If the amendment were accepted the section might as well not be there. Normally, the owner who wishes to defeat the proceedings sells his holding as one unit. He would not attempt to sell it piecemeal because invariably such partial sale would entail the consent of the Land Commission which, of course, would not be forthcoming when there were proceedings pending for the acquisition of the lands.

The necessity for this section has been recognised by all parties to meet the abuse that it was designed to defeat and if the amendment was accepted you could scrap the whole section and indeed, you could largely forget about the Bill being an instrument of any use whatever for the purpose for which it is designed, that is for the relief of congestion.

Mr. L'Estrange

The Minister stated that this is to stop farmers from selling land during the process of acquisition but the explanatory memorandum states:

Section 13 introduces a system of control on dealings in land in respect of which the Land Commission propose to institute or actually have instituted acquisition or resumption proceedings.

Now, if we take this in conjunction with section 27, where the political head of the Commission has power, and can issue instructions, which can be done under short notice under this section, it also interferes with the right of free sale. This section is a prohibition on the sale, transfer, letting or subletting of land and definitely purports to restrict what is known as the three F's. Let there be no doubt about that. This arbitrary section is more in keeping with the USSR or Hitler's Germany about which the Tánaiste was speaking recently.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Yeats

You have natural justice.

Mr. L'Estrange

We are interested in natural justice. The farmer is entitled to his rights and we want to see that the owner of property gets his full price and the market value for his property. This is something about which the Minister was so concerned in the 1950 Act when he tabled a motion to that effect and spoke to that effect. Let there be no denying that the price of land will be depreciated under this section. You will have local agitation and intimidation and you will not have free sale. When the notice is served, the farmer, who has land for sale, may have neighhours who are interested; the agitation will start and those people will not give the market value for the land. The man who has the land and who is entitled to the market value will definitely lose heavily because of the section.

There were other people away back in 1950 who also wanted to see the farmer and the landowner get justice and fair play and a fair price. Senator Ó Ciosáin was one of those people who spoke at that time and I quote from volume 118 at column 1263:

If I were a land owner and if I were trying to make use of the land as best I could, in accordance with good methods of husbandry, as the term goes, I would like to know that every safeguard will be given to me before I would be compelled to part with that land—every safeguard as to the price that would be paid and everything else. It appears to me that some of those safeguards are being weakened.

He also said at column 1264:

Reference has been made to the proposal under which the Minister's agents will be able to go into the open market to purchase land, I do not intend to go into that very much, because it has been dealt with elaborately already. It appears to me to be somewhat of an interference with one of the three F's—free sale.

The Senator was interested at that time in free sale just as we are interested in free sale now.

Eamon Ó Ciosáin

You should read that again because I made use of the words "working the land in accordance with proper methods of husbandry". The farmer who does that need have no fear at all of the provisions of this Bill.

Mr. L'Estrange

We know that if a farmer is not working his land, it can be taken from him at present. This is going to get at other farmers. If the need were not there, there would be no necessity for this Bill. The late Mr. Moylan said, as reported in volume 118, column 905 on l6th November 1949:

I have in great measure come around to the idea that a man's property shall not be taken from him without giving him adequate compensation, and I suppose that adequate compensation must be interpreted as market value, though arriving at market value will not be a very easy matter.

I claim that once this notice is served, the farmer or property owner, the man who is entitled to justice and fair play from this or any Government, is not going to get market value for his land. He is entitled to get that and it is our duty the best we can to bring home to the Minister the necessity for seeing that the farmer gets market value for his land. This section, if it goes through as it is, will stop any farmer from getting market value for his land.

Mr. Moran

The section cannot possibly affect the market value, any more than the service of a section 40 notice, followed by compulsory proceedings, today affects market values. The same procedure will apply. Under the law as it stands, the Land Commission must offer not a price for the purpose of bargaining but what in their view is the market value of the land. The owner in such a case who is dissatisfied with that offer has the right, as he will have under this Bill, to appeal to the Appeal Tribunal, to produce his valuers there who will give evidence, no doubt as they do at the moment, of prices per acre or per farm of comparable farms that were realised anywhere in the district by them or others, and the judge of the High Court who presides over that Tribunal will decide as between that evidence and the evidence of the Land Commission as to what the market value of the particular land may be.

Under the existing law, except that the procedure is far too slow, we have exactly the same position as will obtain under this Bill, that once the Land Commission get as far as serving their notice in Iris Oifigiúil, they can then in effect prevent the sale without their consent. In such a case today, I think nobody can say that the owner has not got market value for his land. The very same law will apply if this Bill is passed. He will have the same right to go before the Appeal Tribunal if he is not satisfied with the price offered to him by the Land Commission.

It has happened, is happening and will happen in the future, that in certain instances the Land Commission, because of the price fixed by the Appeal Tribunal, may pull out and leave the Land there. Whereas the owner has an appeal to the Appeal Tribunal against the price which the Land Commission are advised and consider to be the market value, the Land Commission have no appeal on the question of price. Therefore the law provides that if the Appeal Tribunal in any case fixes a price which the Land Commission consider to be outrageous, they have power to withdraw completely out of the proceedings and not to acquire the land. Of course, you can have a decision of that kind depending upon the kind of evidence that is produced before the Appeal Tribunal where in certain instances the long bow may be drawn by witnesses giving evidence as to value, just as you can have remarkable decisions on the question of damages in the ordinary civil law case.

The very same law will apply. The owner will have the same right to have the judge of the High Court fix a market value if he is not satisfied with the offer made to him. I cannot in view of that see how it can be argued that this notice is going to devalue the land any more than publication of the notice under section 40 in Iris Oifigiúil does under the law as it exists today.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed: "That section 13, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

Mr. L'Estrange

This is the section which prohibits the sale, transfer, letting or sub-letting, except with the consent of the Land Commission, of land concerning which the Land Commission have instituted or Propose to institute proceedings for acquisition. When proceedings have been instituted, the control period runs until the termination of those proceedings. Where notice of inspection with a view to possible acquisition has been served, the control period runs for three months and if necessary, it can be extended for another three months. I regard this as drastic interference with the rights of ownership.

The proposal is that by simply serving a notice of inspection, a Land Commission officer, a senior inspector or person of higher rank, can freeze all dealings in the land for a period of three months and then for a further period of three months. I appreciate the necessity of empowering the Land Commission to take prompt and effective action in certain circumstances, but I consider that the period of control should be reduced to one month, with power to give the Minister another month and if necessary, perhaps an extension to a third month.

Any owner of land can be at very serious loss if his land is frozen for three months and he is prohibited from letting, sub-letting or selling it during that period. As I said before, the long delay will lead to agitation and intimidation. Even the Minister in 1950 was very concerned about farmers getting the market value. He stated at that time, on the 29th March, 1950, and I quote from the Dáil Debates of that date at column 261:

"The Land Commission are interested in this farm, they are going to take it under the powers vested in them; if they do not take it one way, they will take it in another." That means that the vendor's market in his holding is destroyed.

We did not go so far as to say it was destroyed but the Minister did, whether it was shedding crocodile tears or not. He went on to say:

He will have to accept whatever the offer is that is made by the gentlemen from the Land Commission.

That rebuts what the Minister stated a few moments ago that the Land Commissioners will give him the market value. The Minister continued:

He will have to accept whatever the offer is that is made by the gentlemen from the Land Commission or else he can sit back and wait for a notice to be published in Iris Oifigiúil declaring that his farm is needed for the relief of congestion.

Further down the Minister stated:

he is going to frighten off intending purchasers.

Then, he continued, at column 262:

I have no doubt that it will destroy the sale of a particular farm in the public market.

The Minister stated a few moments ago that the Land Commission will give the market value but, at this particular time, he stated that they must "sit back and wait until the gentleman from the Land Commission makes an offer". At the same time, we contend there will be a definite loss. We are not going so far as the Minister by saying the sale of the land will be destroyed.

I should like to refer to Senator Mrs. Ahern's speech. She condemned some of us and lectured some of us as well. I have a cutting from the Irish Independent of the 8th August, 1964, about a meeting of the Irish Countrywomen's Association and they were speaking on section 13 of this Bill which we are discussing here today.

Éamon Ó Ciosáin

We are not discussing the section; we are discussing the amendment.

Mr. L'Estrange

The Senator may have only just come in, but we are discussing the section, as amended, now. I want to quote what the Irish Countrywomen's Association had to say because they were very concerned with section 13 of this Bill. There were 250 people present and the wording of the resolution is:

We, the members of the ICA, protest in the strongest possible terms against those provisions of the Land Bill, 1963, which seek to deprive the Irish farmer of the ownership of his land, won, after long years of hardship, eviction, deportation, imprisonment and death and to reduce him to the status of a mere tenant-at-will of the State.

We say that these provisions are not only repugnant to the Constitution, which guarantees the right to private property, but render nugatory the natural right bestowed on man by God to possess property, that he may use and dispose of as he chooses—without interference, so long as he does no injury to his neighbour.

I should like to know whether Senator Mrs. Ahern's assessment of the people who made the insinuations and innuendos at that meeting is that "suspicion haunts the guilty mind". It must haunt the minds of the majority of the members of the Irish. Countrywomen's Association. Or does Senator Mrs. Ahern speak as a member of the Irish Countrywomen's Association or as a member of the Fianna Fáil Party? As such, I do not blame her but she certainly did not speak on behalf of the Irish Countrywomen's Association because this resolution was passed unanimously at a meeting at which 250 members were present.

It has been suggested by Senator Mooney that our opposition to certain sections of the Bill have been considered and that we were obstructive. We have a duty here. It was mentioned 12 or 14 times last year, but we have a duty and we come here to sift and make constructive suggestions if necessary. In 1950 the Minister came in and said he wanted the Bill. It was held up in the Dáil. Nobody blamed any of the Fianna Fáil Party at that time for making the self same arguments we are making today.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

Mr. Yeats

What is it taken from?

Mr. L'Estrange

The Independent.

Mrs. Ahern

During my Presidency, this never came before the Association as a resolution. Therefore, whatever views were discussed were not the views of the Irish Countrywomen's Association as a whole. They were individual views and the same thing happened in Carlow. Two people spoke on the Land Bill there. There was a discussion but there was no resolution put to the body of the Irish Countrywomen's Association. It was very surprising the report said nothing about the woman who said it was the first thing that was done to save the west. Miss Browne from Cleggan said she welcomed the Bill but that did not get any publicity. The views expressed there were individual views and had nothing whatever to do with the body of the association.

Mr. Moran

Let me say this: I am accused of putting in something that would be typical of Stalin in the USSR or Hitler an Germany. Senator L'Estrange, at that time, was much more familiar with those people than I ever was.

Professor Quinlan

I object to such accusations which degrade Irish politics.

Mr. Moran

The more I listen to people like Senator L'Estrange talking about me being a Hitler under this Bill, and consider what he and his beshirted pals were doing at that time, the more I think it is time we got down to what we are really asking here. The reference to what I said on the 1950 Act in the Dáil is really only relevant in so far as it has proved my political stability over 15 years.

I argued then that the farmers should get the market value where the State took over land. The law prior to then was that the price paid for land acquired by the Land Commission should be the price that was reasonable to the Land Commission for their purposes and reasonable to the farmer, which of course is an entirely different matter from giving the market value. As a result of my argument at that time and others, it was decided, and was so enacted, that in future the market value would be paid. Actually the procedure suggested by me as to how the market value should be arrived at is now the stock procedure before the Appeal Tribunal. The position before that was as I have said.

The position now is that, where land is required, no matter for what purpose, the owner is entitled to market value. When the Land Commission go to take over lands, the offer they make is not an offer in the hope of coming up like the man buying a cow in a field. They must make an offer to the individual concerned, which they consider to be the market value. In many instances that has worked out well and can prove to be fair to the Land Commission and to the taxpayer. Naturally, when a matter of this kind comes before the court and an offer is made that is unacceptable to the owner, the people aze inclined to think the Land Commission when making their offer did not offer what the owner would ultimately get.

I can assure the Seanad that the Land Commission receive the advice of their own experts about the market value. If the owner is not satisfied, he can go to the appeal tribunal. They are an independent body. The Appeal Board is presided over by a High Court judge. He listens to evidence of the value of sales of land in the area and he decides in that way what the market value is. That very same procedure will be there when this Bill passes as it has been there and in practice, over the last number of years.

Let me point out that the adequate protection of the Land Commission about providing adequate employment and adequate production was decided in a legal decision in a case known as the Jenkinson case. The owner was letting his lands to others in conacre. The people to whom he was letting the land were working the land. That turned out to be a defence against the Land Commission acquisition of lands which were let. Of course, it made new case law. It made another prohibition on acquiring lands that have been habitually let over a period of years.

There was another legal decision in what is known as the Quinlan case. If it were shown before the court that the new owner, irrespective of whether he used the land for 20 years before, was now working the lands, then the Land Commission proceedings were frustrated and finished with. The owner succeeded. It is to deal with those cases, first, the Jenkinson case decision; about 1953, and the Quinlan decision in the Supreme Court about 1962 that we have this provision. Those decisions enable people, who have a bad land user history, and possibly a record of absenteeism, or people who have let their lands for quite a long time, to defeat the Land Commission acquiring such lands for the relief of congestion. It is to get over these forms of abuse that this section is here.

As I have said, all parties concerned with the relief of congestion realise the necessity for this particular section. The National Farmers Association, who are interested naturally in the relief of congestion for their own members in the congested counties in the west have said:

We had arguments as to whether the period should be one, three or six months but there was no argument from any responsible body of opinion that the section should not be there or that this power was not necessary for the Land Commission to deal with the situations I have described here, of the frustrating of the Land Commission and debarring them from acquiring these lands which are so badly needed for the relief of congestion.

It is quite obvious from the opposition launched by Fine Gael against this section, both here and in the other House, that they are not concerned with the relief of congestion, but are concerned——

Mr. L'Estrange

We are as much concerned as you were in 1950.

Mr. Moran

——with giving lip service to the relief of congestion when they are speaking in the west of Ireland, but when we come to this section that will be of immense help to the Land Commission in getting this land which is vital for the relief of congestion, the three "F's" are trotted out, and we are told it is an invasion of the farmers' rights, and cannot pass. Everyone here and outside knows that unless we can get powers to deal with this job, we are wasting our time trying to solve the congestion problem. The necessity for this section has been recognised by every responsible body inside and outside this Chamber who have discussed it. While there has been disagreement about the period of time, there has been no disagreement about the necessity for the section. This Bill would be useless without it, and I am asking the House to pass the section as it stands.

Mr. Fitzgerald

Section 13 has been described as a drastic section and it is one of the controversial sections the Land Bill contains. To my mind without section 13 this Bill would be nothing more than pious platitudes. It has been stated that the powers contained in this section are drastic. As a matter of fact they are considered by many to be too drastic an interference with the rights of farmers. I cannot agree that that is so. I believe that if we had a similar section to section 13 in many of the previous Land Bills that were passed, we might not be discussing a 1963 Land Bill at the moment, because I believe that it was for the lack of a section similar to section 13 that so much land slipped through the net of the Land Commission, and is not now worked and used by the people of this country for whom the first Land Act was intended, and for the relief of congestion.

Every genuine effort made by the Land Commission to acquire estates in many parts of the country was defeated by all types of subterfuges and, indeed, I believe many forms of subterfuge may be used by the slick people with whom the Land Commission will have to deal, to defeat section 13. At least we can say section 13 goes much further to bring more land into the net of the Land Commission than any section we have had in any other Land Bill.

I do not visualise the Land Commission or the Minister using any unconstitutional methods to acquire land, nor do I visualise the Land Commission introducing or adopting USSR methods to acquire land. We all know there are many large tracts of land in this State that are not being utilised in the best interest of the State, which are owned by Mayfair or Grafton Street farmers as a hobby or as a place in which to put away money. The genuine farmer who utilises his land in his own best interest, and the interests of the nation, has nothing to fear from this Bill or this section. I certainly welcome the section and I believe that without this section the Bill would not be worth discussing.

Mr. McDonald

I oppose this section for a number of reasons. I find it hard to believe the Minister when he says one thing, and there is something different in black and green in the Bill itself. This section prohibits, the sale, transfer letting or subletting of certain lands without the consent of the Land Commission. The Minister said:

Could there be anything more illogical than the State providing millions... 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.

At the same time he insists on introducing additional red tape which will affect a great majority of Irish farmers who wish to dispose of their property or who wish to transfer their property. There is a widespread practice in rural Ireland whereby farmers sign over their holdings to their sons or daughters and then become eligible for old age pensions. I can see this section introducing additional red tape that will cause unnecessary delays.

I also believe the section cuts across section 6 which encourages farmers to retire. We now have a situation in which farmers voluntarily sign over their holdings to their sons or daughters who wish to marry, and when this Bill passes that will be delayed for at least three months. At the same time, the farmers will be brought to the notice of the Land Commission and people will be in doubt as to whether their lands will be confiscated or acquired for division purposes.

I believe too much stress is being placed on the congested areas when only small sections of the country are scheduled as congested districts. I would have thought the Minister would have introduced some qualification into the section to enable farmers in non-congested areas to dispose of their property a little more easily. With the excellent Civil Service the Minister has at his disposal, it should be possible to write those sentiments into the Bill. The Bill emphatically states one thing, and the Minister says something which is almost different. He says there is no fear about the provisions of the Bill, and that they will not apply. I know the Civil Service to be excellently qualified personnel and surely it is not beyond their capabilities to write that in once and for all, and leave no ground for fears.

The question of valuation for sale has been raised. I cannot see where difficulties arise for the Land Commission if they pursue a policy of buying the lands they acquire at public auctions. If they go to a public auction and are the highest bidders, no one will object to them purchasing a holding. That is the most satisfactory way that land has been acquired in the past. It is wrong to impose additional handicaps on farmers. After all, they are the only section of the community who live behind the times. They have to work late and early; they have no union hours and still have a seven-day week. For additional hardships to be placed on the community in this way is certainly not conducive to encouraging younger generations to devote their lives to the land. In a world in which a huge proportion of the population is almost starving the Government should strive to do everything possible to encourage more people to devote their lives to farming.

The fact that this section would make it more difficult for young farmers to succeed to their fathers' holdings is deplorable. As most people know, older farmers are sometimes difficult to convert to modern ideas and sometimes it is only after great persuasion that they allow the introduction even of modern machinery and modern methods of farming and husbandry into the farms. Here we have a section in a 1963 Bill, being passed in 1965, which is going to add to the difficulty of young farmers bringing their places into line and making them viable holdings. I regret very much that the Minister could not amend this very drastic section. It may have benefits for the congested districts but certainly it will be a grave cause of hardship for the majority of the farming community.

Mr. McGlinchey

Anyone who is really sincere in helping the Land Commission to provide land for the small holders must support this Bill. This section in my opinion is one of the most important and by it people who want to sell land to anyone other than the Land Commission will be stopped in their efforts. I was rather surprised to hear Senator L'Estrange compare the Minister's action to that of a Hitlerite action. If it takes a Hitlerite to do this, then I must say I am very surprised indeed. It was not the Minister for Lands who once said that the Blackshirts were victorious in Italy and the Brownshirts in Germany and that the Blueshirts would be successful here. It was not the Minister who said on the 28th February, 1934——

(Interruptions.)

Mr. L'Estrange

The blackguards were stopping free speech when they were put down by the Blueshirts.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

How does the Senator relate this to the Land Bill?

A Senator

In the same way as Senator L'Estrange did.

Mr. L'Estrange

It was a passing remark.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Order.

Mr. McGlinchey

I shall just conclude by saying that the Land Commission will be in a position to prevent any sales to people other than to those who deserve land from the Land Commission and the result will be that smallholders in the west and northwest will benefit considerably.

Professor Quinlan

I have certain misgivings about this. Too many extreme cases have been quoted on both sides. The fact is if land is wanted, and it is wanted, it can be taken under several sections. The main question is the question of market value and surely it would appear that the sale is, by and large, the only means of determining market value. We all know about rules of thumb and so on, and that land cannot go over a certain price. That must be the approach of a body like the Land Commission buying outside the public market but I cannot see why the Land Commission would not compete more actively on the public market and buy all the land they want. The amount of land that comes up for sale every year is at least four or five times the amount acquired by the Land Commission in any one year. It is nonsense, therefore, to say that the Land Commission cannot get what land they want. Land is for sale and we see farms being sold that could be divided. Half of County Limerick has been bought up by a big landowner. In the year 1957 the purchase price of land per holding was £1,625 out of a total cost of £4,116.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

Would the Senator say where he got his figures for half the land of Limerick being bought.

Mr. L'Estrange

Lord Harrington.

Professor Quinlan

It was just 40 per cent of the total cost and we are quibbling about the market value of it being determined by some formula.

Is the House agreed to accept section 13 as amended?

Éamon Ó Ciosáin

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

I cannot allow the Senator to continue on this line. A protest against the length of time that this is taking appears to be a reflection on the Chair that order has not been preserved—I mean the Chair in globo, not being personal about it. I think that people are entitled to discuss matters. The only thing I would say, if I might give an obiter dictum on the matter, is that there is a certain inclination to repetition which for the rest of the debate might be avoided on both sides.

Question put and agreed to.

SECTION 14.

Professor Stanford

I move amendment No. 32:

In subsection (2) to add at the end:

", and to all other persons (if any) appearing to be in receipt of the rents and profits or to have control and management of the land in question".

With the permission of the House I will speak for Senator Ross on this amendment and I hope that the Minister will accept it as a reasonable one. The intention is that those who are legally involved in section 14 should be given due notice of the fact. The intention of the amendment is to see that the persons named in subsection (1) of section 14 should be given the courtesy and the common justice of being informed under subsection (2). If there are great difficulties, of course, it cannot be done.

The Minister will tell us; but if there are no great difficulties I wonder would he not yield on this point. It does seem to be unjust that persons who are legally involved should not receive due notice. I would ask the Minister to consider the amendment sympathetically.

Mr. Moran

I think that possibly Senator Ross did not appreciate the purpose of this section. I presume the Senator fears the Land Commission might deal with one member of a family and leave others at a disadvantage or deal with an agent and leave the principal in the dark. There are two flaws in the proposal. It does not take into consideration subsection (6). The nomination does not override the essential rights of other interested parties. The whole point of section 14 is that it will enable the Land Commission to proceed with their work without the necessity of tracing persons who are not readily available.

The amendment would in many cases oblige them to trace such persons. In other words, it would recreate the type of impasse we are trying to abolish under this particular section.

Perhaps, I could give the House an example. The Land Commission want to commence proceedings against an absent owner but are unable to serve notice because he keeps his address secret. We have a number of these cases. Under section 14 they could appoint a cousin as nominee who is managing the land for the owner or they could appoint somebody to whom he has the lands let, or his agent. If they believe the cousin is transmitting the profits to the owner they must serve a copy of the nomination on the owner of the lands. We must rely on subsection (6) to safeguard the rights of other interested parties. It is important that the fact of nomination does not make the nominee owner of the property, or indeed, of any part or share of it which was not lawfully his in any event. It is a legal device, as I am sure Senator Ross appreciates, to get over the difficulty of trying to trace absentees or a multiplicity of owners. They are people who may have an interest under intestacy or otherwise in land being acquired by the Land Commission. This device of nominee will be there only for the purpose of getting the Land Commission proceedings through.

As far as the purchase money or compensation is concerned, they are the owners of the lands. Whoever they may be, they will have to prove their title to the purchase money in the ordinary way. Senators will appreciate that we have a number of cases in which it is impossible to trace some of these owners, or some people who may be interested in the land in cases where representation has not been received over, perhaps, two or three generations. It it in these cases it is impossible for the Land Commission to proceed, where such proceedings are necessary. The vast majority of these cases arise in congested areas. They may be small cases and it may be vital for Land Commission purposes in rearranging schemes, as it often happens the owners are all over the face of the earth and, in many cases, it is often virtually impossible to trace them. Where there is an agent there or somebody in possession and, generally speaking there is, that person must be appointed. I direct Senators' attention to the wording of the section:

Where, in any proceedings under the Land Purchase Acts, the Land Commission deem it necessary or expedient for the exercise of their powers under those Acts so to do, they may, after compliance with subsection (2) of this section, by order appoint any person or persons appearing to them to be in receipt of the rents and profits or to have the control and management of any land (in this section referred to as the land) or, if there be no such person or persons or if such person or any one of such persons is under a disability, some other person, to be the nominee, for the purposes of those proceedings but for no other purpose.

Before the Land Commission would appoint what I might term a legal stooge, that is one of their officials, for the purpose of operating this particular section the House will see they must first, if these parties are available, appoint as their nominee the person or persons appearing to them to be in receipt of the rents or profits or who have the control or management of the land.

Senators will appreciate that in 99 per cent of cases these people who are in occupation or in receipt of rents or profits, or in control are in touch with the owners wherever they may be and one of these people will be appointed under this section merely for the purpose of enabling these proceedings to go through.

The fears of Senator Ross that some people might be overlooked or people who were not entitled might get the whole of the purchase money do not arise because all the ordinary proofs will have to be adduced before the purchase money or compensation is parted with.

Professor Stanford

I am grateful to the Minister for a clear and thorough exposition of the case. Right through this Bill he has been good at this; we have all been very much educated. It seems to me what he has said needs careful consideration and, if Senator Ross agrees, I would ask for leave to withdraw the amendment.

Mr. Ross

I agree with that. I do not think there is any suggestion behind this amendment that the Land Commission should be appointing a legal stooge, as the Minister called it. The principle behind it is, of course, that they should be in a position to appoint a nominee and merely serve him. If the right nominee is appointed, he will inform all people interested. I certainly agree to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

There is a legal way of dealing with this matter. We have this problem in some rural areas with cutaway bog. In some cases it is let for turbary and in other cases it is for resale. In other words, you have exactly the same position as you have with commonage. You have a number of people who have a moiety. There is the very same consideration as there is in commonage but there is a provision in this Bill that will at least make it easier to deal with that situation. It arises on another section which we shall be dealing with later.

Question put and agreed to.

Business suspended at 6 p.m and resumed at 7.15 p.m.

SECTION 20.

Mr. Ross

I move amendment No. 34:

To delete subsection (3) and substitute:

"( ) The powers of the Land Commission under this section shall not be exercised compulsorily in such a way as would be likely to cause serious interference with the amenities of any occupied dwellinghouse in existence at the date of the service by the Land Commission of the notice of intention to exercise such powers."

There are three points in this amendment. Under the subsection, as it stands, it is provided that the Land Commission powers to define and extend or improve rights of way shall not be exercised compulsorily. The first point is that it restricts only the compulsory exercise of the powers of the Land Commission to defining, extending or improving rights of way. Secondly, this right shall not be exercised compulsorily in relation to any right of way over land adjoining an occupied dwellinghouse. I raised a point on the Second Reading as to the meaning of the word "adjoining". I take it to mean quite plainly actually beside an occupied dwellinghouse and that seems to me too close a place for a right of way to be in relation to a dwellinghouse. Thirdly, it applies to an occupied dwellinghouse which was in existence for a period of one year prior to the date of the notice by the Land Commission. A dwellinghouse which was erected six months before the notice could be affected by this subsection.

In effect, the amendment proposes to deal with certain portions of the subsection and to restrict the powers of the Land Commission so that they will not be exercised compulsorily in relation to any right of way under this section. It also attempts to get a more workable definition of "adjoining" by providing that the powers shall not be exercised compulsorily in such way as would be likely to cause serious interference with the amenities of an occupied dwellinghouse. The amenities of an occupied dwellinghouse are, naturally enough, very much wider than something merely adjoining it. It might be that a right of way adjoining an occupied dwellinghouse might not interfere with its amenities, but it could very well be that a right of way over land adjoining an occupied dwellinghouse would seriously interfere with its amenities, and this amendment is an attempt to deal with the amenities of a house. Clearly it would not be right to so interfere with the rights of an owner that his whole privacy could be disturbed by a right of way almost adjoining or, in other words, just outside the subsection, because adjoining, I think, must be right beside; and, if you are not right beside, then you could be just a little outside right beside, and that is almost the same thing as adjoining. If there is a proviso that the amenities of a dwellinghouse shall not be interfered with, then there is some protection for a person in an occupied dwellinghouse.

The final point of this amendment is to remove from the subsection the proviso that the dwellinghouse must have been in existence one year prior to the date of the notice. It seems to me to be utterly wrong that a notice served can affect an occupied dwellinghouse, a house in which someone has been living for one year prior to the date of the notice. This is the first intimation of the intentions of the Land Commission and, if the house is in existence at that point, and occupied, it will probably have been planned a year before, but if the notice is to affect a house which was in existence at the commencement of the year ending on the date of the notice, then it seems to me to be quite unfair.

Professor Stanford

I support this amendment. There is one further point I should like to raise. I should like to ask the Minister whether subsection (3) could be used in any way to control action under subsection (2).

It does look as if it could. The practical situation I have in mind is something like this: the owner of a house finds that, under some new regulation made by the Land Commission, motorcars will be parked right up against his windows and his front door. Under subsection (2) here, so far as I can see, there is nothing to prevent that. If our amendment is adopted, since that would be interfering with the amenities of the house, it could be prevented. I am seriously worried to think that under subsection (2) life in a house might be made virtually unliveable with the parking of cars right up against the dwellinghouse. Perhaps the Minister can explain—I am sure he can—the situation satisfactorily to us.

Mr. Moran

One of the first reasons for the introduction of this section is to bring rights of way up to date. Senators may not be aware that it is generally believed that the Land Commission have unrestricted power to create rights of way. That is not, in fact, so under the existing law. They have power to create certain types of rights of way. If, however, it were necessary to extend a right of way from one portion of a holding purchased under the Land Acts to and across land held in absolute fee simple or under a fee farm grant, or which was outside the scope of the Acts for any other reason, then the Land Commission could not do anything with that right of way.

Outside of these particular cases, there is the urgent question in many instances of enabling the Land Commission to make some of these rights of way usable. In many cases they are just what country people call "bridle paths". They originated long before Mr. Ford thought of his tractor. In these days of modern machinery it is essential that the Land Commission should have power to modernise many of these rights of way to enable farmers to bring in machinery. After the enactment of this Bill the Land Commission will have unrestricted power, irrespective of tenure, to improve rights of way. That is No. 1. Secondly they will have power to create new rights of way where such are necessary irrespective of the tenure under which the lands are held.

We have come up against a number of difficulties in relation to local community effort in developing fishing and other amenities. As far as lakes are concerned the law is very complicated indeed. Some lakes are State lakes. In the case of other lakes, it is an interesting study to visualise what might be the position when water, because of a drainage scheme, disappears and new land appears, land that was formerly under the lake. The question is who should have the rights there.

Then you have the other case where there is the old presumption ad medium fluvium—that the riparian owners around the lake claim and assert that out to the middle of the lake they own the land under water and that it is portion of their holding. We have had cases where people were prevented from mooring or parking boats in the water opposite the holdings of some such people and where there have been attempts to hold them up to ransom and to prevent the very desirable development of local communities and angling clubs developing inland fisheries, which are becoming more and more important to our own people and to the tourist business.

Subsection (3) states:

The powers of the Land Commission under this section to define and extend or improve rights of way to and from the sea or to and from a lake or river shall not be exercised compulsorily in relation to any right of way over land adjoining an occupied dwellinghouse which was in existence at the commencement of the period of one year ending on the date of the notice in respect of that right of way served by the Land Commission.

The reason for that is that we feel in certain instances it would be well known that the Land Commission would be asked to create a right of way in a certain locality. Matters of this kind are generally discussed publicly by some local development associations and it would become known that they were about to apply to the Land Commission to exercise their powers under this section to retain this right of way; and a recalcitrant individual, a difficult man, could anticipate and stop this by shoving up some type of building in the vicinity of that place, thus preventing the development going ahead as well as preventing the Land Commission creating the desirable right of way.

One matter I forgot to mention earlier—Senators may have read about it — is that some owners who had acquired property beside the seashore suddenly put up walls all around them to prevent the people exercising rights they had been able to exercise from time immemorial. The simple answer is that in such cases the public themselves or, through the Attorney General, can ensure the continuance of the exercise of those rights—a right, for instance, to go to the seashore where the local people used to go.

In many instances of which I have knowledge, it is the old story that what is everybody's business is nobody's business: people are slow in asserting their rights, though they are very vocal in talking about them. Where there is any doubt and where the Land Commission are satisfied that these rights had been enjoyed by the public in some of those areas and that those rights are now being interfered with or cut off from the user of the public, then without any expensive litigation, there would be power in this section for the Land Commission to declare a right of way to the seashore, no matter what is said here. That is one of the intentions behind the section. Needless to say, that right of the Land Commission would not be exercised indiscriminately: it would be exercised only where the Land Commission were satisfied it was necessary to do so.

It is hardly practical to lay down a rule to cover all the cases of nuisance feared by the Senators who put down this amendment. Rights of way or car parks could exist near a dwelling or a building, but there could be no question of such rights existing if a belt of trees intervened between a public amenity and a dwelling. Conversely, a car park might be regarded as an eyesore if there were only open ground between it and the dwellinghouse. All these matters have convinced me that the use of the word "adjoining" in the subsection makes it a desirable provision.

Subsection (2) spells out the purposes for which the law under section 43 of the Land Act, 1923, and section 39 of the Land Act of 1931 are extended. These particular powers could not be used for these purposes prior to this Bill or money advanced in respect of conferring rights to park vehicles or to beach boats and rights to moor or anchor boats. These are new powers. But subsection (3) would certainly, I think, override subsection (2) and the powers under subsection (3) to define and extend or improve rights of way to and from the sea, or to and from a lake or river, could not be exercised compulsorily in relation to any right of way over land adjoining an occupied dwellinghouse which was in existence at the commencement of the period of one year on the date of the notice in respect of that right of way served by the Land Commission.

I want to make it clear that right of way to the sea or to a lake or to a river cannot be exercised compulsorily on land adjoining a dwellinghouse that is there more than one year before the Land Commission serves its notice and moves in. I think Senators understand that. The way this is worded was devised, and I am advised the effect of it would be, to stop anybody anticipating the demand for such a right of way by putting up some building and defeating the Land Commission's purpose.

Professor Stanford

Is it that perhaps subsection (2) is covered under the word "improved" in subsection (3) ? Is that the contention? Otherwise, I do not see anything in subsection (3) which controls subsection (2) unless what is stated in subsection (2) is deemed to be a form of improvement. That is stretching it a bit far. I wonder would the Minister consider it, if we withdrew this amendment, perhaps, with the consent of my colleague?

Mr. Moran

I should like to be clear on a couple of points raised by the movers of this amendment. If we go back to subsection (1), which provides the power to expend money for the benefit or improvement of any land, it says that the powers of the Land Commission shall, in addition to the matters mentioned in section 43 of the 1923 Act and section 39 of the 1931 Act, include power to confer on the Land Commission and their licensees, and to define and extend or improve, ways and rights of way over any land whatsoever and so on. These powers I referred to earlier tonight. I think I quoted them. These sections of the 1923 and 1931 Acts defined a number of categories for which money can be advanced for resale of lands, and so on. They did not provide, as I pointed out earlier on this Bill, for rights of turbary in certain incorporeal hereditaments which have been dealt with under a previous section. But there were these limited powers, as I say, for the production of rights of way which are now being extended here in a general way to cover all land under subsection (1) of the section.

The power goes with this subsection (1) "to define and extend or improve, ways and rights of way over any land whatsoever (including any accretion, through alluvion or dereliction, whether or not caused by drainage)"—that is the point I referred to where you have new land appearing as a result of major drainage—"for the purpose of facilitating passage to and from the sea or to and from a lake or river which adjoins lands sold or agreed to be sold under the Land Purchase Acts, whether such rights of way are or are not conferred as to be appurtenant to any land, and whether any terminal point of such ways and rights of way is or is not situate on lands sold or agreed to be sold under the Land Purchase Acts.

That is an overall power and, I would suggest to the Senators, to cover any type of right of way over any type of land leading to or from the sea or otherwise. Subsection (2) provides that the powers conferred here and extended by section 20 may be exercised for the purposes of conferring and defining rights to park vehicles or to beach boats and rights to moor or anchor boats. These are completely new powers that were not provided for in any of the previous Land Acts and that is the purpose of writing them in here. The Senators say subsection (3) would allow the creation of a car park quite close to a dwelling and they are asking that the provisions of the subsection should not be applied to a dwellinghouse that is in existence at the date of the service of the notice. If I interpret the amendment of the Senators correctly, the only real issue between us would be under subsection (3) as to whether this provision, whereby you could still create a right of way under this section on land adjoining a house that has gone up within the previous 12 months is unreasonable. If I am misinterpreting Senator Ross's amendment, perhaps he will enlighten me.

Mr. Fitzpatrick

I have tried to follow the arguments on this amendment. The Minister has told us that the right to create car parks or moorings for boats is an innovation, that it has not been a part of the previous Acts. If that is so I respectfully submit that there is nothing in subsection (3) to prevent the creation of a car park beside a house. Subsection (1) deals with rights of way, movements to and from. Subsection (3) deals with the same thing, rights of way, the right to pass over a person's land to gain access to the sea or to a lake, whereas subsection (2) of section 20 specifically deals with the right to park vehicles and the right to moor boats.

If the Land Commission sought to do so there is nothing to prevent them under subsection (3) creating a car park right up against a house even if it had been in existence for more than 12 months. If a person's house was immediately overlooking a lake or overlooking the sea there is nothing in subsection (3) to prevent the Land Commission creating moorings for boats there. This is an oversight in subsection (3) which could be cured by inserting in subsection (3) after "right of way", "parking place or mooring for boats". There is a lot of weight in what Senator Ross and Senator Stanford have said. There is more than a doubt. It is quite open to the Minister and the Land Commission to do the sort of thing that the Senators fear may be done.

Professor Stanford

I should be happy if we could think over this rather complicated situation and take it up again on the Report Stage. As Senator Ross pointed out, this amendment of ours is trying to do three things at once which, perhaps, is a little too much. However, the two things I want to emphasise that need to be done are, first, to shorten the period from one year to, say, six months and, secondly, to make absolutely certain that subsection (2) is controlled by subsection (3). If we could get these two things I should be very happy whatever wording is used.

Mr. Ross

As we said, there are three points in this amendment but to go back to the first one for a moment, I think the Minister has agreed in effect that subsection (3) governs the other two subsections. While I am not going to press the point now—I think Senator Stanford is quite right to say we should think over this amendment because we believe it is a fundamental amendment—would it not meet what the Minister says if he accepted the first part of our amendment? If the words in line 48 to the middle of line 50: "to define and extend or improve rights of way to and from the sea or to and from a lake or river" were deleted the subsection would read: "The powers of the Land Commission under this section shall not be exercised compulsorily..." That makes it absolutely clear that the entire section is governed by subsection (3). I would ask the Minister to consider that because in effect that does what he tells us subsection (3) does and meets part of our amendment.

In regard to the word "adjoining" again I appreciate the Minister's difficulty here and I do not know how far we may be able to go in trying to meet this. I object to the word "adjoining" because it is too tight. The Minister finds that our amendment is unacceptable because it is too wide. Perhaps we can meet somewhere in the middle.

On the final point of the house which was in existence at the commencement of a period of a year ending on the date of the notice, if someone, as the Minister has suggested, hears or if it is common knowledge that the Land Commission intend to exercise their powers, is it really likely that someone will come along and, in the Minister's words, shove up a house to try to stop the Land Commission proceeding? In the first place, if our amendment is accepted any such dwelling house must be an occupied dwelling house.

It might meet our point if it was a dwelling house of a certain size or a certain valuation but it must be occupied or it must be built at the time of the notice and anyway planning consent will probably have to be obtained before it can be put up. Therefore, by the time the dwelling house is built and the person gets himself into it a year or so will have elapsed. So that we come back to the point that the period is from the service of the notice and that the house has to be occupied before that. In practice, I think the Land Commission will have very nearly a year in which to let their intentions be known if they want that.

But what concerns me here is that the Minister has assured the House that these powers will not be exercised indiscriminately. I am perfectly certain that is the intention of the Minister but it is quite wrong to accept wording in a Bill that any Minister assures us will not be used indiscriminately. This is a matter of principle; it is not a matter for this particular Bill or Minister. We should not be guided or influenced in any way by the assurances of any person. What we should be concerned with is what is in the Bill and what will be eventually in the Act. This is something that seems to us to be fundamental and that is why this amendment is tabled, but we are quite prepared to withdraw it and ask the Minister to reconsider the position because I think there is very little now between us and we hope that either he or we, or both of us, will introduce a new amendment on Report Stage.

Seán Ó Donnabháin

This has been a very interesting discussion on a very complicated section of the Bill and, listening to it, a different point of view strikes me now. Subsection (3) says the powers of the Land Commission under this section to define and extend or improve rights of way—I understand to define a right of way is to establish a new right of way—"to and from the sea or to and from a lake or river shall not be exercised compulsorily in relation to any right of way over land adjoining an occupied dwelling house..." We are all picturing the right of way adjoining an occupied dwelling house but I think it is not definite enough here because it is "over land adjoining an occupied dwelling house".

If I have a ten-acre field adjoining my dwelling house, that is land adjoining it, and I think none of us wants a right of way coming by the front door, the back door and the side door. The path might be there already; it might be 50 yards away from the house, but if we are to define a new path or access or a new motor road to the sea, we cannot do it according to the wording here because it is in land adjoining an occupied dwelling house. If I were a lawyer, I should say on the wording here that is land adjoining a dwelling house.

I think we should be more precise in our definition. We cannot say "in close proximity", but I think the Minister should get some phrase which would allow the approach to be defined, extended or improved without coming up beside a premises. The present wording is not adequate. It says "land adjoining", while the right of way might be 300 or 400 yards away.

An Cathaoirleach

Senator Ross has intimated his desire to withdraw the amendment. Would the House agree to leave the matter there?

Mr. Moran

I undertake to have a look at the points raised to see if we can meet what the Senators have in mind as between subsection (1) and subsection (3) dealing with powers to define, extend or improve rights of way. Subsection (2) sets out the purposes for which these powers may be exercised. I shall consider what it may be possible to do.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Professor Quinlan

I move amendment No. 35:

In subsection (3), line 51, to delete "adjoining" and substitute "within one hundred yards of".

I think the point of my amendment has been aired by a number of Senators. Senator Ó Donnabháin has raised exactly the same point, that "adjoining" is much too loose a definition. I should like to know the precise legal definition of "adjoining". It would be much more satisfactory to give some measure such as 50 yards, 100 yards or 200 yards so that the right of way will not be brought right up to your front or back door, something that will be capable of being operated. Perhaps 100 yards would be appropriate in this case. I should like to hear the Minister on this point.

Mr. Moran

It is really the same point made in a different way as that in the previous amendment and the same consideration will apply.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed: "That section 20 stand part of the Bill".

Mr. Desmond

I think we need something like the provision the Minister has brought in. The points made by Senator Ross, Senator Quinlan and Senator Stanford may be worth examining but not to any great extent because we know there is a completely changed position today and it is good to see a section like this now being introduced. I do not know how far it could be improved. The position has changed completely in regard to the question of a right of way to the sea. Perhaps more people now go to the sea and to lakes than originally when such places were served by a very poor right of way, very narrow roads, passages in some cases and when there were very few facilities of any kind. That was in the old days when there were no roads and little transport. This measure sets out rights to park vehicles and beach boats in subsection (2) and also rights to moor or anchor boats.

Not a lot of that kind of facility is needed yet and I suppose if beaches were properly developed, the boats need not enter into it at all except just to anchor; but in many places there are no facilities to tie up boats and they may have to be brought on to the beach. You must, however, put vehicles somewhere. If people like a particular seaside place, they drive there and they find themselves back, perhaps, a half-mile with no place to put their cars. When we talk of the Land Commission here, we are not inclined to think they are very extreme and likely to give quite a lot of facilities. They will not interfere easily, even though they have certain rights. I agree that where there has been a dwelling house for a considerable time —and the time laid down is pretty safe—it is a different matter. If a new house is being erected, it might not be a suitable place for it but that is unlikely to happen. Under the new Planning Act a person must have permission now to erect a dwelling anywhere.

An Cathaoirleach

Would the Senator not agree that these matters have been fully debated already?

Mr. Desmond

Perhaps the Chair will bear with me for a moment. I am just making the point that what have referred to in the section is needed. There may be some very slight thing required because you must provide facilities for people and you cannot treat that matter lightly, and at the same time not encroach too much on private property. It is well worth treating it very carefully.

Mr. Mooney

Mr. Mooney

Does the point raised on the section apply to lands that are being acquired by the Land Commission or to lands privately-owned?

Mr. Moran

This and the other sections apply to all lands no matter under what tenure the lands are held. Demesne lands were never the subject of the Land Acts but these powers creating rights over them will now apply. That was not the case formerly but this Bill will now close the gap.

Mr. Sheldon

Without going quite so far as the question of commas raised by Senator Quinlan, I should like some clarification on phraseology. Subsection (1) refers to the passage to and from the sea or to and from a lake or river. I wonder why they put "to and from" in twice, why it should not be in three times. Why should lake and river be put together if they are to be separated from sea? Would it not be clearer to say "to and from the sea, or a lake or a river"? There would be no doubt at all then about the adjoining land. It seems odd that "to and from" should be in governing the sea and then that lake and river should be lumped together. I cannot see why lake and river should be lumped together rather than the whole three, or any two, and have "to and from the sea", or "to and from a lake" and "to and from a river". What is the point of putting "lake and river" together and distinguishing them from "sea"?

Mr. Moran

I cannot see why this is so. No doubt the draftsman must have some reason for making the distinction. It is not readily apparent to me. It may be, though I would not like to stick to the view, that this question of providing for rights of way to the sea is new and in the case of rights of way to lakes or rivers there may be some case law and a question of servitudes arising. I am only hazarding that as a guess because I feel the draftsman must have some reason for making the distinction which the perceptive Senator has spotted in this section. So long as there is no restriction expressed or implied, I would be happy enough with it. As a matter of interest, I must find out myself.

Mr. McAuliffe

I should like to clear up one point on section 33 which the Minister mentioned. I was under the impression that the Land Commission would only step in if they were acquiring the land and they would not settle the question of the right of way. I should like to know from the Minister, if there are disputes about rights of way on any land for the purpose of working that land as it should be worked and because of a failure to get a proper right of way to that land whether it is provided in the Bill that a person will get a right on land when the Land Commission have acquired that land.

Mr. Moran

I am afraid I shall have to wait for section 33 to deal with rights of way solely concerned with entry into land, which is the type of right of way that interests the Senator.

I have been informed there is undoubtedly a reason as Senator Sheldon feels for this distinction he referred to and the reference "which adjoins lands" qualifies only a lake or river, whereas it does not qualify the sea. If the Senator re-reads the wording, he will see the reason the draftsman put it that way.

Question put and agreed to.

Sections 21 to 24, inclusive, agreed to.

SECTION 25.

Question proposed: "That section 25 stand part of the Bill."

Mr. McDonald

I should like to ask the Minister if, henceforth, all holdings to be transferred will be consolidated as one holding. In County Laois, for example, there are some 8,000 odd farms and yet there are over 23,000 rated holdings. If it is the policy now very quickly to consolidate all these holdings, it will mean that the farms that are at present in many instances scattered, having a field here and another perhaps half a mile away, will not be consolidated while they are still physically divided. I should like to see the Land Commission endeavour before compulsorily consolidating a holding to have the holding or the farm as one physical unit. I think this could be done by a process of exchanges. Perhaps the consolidation could be tackled even on a parochial basis, taking parish by parish. I should like to know whether that is the Land Commission intention.

Mr. Moran

The proposals in section 25 mean that the Land Commission will have power on consent of the party concerned to order consolidation of any two or more holdings, and those holdings should become one for all purposes and should be registered as one holding in the Land Registry. The position before this was that even where it was desirable, for instance, where there was one holding subject to the Land Acts, under the Registration of Title Act, and there was another holding held under a different tenure and not subject to the Land Acts, they could not be consolidated. The position was the same before the passage of this Bill. No doubt some Senators have come across this difficulty in practice.

This is an enabling section to wipe out these difficulties and to enable consolidation to go ahead, irrespective of the tenure under which the different portions of land are held. It is a compulsory matter. It is an enabling section, where this is desirable. No doubt the Senator is aware that it is a statistical death-trap for the unwary if you go working in a number of holdings. There may be several of them or there may be one individual who may have six different valuations held under different rate receipts and different titles. Such figures, if they are not carefully examined, can be very misleading.

Professor Quinlan

Does the Minister intend, under this section, that there should be an active policy by the Land Commission to consolidate, in accordance with the section, so that the initiative would come from the Land Commission in respect of holdings where there is no connection with division or anything else, but simply to facilitate getting a more accurate picture of the number of holdings, their distribution and so on? I consider that would be worth while.

Mr. Moran

The purpose of the Land Commission is, of course, to consolidate and, where they give additions of land and so on, to consolidate with the parent holding. As I have explained, the power was also there, before this section, to consolidate a portion of land with the parent holding, if that land was under a similar title. It is peculiar that you get perhaps a portion of land, where the title originated as a squatter's title and it is registered outside the Land Act. Under existing law that could not be allocated and consolidated with the parent holding.

Question put and agreed to.

Section 26 agreed to.

SECTION 27.

Acting Chairman (Mr. Fitzpatrick)

I think it would be in order to discuss amendments Nos. 36 and 37 together.

Mr. Lindsay

If I may say so, mine is milder and not so far-reaching in its effects.

Acting Chairman

They can be discussed together and a separate decision taken on each.

Mr. Lindsay

I move amendment No. 36:

To add at the end:

"; and provided further that the name of the owner and address of the holding so inspected be published as soon as possible in Iris Oifigiúil.”.

This is a section that has caused considerable public controversy at all political levels. It has caused considerable irritation at all levels of our national life. As far as political controversy is concerned, I have really no great worries and as far as irritation is concerned, that is something no more than irritation and will ultimately pass away.

My concern, in putting down this amendment, is based, not on any political motive, or on any feeling of irritation. It is based on a desire to rid our people of all possible fear and apprehension. Whether fears or apprehensions are justified or not, people have them and they are entitled, in my view, to go through life and live on their holdings without them. With that introduction, I would safely say of every Land Bill, no matter under what Government, there will always be found in every part of this country ruthless and unscrupulous land hungry people, not necessarily associated with one political Party or another, who will seize upon some phrase, some paragraph or some section of the proposed legislation in order to frighten certain of their neighbours into the fear and apprehension to which I have referred.

I have put down this amendment therefore primarily with a view to implementing the maxim well known in our law that, not alone must justice be done but it must be seen to be done. I do not think the Minister would be giving anything away, politically or legally, if he accepted this amendment of mine or, if he were not satisfied with the wording of it, possibly, on the Report Stage, either he or I, by joint effort, might be able to get some formula that would get rid of the political controversy and the irritation and, above all, of the fear and apprehension, which is rampant throughout the country.

I have received a considerable number of letters from people who, in my view, have nothing at all to fear from this Bill or any part of it, but who have been misled by neighbours, not by any political people from one side or the other, into a position where they fear they are inferior. The happiness of our people is extremely important and if something like this were done now or if some formula were brought in on the Report Stage, it would do a great deal of good.

The Minister, if I interpreted his Second Reading reply correctly, is concerned mainly in this section with expedition. If this section is concerned mainly with expedition, then I am not in the slightest way opposed, if it is expedition only, nor do I fear any abuse by the political head of the Department in the operation of the provisions of this or any other section, because even if the political head of a Department were disposed to abuse his power in this regard initially, then in the following up proceedings by the Land Commission inspectors and the Lay Commissioners, in my view, there is a sufficient brake to prevent that abuse causing any trouble.

As I say, I do not fear abuses. I believe that no Minister of any Government would be foolish enough to jeopardise his political integrity by wrongfully interfering at the behest of someone inspired by wrong motives, to bring about an inspection of anyone's land and cast him into a position of insecurity. I do not fear those things at all. I believe we have reached such a stage of political maturity that our objective should be not only to discuss provisions such as this, but to educate our people on every possible occasion to the fact that abuse of political power is not as widespread as some people think.

There will always be abuses. Some may be deliberate, and some unintentional, but they are not as bad as some people would represent them to be. That is the kind of thing that brings us into disrepute that we do not deserve, whether we support the Government or are in Opposition. I am sure the Minister is as concerned as I am, or as any of us are, for the happiness of our people and their being given a full sense of security. It is for that reason that I want written into his Bill that the Minister's actions in directing inspections of his kind can be scrutinised.

I do not think there is anything objectionable in that. If I were the political head of the Department, I would welcome it, because it would provide me with a shield for my integrity. If he refuses to allow this scrutiny, I urge on the Minister that he is doing himself a disservice as the political head of the Department—and he is doing a disservice to future heads of the Department—which we in political life can badly afford. It is for those reasons, and none other, that I urge this amendment upon the Minister.

As I said at the beginning, if the Minister does not find the wording of this amendment suitable, or if the wording is in some way unacceptable, I am prepared to reconsider it and try to get something into the Bill which will show: (a) the main purpose of the section is to expedite the work of the Land Commission; and (b) that the steps towards that expedition will be so available to the public that they will realise that all this talk about political abuse and political corruption is doing nothing but a disservice to our political growth.

Mr. L'Estrange

I shall be proposing amendment No. 37 which reads:

To add to the section a new subsection as follows:

"( ) The Minister shall lay before each House of the Oireachtas on the 1st day of January and the 1st day of July each year a list giving particulars of the cases in which he has authorised an officer to make a determination pursuant to subsection (1) of this section."

I am sorry I cannot agree with much of what has been said by my colleague, Senator Lindsay. I believe that if this power were vested in the Minister, it could lead to very serious abuses against which we must guard. We are legislating for the future. The Minister and Senator Lindsay are two western men. They are both from the some county, and they may argue that the Minister is a reasonable man. We must remember that we are legislating for the future, and what appears in this Bill will be the law for 15 or 20 years. In the future we may not have a reasonable Minister for Lands. There is no denying that the power we are asked to give the Minister in this section could be abused, and very seriously abused. We are told it is the intention to save time. It is stated that the measure is designed to expedite acquisition proceedings. I want to know how this measure can save time and, in any case, in my view, the amount of time that could be saved would not be worth the candle.

Up to this the decision to inspect land was left entirely to the inspectors of the Land Commission. When this section is being inserted in the Bill, we are entitled to ask: Has the Minister lost confidence in his own Commissioners? Were they not doing their work properly? Were they not doing it as he believed they should be doing it? Was any undue influence being brought to bear on them? If a report went in that a certain man's land should be inspected, were they failing to do their duty? We are entitled to know.

Over the past 40 years, we have had different Governments. We had a Cumann na nGaedheal Government, a Fianna Fáil Government, an inter-Party Government, a Fianna Fáil Government, another inter-Party Government, and now we have a Fianna Fáil Government again. Under vigorous pressure from their own supporters, all those Governments defended the principle that no political head of the Department of Lands should ever accept responsibility for what land should be inspected. Great credit was due to them for that attitude, and they were quite right not to yield to temptation over the past 40 years. In the past Fianna Fáil Deputies spoke very strongly against the political head of the Department having any say in land acquisition, and I want to quote some of them.

Speaking about certain powers which were being taken from the Minister at that time, as reported in volume 118, column 907 of the Dáil Debates, the late Mr. Seán Moylan said:

...It is essential that, in any Act dealing with fundamental matters like land, the interpretation of that Act and the manner in which it is to be administered should not be the playthings of politics. It was wise and necessary that these powers should be taken out of the hands of the Minister, whoever the Minister was...

They are being returned again in this Bill. I agree with every word the late Mr. Moylan said at that time. He was a member of the Fianna Fáil Party.

As reported in volume 118, column 1255, Deputy Ó Ciosáin, as he then was, said:

...I for one would not be prepared to give any Minister the power to intervene in the question of the acquisition and division of land...

In the next column, he went on:

The fact that the Minister represents a western constituency makes this provision all the more dangerous.

That is what he stated about giving power to the political head of the Department and he went on to say that there was a danger of a particular Minister getting too many powers and doing too many things from his particular view. He added that he would not like to give to any Minister very drastic powers.

Giving this power can lead to serious abuses and I do object to giving it to the Minister or if he is to get the power I believe the names should be laid on the Table of the House on 1st January and 1st June of each year.

Mr. Moran

First of all, I want to give the House the reasons for these powers. Let me make it quite clear— I can deal with the matter more fully on the section—that the quotations given by Senator L'Estrange on the 1950 Act were from a speech of mine attacking the provisions in section 12 of that Bill which for the first time took away specifically from the Lay Commissioners and specifically gave to the Minister for Lands the power to deal with the rearrangement of holdings. However, we will have more on that anon when we come to the section. As far as the amendments are concerned, the first is put down by Senator Lindsay and let me preface what I have to say by pointing out to the House how section 27 starts. It commences: "For the removal of doubt, it is hereby declared that the determination of the land to be inspected under subsection (6), section 40 of the 1923 Act, as amended by this Act, is not an excepted matter ..." This section is for the removal of doubts.

I asked Deputies, when discussing this section over quite a long period, to point out, if they could, where there was any provision in any Land Act which made the matter of inspection an excepted matter reserving this function solely to the Lay Commissioners of the Land Commission. Nobody could point out any such power in any of the Land Acts for the simple reason that no such power is there. I pointed out to the Dáil, and I want to point out to this House, that one can go back to the 1923 Act and go right through every Land Act with a fine comb up to this day and there will not be found any legal provision which says that the power to inspect lands for the purposes of the Land Acts is a reserved function of the Land Commissioners. I concede that in practice the notices under section 40 were signed by the Lay Commissioners but what I am submitting to this House, as I did to the other House, is that there is no legal basis in law requiring that such notices should be signed by the Lay Commissioners and that the function of issuing these inspection notices is a reserved function of the Land Commissioners.

Under the 1950 Land Act, the reserved functions of the Lay Commissioners are specifically set out chapter and verse, which I shall give to the House in due course. That Act specifies the functions reserved by law to the Lay Commissioners and excluded from the Minister. It is under that same section 12 of the 1950 Act that, for the first time, power was given to the political head of the Department to deal with the re-arrangement of land. That was a power specifically reserved to the Lay Commissioners before the passage of the 1950 Act and that was the power that I objected to the Minister taking under that Act. I challenge any Senator, as I challenged any Deputy, to point out any section in any Land Act that lays it down that the inspection of lands in order to ascertain their suitability for the purposes of the Land Acts is a reserved function of the Lay Commissioners.

This section is necessary for the purpose of cutting red tape. I do not want to delay the House by going through the existing procedure. Briefly, people go into the local office and say that X's holding is about to be sold, that it is badly needed for the relief of congestion, and they want the Land Commission to take action. The junior inspector draws up a memorandum and sends it to the inspector in charge. It goes from him to the divisional inspector, from the divisional inspector to the senior inspector in Dublin, and from him to the Lay Commissioners for the signing of this notice which goes down through the same bureaucratic routine to the local office, for the sole purpose of enabling the junior inspector to notify the owner that he is going out on the lands to report on their condition and see whether or not they are suitable for the purposes of the Land Acts.

It is on that inspector's report, forwarded in due course to the Lay Commissioners here in Dublin, that a decision is taken as to whether or not such a farm should be acquired. That is the procedure. That will still be the procedure if and when this Bill becomes law because the function is still reserved to the Lay Commissioners to decide what lands should or should not be taken for the purposes of the Land Acts. The men here in Dublin have no way of ascertaining the suitability of any lands until they receive the report from the officer who inspects the lands. Because of all the delay, due to this top-heavy procedure, in very many instances a farm is sold by the owner before the local official is authorised to go out and make his inspection to enable the people in Dublin to decide on the suitability of the farm for acquisition, or otherwise.

Acting Chairman

Is the Minister not now justifying the section rather than opposing the amendment?

Mr. Moran

I bow to your ruling, Sir, if you so think. What I wish to make clear, and this is relevant to the first amendment by Senator Lindsay, is that under existing procedure great delays occur. The inspector goes out and inspects the lands. He checks with the owner, finds out the extent of the lands and how they have been used. He may also inquire into the extent of local congestion. He then writes a report which comes up in the routine I have described and ultimately arrives on the table of the Lay Commissioners. Fifty per cent of the cases go no further than the report stage to the Lay Commissioners; the Lay Commissioners decide in 50 per cent of the cases on the report they get from the inspector that the Land Commission should not proceed further in the acquisition of certain lands for the time being. Fifty per cent of the cases, therefore, finish there and then.

In the other 50 per cent of cases, what the Lay Commissioners decide to do is to have compulsory proceedings commenced under existing law. The usual notices are served and published in Iris Oifigiúil, which means that the cases proceed to a court hearing, unless some arrangement is made with the Land Commission in the meantime. For the sake of argument, take it that 50 per cent of the inspections end in the land court; in only one-third does the court decide in favour of the Land Commission. Therefore two-thirds of them, for one reason or another, are adjourned or the court or the Lay Commissioners decide to accept the story of the applicants and allow their objections.

When it comes before the court and the hearing is published in Iris Oifigiúil, it is public property—everybody knows about it. Over all, of the inspections to which I have referred, 50 per cent never see the light of day and nobody knows anything about them. It is a business between the Land Commission and the land owner. What I am asked to do in the first amendment is to publish the name of the owner and the location of the holding as soon as possible in Iris Oifigiúil. In the second amendment, what the House is being invited to do is to prescribe by law that in half of the total number of cases where inspections take place throughout the country, the names and locations of the people and the holdings should be published for public consumption.

We have had already in this House on earlier sections strong allegations by Senator L'Estrange that immediately the Land Commission appeared to take any interest in a holding, there was a vast immediate reduction in the value of that holding. The Senator was at pains to stress the devaluation that occurred on that holding and the great loss the owner was at, consequently. Yet here the Seanad is being invited to publicise the interest of the Land Commission in an individual's holding, even though the Commission, on a report from the Lay Commissioners, have decided no further action should be taken—that this man's land, as far as the Land Commission are concerned, had lost interest.

I suggest to the House that the publication of what really amount to the private affairs of individuals is undesirable. If there is any weight at all in the suggested fears of some Senators that any interest shown by the Land Commission in a farm automatically devalues that holding, such proceedings as are suggested here should be avoided like the plague because we would, through the implementation of this amendment, be indicating to everybody in the country that the Land Commission had inspected the holding and that even though they did not go ahead at that time, the feeling would be that as the Land Commission had once shown an interest in the place, they were more likely to renew that interest at a later date.

Senator L'Estrange's amendment asks that the Minister shall lay before each House of the Oireachtas on 1st January and 1st July each year a list giving particulars of the cases in which he has authorised an officer to make a determination pursuant to subsection (1) of this section. This would have exactly the same effect as I have described when commenting on the other amendment. It would be publishing the names and other details of individuals concerned in hundreds of cases where inspections had been made and in which the Lay Commissioners had decided, on reports from their inspectors, that they would take no further action.

Under the section, what will happen is that the divisional inspectors, of whom there are four for the entire country, will be empowered, on the authorisation of the Minister, to carry out inspections. Where there is an urgent case, the divisional inspector concerned, who has a number of counties under his personal supervision, can forthwith, without further ado, sign a notice empowering one of his junior officers to make an immediate inspection.

Let me emphasise once more that it is as a result of the report of that inspection that the Lay Commissioners will decide to act or not to act: it is still the function of the Lay Commissioners to decide whether the report should be followed up by any further action or whether it should be discontinued. Until now, these matters, unless they became matters of public property by virtue of the fact that they had come before a court where the hearing was in public, were kept strictly between the Commission and the persons concerned. In a number of those cases, private family conditions exist which may be reported to the Lay Commissioners by the inspectors concerned and perhaps it is because of such conditions obtaining in individual cases that the Lay Commissioners, in their wisdom, decided no further action should be taken.

If either or both these amendments were accepted, every inspection carried out under the various Land Acts would henceforth become public property. I can see no reason for these amendments. It is quite true, as Senator Lindsay has suggested, that if, as has been alleged by some Senators, a Minister for Lands would set out to operate this section for the purpose of harassing his political enemies, he would be simply pulling the roof on his head.

Under this procedure, if an inspector of the Land Commission made some inspection which could be said not to have been warranted, I can well imagine the number of questions that would be down for reply on the Dáil Order Paper on the following Wednesday concerning that particular case. We have heard about pressure on the Minister for Lands—any Minister for Lands—but I can tell the House that every Minister for Lands who has and will administer the existing Land Acts must resist pressure where he feels it should be resisted.

There are many powers a Minister for Lands can exercise under existing law, if he wants to do so, for wrong purposes or ulterior motives. The Minister is the political head of the Land Commission. The Lay Commissioners and all the officers in the Commission, except when acting in the exercise of their own reserved powers under law, are the servants of the political head of the Department and any Minister for Lands, any day of the week, must receive deputations about this, that and the other and he has got to exercise his powers and carry the burdens of his office according to his conscience.

On this alleged danger posed to the House by Senator L'Estrange, I should like Senators to exercise their minds in regard to the functions of every Minister for Lands, every day the Dáil sits. Each day he has probably the greatest number of Questions addressed to him by Deputies asking him, as they put it in Dáil terminology, as to the desirability of acquiring certain lands for the relief of congestion. Those questions are put down for the purpose of putting political pressure—there is no other name for it—on the Minister for Lands to have certain lands acquired. Day in, day out, in the Dáil, every single week, we have Deputies heading deputations, exercising political pressure to get the Land Commission to exercise their powers to take over land for the relief of congestion. I do not think it is suggested by anybody that any particular Minister for Lands or the Land Commission are doing anything wrong when they on occasion listen to these representations and check whether they are right or wrong. We get many allegations, it is true, from land-hungry people, suggesting that the Land Commission's powers should be exercised as far as their neighbour's land is concerned. The Lay Commissioners decide whether the allegations made by these people have any foundation in fact or whether they are false. The Land Commission's official goes out and sends up his report. On that report they make their decision as to whether the land should be acquired or left alone.

What the House is asked to do here is to accept these amendments allegedly for the purpose of preventing the Minister for Lands directing special inspections on the lands of his political enemies. There is nothing more farfetched than that suggestion. As Senator Lindsay himself admits, it would be political lunacy. The Minister for Lands who would direct any particular official — who may be a political enemy of his for all he knows because certainly every official of the Land Commission is not a supporter of any political Party—the Minister for Lands who would be so foolish to put that rope around his neck would not deserve to last in his job for very long. That is putting this matter at its worst. Taking the reasoning that has been advanced for the acceptance of these amendments, it is quite clear that not alone would it be wrong to accept them but the effect would be to pinpoint the hundreds of cases of farmers throughout the country whose lands have been inspected and in respect of which the Commissioners, in their wisdom, have decided not to interfere with them.

The position up to the moment is that in such cases the particulars of these people's affairs between themselves and the Land Commission have been confidential. They have not been disclosed to anybody. I suggest to the House that that position should still obtain. Indeed, it would be extremely foolish to interfere with it. As far as the wider matters are concerned, we can deal with them on the section, as you have ruled I cannot demonstrate to the House the reserved functions under the 1950 Act and the changes made in the law under the 1950 Act.

Mr. Lindsay

I am afraid the Minister is either missing my point or ignoring it. I never suggested that my amendment was for the purpose of preventing the political head of the Department from determining that inspection should be made of his political opponent's lands. The purpose of my amendment, let me state quite clearly, is to show to the world at large that no Minister directs inspection for political reasons, that the record would be there and that, if a charge is made against him, he could take it up and say "There are the names of the people inspected. Are they your supporters or mine or are they mixed?"

To a large extent the Minister has been, as we say in the west, romping around the roundabouts. He should not forget that I am fully acquainted with the western method of romping about the roundabouts. He has been showing an almost naive concern for privacy about the inspection of holdings. Does not everybody who comes from the country know that the Land Commission inspector is as well known a character as drives a car around the community? If he arrives at the gate of the holding of A.B. some wet or sunny morning, by that evening in every visiting house and every pub in the locality it will be known that the Land Commission inspector visited the lands of A.B. There is no time trying to suggest that there is privacy in this regard. Everybody knows about it.

Mr. Ryan

What is the need to publish it then?

Mr. Lindsay

That is begging the question. The Minister says its purpose is to try to preserve privacy. I say there is no privacy at all. It is for the purpose of the protection of the political head of the Department that I am urging this. I never once said when moving the amendment that I believed there would be political abuse of the powers of the section. I was not talking about the powers of the section. I was talking about the fears of people, whether justified or not, that they were entitled not to be there. I would not engage in what I would call intellectual dishonesty in disputing the legal basis of the whole problem as enunciated by the Minister. There is no point in people trying to pretend otherwise. I am trying to make this section something that is completely beyond suspicion and that no political malefactor or land hungry person interested in politics will be able to make capital out of it by way of directing suspicion against the present Minister for Lands or any other Minister for Lands.

I do not know whether the Minister has misunderstood my whole attitude or not. I hope not. I want him and the House to believe I am quite sincere in my approach to this section. It is not an approach as against the whole of the section, because I recognise the legal position. I could not fail to do so. I recognise that whether a Minister directs an inspection or not—it has been the Minister's experience in the same Land Commission courts—that the Lay Commissioners have always, to use his own expression, leaned backwards in order to protect the owner of land from its being acquired.

What I am anxious about is the atmosphere surrounding a piece of legislation. I want it to be perfectly understood by the people that legislation is being enacted in these Houses of Parliament for their betterment and not for the betterment of a section and to the detriment of another section, but for the benefit of everybody. I see no reason why these inspections, once determined to be done, should not be published somewhere, where people can have recourse to them. I agree with the Minister that any political head of a Department who would indulge in political determination of such notices would be nothing short of a fool and only hastening his own political destruction. But I want it to be made clear in some record that he never did any such thing and that all notices to inspect were determined on the basis of congestion and the need for inspection and that everything was perfectly above board.

I am aware of that, yes.

I will give you what a member of your own National Executive said.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Subject to the rules of order.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

Subject to the rules of order, as you say.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed: "That section 27 stand part of the Bill".

Mr. O'Reilly

May I say that I think Senator Ó Maoláin is quite wrong in the interpretation and in the argument he has advanced? I do not take the line that he took. I do not accept that he is right in the view he has put forward. My view is that Senator L'Estrange and many other people make the case they do, not because they are members of Fine Gael, not because they are on that side of the House, but because they are conscious of the fact that they are land owners rather than farmers. They are afraid that if any inspector of the Land Commission should inspect the lands that they occupy, it would be obvious in many cases that the Land Commission would have a ready-made case for acquisition under the Land Acts. That is why there is this barrage against section 27. This barrage is really a smoke-screen to protect people who, in their own uneasy conscience, feel that the Land Commission would have a case for acquisition. They are protecting themselves by these attacks so that the inspectors of the Land Commission and the Commissioners will fight shy.

Mr. L'Estrange

I am not afraid of the Land Commission or Senator O'Reilly either.

Mr. Fitzpatrick

The Minister in his remarks earlier on the section stated that it was a section for the purpose of removing doubt and invited any Senator in the House to point out to him any section in any Land Act passed since the foundation of the State which provided that this power of directing an inspection is a reserved function to the Lay Commissioners.

I have not been convinced by the argument that this section is necessary to cut red tape, that it is necessary to expedite the acquisition of land. What can the Minister do that the Lay Commissioners could not do? If the Minister can delegate his authority down the line, why could not the Lay Commissioners delegate that authority? What is the objection to the Lay Commissioners saying to an inspector: "We delegate you to deal with these requests for distribution or inspection of land that have come to us"? That is one of the things puzzling me about this section and one of the things I fail to understand in it.

The Minister told us on a previous occasion that these requests will come right up the line from the most junior inspector to the next inspector, and so on. All these requests for inspection, for distribution or acquisition of land whoever they are addressed to, should be sent to the Secretary of the Land Commission who happens to be in this case a Lay Commissioner or if not to the Secretary of the Land Commission, to one of the Lay Commissioners set aside for that purpose and that he should direct what land is to be inspected and what is not to be inspected.

The future of every civil servant within the Land Commission lies in the hands of the political head of the Department for the time being. If an inspector is sent down to inspect land, knowing that he is being sent to do so on the direction of the Minister who is head of his Department, surely that civil servant is likely to be biased, is likely to go out in the frame of mind that the Minister wants this land to be acquired and may well approach the matter with a prejudice in favour of reporting that the land should be acquired.

That is one of the big dangers that I see here. If the authority was delegated to that man by the Lay Commissioners, that inspector would know that the Lay Commissioners could not possibly have any axe to grind and that his only duty was to make a fair and impartial inspection and to supply a fair and impartial report to the Lay Commissioners. We have got on without this section since the foundation of the State and a most compelling argument in favour of resisting the section is the Minister's argument when he says that he thought he always had this power and that his predecessors had it and yet not one of them used it and no Minister ever asked for it explicitly.

I should like the Minister to explain what is the objection to regarding this power of directing an inspection as still being a reserved function, reserved to the Lay Commissioners, and allowing them to delegate it. As far as I am concerned, and certainly as far as this Party are concerned, the Minister will get all the authority and cooperation he likes between the Commissioners and the person who is to carry out the inspection. I have no objection to that and I cannot see how any time would be wasted by adopting that procedure rather than what is suggested by the Minister.

Acquisition and distribution of land are very serious and sacred matters and are so regarded by the people and I shall conclude by saying that the first step in the acquisition of land is the inspection of the holding. I defy contradiction when I say that the first step in the distribution of land is the first step in inspecting it, as the Minister surely knows that what brings about an inspection with a view to acquisition, is a demand from people in the locality, through one channel or another, for land, with a statement that they badly need land and that there is a farm belonging to so-and-so which is suitable for acquisition and distribution.

Therefore, I think the case is conclusive that not alone is the Minister, under this section, taking on himself the first step in the acquisition of land but is also taking on himself the first step in its distribution. I do not want to hold up the distribution of land but I really believe that there is nothing that the Minister, by taking to himself this authority, can do to expedite land division that the Land Commissioners cannot do, given the proper machinery.

Éamon Ó Ciosáin

Tar éis bheith ag éisteacht le cainteoirí thall ar feadh tamaill maith ag cur síos ar an alt seo is deachair a thuiscint cad tá in aigne acu. Tá siad ag iarraidh cur in a luí orainn, agus is dócha ar mhuintir na tíre, gurab iad féin cosantóirí na ndaoine agus taca na bhfeirmeoirí agus nach bhfuil aon tsuim againne san obair. Níl bun ná barr leis sin mar tá oiread spéise againne le h-éinne maidir le cad is cheart a dhéanamh mar gheall ar ghabháil agus roinnt talúin.

Táim go mór i gcoinne an leasaithe seo toisc an phoiblíocht a thabharfadh sé don obair a bheadh le déanamh agus an tagairt do dhaoine bheith ag tnú le cuairt an chigire talúin. B'fhéidir go mbeadh siad ag caint; bíonn siad ag caint ar a lán rudaí ach tá deifríocht mhór idir chogar mogar agus rud a chur sa pháipéar nó in Iris Oifigiúil. Is fearr an t-alt a fhágaint mar atá sé. Ní féidir liom a thuiscint cad na thaobh go bhfuil na Seanadóirí thall chomh amhrasach mar gheall air agus mar gheall ar an obair atá dhá déanamh ag cigirí Choimisiún na Talmhan agus ag na Coimisinéirí. Daoine neamhspleácha iad na Coimisinéirí agus na cigirí. Níl dabht ar bith mar gheall air sin.

D'admhaigh na daoine thall an méid sin. Má táimid sásta go bhfuil na hoifigí seo neamhspleách i gcóimhlíonadh a gcuid dualgaisí cén eagla atá orainn cúram talúin a thabhairt dóibh? Táimid go léir le blianta fada ag tathaint ar gach Rialtas agus ar gach Aire Talmhan talamh a thógaint anseo is ansúd agus í a roinnt idir feirmeoirí nach bhfuil acu ach paistí beaga. Sin í an fhadbh is mó atá againn—teacht i gcabhair ar na daoine sin agus iad a thógaint as an drochchuma in a bhfuil siad. Sin é an dualgas atá ar Oireachtas Éireann agus má theipeann orainn sin a dhéanamh tá sé de cheart ag na daoine an milleán a chur orainn.

Nílimid i gcoinne na bhfeirmeoirí; táimid ar thaobh na bhfeirmeoirí agus sin é an fáth go bhfuil an Bille seo á reachtáil againn. Táimid ag teacht i gcabhair ar na feirmeoirí pé áit sa tír ina bhfuil siad. Sé ár ndualgas é sin a dhéanamh. Sé ár ndualgas an talamh d'fháil ar dtúis, í a roinnt go cothrom agus go macánta agus sin é díreach an rud a dhéinann Coimisiún na Talmhan. Ní rógairí iad agus tá a lán muinín againn astu agus sin mar is cóir. Sé is mó is ceart dúinn a dhéanamh féachaint timpeall lena fháil amach an bhfuil talamh na tíre dhá h-oibriú i gceart ag na daoine ag a bhfuil sí. Tá talamh ag cuid acu agus táid dhá h-oibriú chomh maith agus is féidir leo. Tá mórán eile gabháltaisí beaga ann agus d'fhéadfaí iad a oibriú níos fearr dá mbeadh tuille talúin ar fáil.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.

The Seanad adjourned at 10 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Friday, 12th February, 1965.

Seanad Éireann debate - Thursday, 11 Feb 1965