Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 20 Jul 1933

Vol. 49 No. 3

Supplementary and Additional Estimates. - Vote No. 55—Land Commission.

Acting-Minister for Lands and Fisheries (Mr. Aiken)

I move:—

Go ndeontar suim Bhreise ná raghaidh thar £1,420,000 chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1934, chun Tuarastail agus Costaisí Oifig Choimisiún Talmhan na hEireann (44 agus 45 Vict., c. 49, a. 46, agus c. 71, a. 4; 48 agus 49 Vict., c. 73, a. 17, 18 agus 20; 53 agus 54 Vict., c. 49, a. 2; 54 agus 55 Vict., c. 48; 3 Edw. 7, c. 37; 7 Edw. 7, c. 38 agus c. 56; 9 Edw. 7, c. 42; Uimh. 27 agus Uimh. 42 de 1923; Uimh, 25 de 1925; Uimh. 11 de 1926; Uimh. 19 de 1927; Uimh. 31 de 1929; agus Uimh. 11 de 1931).

That a Supplementary sum not exceeding £1,420,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1934, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Irish Land Commission (44 and 45 Vict., c. 49, s. 46 and c. 71, s. 4; 48 and 49 Vict., c. 73, ss. 17, 18 and 20; 53 and 54 Vict. c. 49, s. 2; 54 and 55 Vict., c. 48; 3 Edw. 7, c. 37; 7 Edw. 7, c. 38, and c. 56; 9 Edw. 7, c. 42; Nos. 27 and 42 of 1923, 25 of 1925, 11 of 1926, 19 of 1927, 31 of 1929 and 11 of 1931).

This Estimate is required in order to relieve the Guarantee Fund of its liability to make good the deficiency in the Purchase Annuities Fund due to the non-collection of purchase annuities for the May-June, 1933, gale under the Land Acts, 1891 to 1909.

Purchase annuities set up under the Land Acts, 1891-1909, are payable into the Purchase Annuities Fund. On the 31st January and the 31st July in each year the Land Commission certifies the amount of the annuities in arrear on those dates, and an advance of such amount must be made forthwith to the Purchase Annuities Fund out of the Guarantee Fund.

The position is therefore that the deficiency in the Purchase Annuities Fund on account of annuities not collected on the 31st July next must be made good by a draw on the Guarantee Fund, and it is to meet this position and to enable the Government to make a distribution to local authorities on account of their local taxation grants that this Estimate is presented.

It should be understood that this Estimate makes no ultimate demand on the Exchequer or the taxpayer. It is merely in the nature of a book-keeping transaction. The Exchequer will be drawn on for the amount of the deficiency which will be required to be paid into the Purchase Annuities Fund on the 31st July, but under the terms of the Land (Purchase Annuities Fund) Act, 1933, the moneys standing to the credit of the Purchase Annuities Fund are to be paid into or disposed of for the benefit of the Exchequer—so that the amount withdrawn from the Exchequer to meet the deficiency will be repaid to or disposed of for the benefit of the Exchequer and no actual charge will be involved.

The amount of the Estimate is not, therefore, a matter of any great consequence, but the House may desire to be informed as to the manner in which it is arrived at.

The total of the instalments of the annuities payable into the Purchase Annuities Fund for the gale due 1st May and 1st June, 1933, under the Land Acts, 1891 to 1909, amounts to £1,504,977—and of this amount it is estimated that about £85,000 will be received by the 31st July next— resulting in an estimated deficiency of £1,419,977 in the Purchase Annuities Fund on the 31st instant. This figure has been rounded off to £1,420,000, the amount of the Estimate.

Mr. Dillon

Would the Minister say if this Supplementary Estimate was provided for in the estimates of receipts and expenditure for the financial year ending March, 1934? Will this same book-keeping transaction appear in the national accounts or when the Minister for Finance is introducing his Budget did he show the Land Commission annuities as an Exchequer receipt in this year and did he provide for it as an expenditure during the year because it would seem as if we are to draw out this money from the Exchequer to make up the guarantee and put it under the head of general expenditure, we ought to show the land annuities that are coming in and which are going to be transferred to the Exchequer instead of to the Guarantee Fund, as a receipt?

Mr. Aiken

Any expense which the Exchequer was going to be put to in view of the non-collection of the annuities was shown in the Budget statement of the Minister. This is purely a book-keeping transaction. If the Guarantee Fund is not recouped, we would have to draw on the moneys that are going to the local authorities. That was not the intention and the moneys are in the Exchequer.

General Mulcahy

The Minister means they are going to be borrowed on the assets the Minister for Finance spoke about?

Mr. Dillon

It is rather important to know what we speak about when we talk about a book-keeping transaction. We are receiving into the Exchequer all the land annuities. It will be necessary to make some payments in order to avoid the ordinary statutory demands being made on the Guarantee Fund but it would seem to be very necessary that all these payments and cross payments should be shown in the national accounts so that persons studying them may know what has become of the land annuities received. They are passed to the Exchequer as revenue or they are spent. I do not know whether it is the intention of the Government to borrow this money by raising a State Loan or to use the land annuities that will come in to the Land Commission on the next July gale or the December gale in order to meet these payments or to raise Treasury Bills as they have done before or by ordinary ways and means borrowing and paying off these borrowings by some subsequent proceeding. It is very desirable to know whether specific provision is being made for this transaction and where the £1,420,000 that is now required is going to come in. It must come from somewhere if it is to be paid to the Guarantee Fund.

Mr. Aiken

It is a book-keeping transaction.

Mr. Dillon

Surely the Minister will agree it must come from somewhere?

Mr. Aiken

We are in the fortunate position of having the money on the other side of the books.

Mr. Dillon

Where did we get it?

Mr. T. Kelly

From the moneylenders.

Mr Aiken

The position is that if this book-keeping transaction does not go through the Minister for Finance would be legally compelled although he has the money to pay into the Guarantee Fund, to draw on the moneys that are going to local authorities and such local bodies.

Mr. Dillon

Is the Guarantee Fund got anything to do with the moneys going to the local bodies? I thought it was some archaic old fund started to guarantee the bondholders if there was a deficiency in the collection. What is the Guarantee Fund? I suggest that it was a fund set up and taken off the Established Church of Ireland in order to protect the bondholders. Does anyone know what it is?

Mr. Aiken

The Guarantee Fund was established under the old Acts and was taken over when the Free State was established, and for any moneys not collected the Guarantee Fund has to be kept up by their being made good and would have to be made good either out of the moneys going to the local authorities, or the second fund, the contingency portion of the Licence Duties grant. There are also sums going for the maintenance of children in industrial schools and payments for children in national and model schools and sums paid out of the Church Temporalities Fund. The result of this transaction not being made would be to disorganise the finances of local authorities and other services. It is legally necessary to have this Estimate go through and the Dáil is not a penny richer or poorer because it is going through.

Mr. Dillon

I cannot be taken as assenting to a Supplementary Estimate when I do not know where the money is going to come from, or where the money is going to, or how the Government are going to raise it. Nobody on the Government Front Bench has the faintest notion either. In that respect the Minister says that it is a book-keeping transaction which leaves no one richer or poorer by a penny. It merely means the small sum of £1,420,000.

Mr. Aiken

The Deputy knows a certain thing has to be done in a legal way and until the law is changed these things have to be done in this way.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

The Minister has come in here in a rather peculiar frame of mind when he just says that somebody somewhere has told him that this is necessary, but why it is necessary the Minister has not the remotest idea. That is the attitude that the Minister has adopted. Take it from me, that somebody somewhere in some Department has told me that this is necessary, so please come along and let us do it. I wonder if the Minister would make the matter clear. I know it is not the Minister's Department, but after all, this is a very big sum, and I suggest that the Minister should be a little more explicit.

Mr. Aiken

I cannot. The Deputy knows that annuities were not paid and the Deputy knows that if the Minister for Finance were not good enough to provide this £1,420,000 and pay it into the Guarantee Fund, the Guarantee Fund would have to be made good out of the finances due to the local authorities. If the Deputy wants to disorganise the local authorities he can do it.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

That is not so.

Mr. Aiken

That is so.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

What is the Guarantee Fund?

Mr. Aiken

Damn it, you were in the Government long enough to know that.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

I know all about it, but I want to know what is the necessity of keeping the Guarantee Fund at present; will the Minister tell me that?

Mr. Aiken

The law is there.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

Is it since the Land Act you passed through?

Mr. Aiken

It is only a Bill yet.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

I am alluding to the Land Act by which you collected annuities since the passing of that Bill. Is not the keeping up of that Guarantee Fund completely unnecessary. Where is the money coming from which is to be put into this Fund which guaranteed nothing?

Mr. Aiken

The Guarantee Fund will be in operation even after our new Land Bill goes through. If the Deputy does not want to see the people who advanced the money paid, let him say so. Since the annuities were not collected owing to the Government action the Minister for Finance is making the Guarantee Fund good.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney

But what the Minister seems entirely to forget is that the persons who advanced the money to purchase land stock and land bonds are not receiving the annuities at all. It was to guarantee various sums of money which were payable in interest on the stocks under the Ashbourne Act, the 1923 Act and the other Land Acts. It was the interest on these sums which was guaranteed by the Guarantee Fund. Certain taxes were hypothecated and I think that the poor law rate was liable for the payments of these but they are now going into the Treasury. I am talking now of the Land Act passed this year and dealing with that matter I want to know what is the meaning of the Treasury guaranteeing to itself what it is taking from itself. It seems a rather confused state of affairs. We assume there is some explanation for it somewhere.

Mr. Dillon

We have the Minister's assurance that it is merely a matter of book-keeping.

Question put and agreed to.