Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 12 Nov 1986

Vol. 114 No. 14

Adjournment Matter. - County Galway Estate Vesting.

Mr. Killilea

I raise this matter on the Adjournment because there are serious vesting problems in many areas. I have nominated this one because of the lack of facilities and finance to complete the vesting orders. I will give a brief resume of what vesting is in this instance. Twentytwo years ago families in the village of Ballyhale, County Galway, received additional lands from the Irish Land Commission. It took quite an abnormal length of time, even when the Land Commission were in full swing, to bring the vesting of holdings into line. Heretofore, in individual cases it could be done by alerting the Land Commission to the individual problem — the lack of vesting — and getting them to move. In fairness to the Land Commission they were always courteous and kind where it was at all possible that the vesting could be done. I have in mind a number of families and I will give the Minister the specific details after I have finished, I have all the data and the numbers.

There are several families in this village of Ballyhale and Headford. The son of one family commenced the building of a house on a portion of land the family had received from the Land Commission approximately 22 years ago. Like the good son he was — he was married and had two children — the first built a little garage on to the house and went to live there. He is still living in that garage. He brought the building of the house to the roofing stage and when he offered the site for mortgage purposes the legal people informed him that the farm was not vested in the Irish Land Commission. On his behalf and on behalf of three more families in the village I went to the Irish Land Commission in Galway. I was told: "Sorry. We cannot do anything. We do not have any finances. The Land Commission are not doing this operation". I asked the honorable question: "Where can I go to get it done?" I was told I could not be informed of that.

I then went to the Department of Agriculture. I made representations to the Minister's Department — not to the Minister present, Deputy Connaughton, because I did not think he was dealing with it. I wrote to the Minister.

Since then I have been receiving acknowledgments on a three weekly basis saying; "We are looking into the matter". My only option was to highlight the matter here this evening in the hope that some finance could be made available to the Land Commission to complete the vesting orders around the country.

This man, his wife and two children are facing their third year in a garage built onto the house. They cannot complete the house because they need to borrow the money to finance the completion of it. I am appealing to the Minister this evening to look into this case. The McHale farm was the original estate. There are several families in this village. I will give the exact details and the map numbers.

Perhaps the Minister would be kind enough to make some organ of the Land Commission respond urgently, because there are three families who are absolutely stuck and cannot move. I have had similar requests from people in other parts of County Galway and I am sure that similar circumstances prevail in other areas. Some organ of the Land Commission should be revived and finance provided to deal with this aspect. Many farmers believed land allocated to them was their own. They were paying rent for it. Many of them had almost all the rent paid on it. Some method should be available whereby individual cases could be dealt with speedily. I am not saying we should have a total vesting programme, but people should be able to go to some section of the Department and get those lands vested. The responsibility rests with the Irish Land Commission to whom they are still paying rent. I make the point public here this evening because I have exhausted every other avenue available to me. I hope the Minister will recognise this need and have it dealt with even on the basis of individual cases. That would suffice to get us out of trouble until such time as some proper programme can be drawn up to have the vesting of all lands allocated by the Land Commission finalised. Something has to be done, because legally it is not correct.

Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture (Mr. Connaughton)

Yes, indeed, this is a particular problem. Not alone does it exist now but we have had it for a long time. I will try to go through the reasoning behind it and then see what we can do. The estate in question is the McHale Estate, EC 455, County Galway. This rearrangement scheme was partially prepared and operated in 1963 but, due to the non-cooperation of one of the tenants, it was not found possible to complete it until 1975. The area of the lands involved is 400 acres approximately in the townland of Ballyhale. Although only 16 different tenants are involved, the scheme comprises 33 separate holdings consisting of about 500 plots or shares of grazing, all of which were allocated by way of a series of inter-dependent exchanges where no plot can be vested on its own — all must be vested simultaneously on the same vesting order in accordance with section 17 of the Land Act, 1953. This means that an obstacle to the vesting of one holding affects all holdings.

There are many legal reasons for that which I will come back to in a moment. The basic reason why there is a delay in the vesting of land allotted by the Land Commission is that there are a large number of cases awaiting vesting. This goes back over ten or 12 years and at the moment there are 8,000 such cases in the pipeline. Because of the limited staffing resources available, it has been found necessary to arrange for vesting work to be done on a priority basis, with preference being given to those cases where, for mortgage purposes, the establishment of good title was essential for the allottee. A similar priority system operates in the Land Registry and, of course, vesting itself is only a necessary preparation for the registration in the Land Registry of the allottee's title.

Mr. Killilea

Before it comes to the Land Registry vesting has to be done, so the priorities follow through. It cannot move unless vesting has been done.

Mr. Connaughton

In the light of the case made by Senator Killilea, arrangements have been made to have this estate put in hands immediately for vesting. However — and I want to make this very clear — having regard to the large number of exchanges involved, the amount of research that has to be done and the slowness and complexity of the legal processes involved, irrespective of how many people are working on it, it is not possible to say when exactly the vesting will be completed, but it will be put in train.

I gather from what the Senator has said that several tenants on this estate are anxious to have their holdings vested as soon as possible because — and this is the nub of the question — some lending institutions or local authorities insist on vesting before they will give a loan. I have a few thoughts of my own on this because I come across it every day of the week and have done so for many years. I would like to take this opportunity to state that I see no reason whatsoever why the banking institutions and others should not be able to devise a system under which financial accommodation could be extended to people who got land from the Land Commission, without waiting for the lands to be vested. They are the actual owners of it and, in fact it cannot be taken back from them. It goes without saying that all land allotted by the Commission will eventually be vested in the allottees, or their successors in title. This has to be done, irrespective of what changes in land policy there may be in the future.

I am sure the legal experts of these institutions could get together and try to devise an arrangement whereby loans could be given without an insistence on vesting. This is something that I have asked my officials to have a look at and perhaps in the short term we could get those financial interests to see it this way. When you think about it, there is no reason to doubt that land that has been allocated properly by the Land Commission is in the pipeline for vesting. There is no place else that land can go other than to the allottee or to his successor. I fully appreciate the Senator's problem. It causes great frustration, particularly in rural Ireland. We should have a look at it and hopefully we will get some leeway because, irrespective of how many staff they had even in the best days of Land Commission, we were always ten or 12 years behind. This estate will get priority and we hope it will not take too long but it is a very involved case.

The Seanad adjourned at 9 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 13 November 1986.