Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney gave notice to-day that, on the adjournment, he would raise a question arising out of the replies to questions 19 and 20 on the Order Paper.
Adjournment—Resumption and Sale of Mayo Lands.
To-day, I asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Lands how he could explain the division of a certain farm, situate at a place called Coolbawn, in County Mayo. In his reply to me, the Parliamentary Secretary admitted that those lands had been acquired under Section 28 of the Land Act, 1933, for the relief of congestion. He further admitted that those lands, so acquired, had not been used for the relief of congestion. He admitted to-day, and when he was questioned on previous occasions by Deputy Nally, that a plot of seven acres had been sold to a dispensary doctor for the sum of £86. Seven acres of prime land, seven acres of as good land as can be got in the County of Mayo, is sold to a dispensary doctor for the sum of £86 —£12 5s. 0d. an acre. He admitted further that two other plots of five acres each had been sold to two national teachers for the sums of £74 and £64 respectively, one at the rate of £14 and the other at the rate of £12 an acre. I challenged the Parliamentary Secretary and asked him in a supplementary question by what authority, by what right, under the exercise of what power did the Land Commission purport to sell those lands which had been acquired for the relief of congestion. Is the Parliamentary Secretary going to get up in this House and declare that there is no congestion in the County Mayo? I may tell the Parliamentary Secretary that there is many a family in the County Mayo which is endeavouring to make out its living on a very much poorer holding than is represented by seven acres of fine land, and many a family that is trying to make a living on smaller and less valuable holdings than are represented by five acres of admirable land. When the Land Commission acquires land for the purpose of relieving congestion, the Land Commission should and must by law utilise that land for the purpose of relieving congestion. I should like to know what answer the Parliamentary Secretary will make, or whether when he comes to reply to-night he will be as dumb as he was at question time to-day. I want to know under the exercise of what power did the Land Commission purport to sell this land.
I asked the Parliamentary Secretary—and I got no answer either— what was their reason for not utilising this land for the relief of congestion. I knew I would not be answered, because I and everybody else know the reason why this land, which should be used for the relief of congestion, has been sold to a dispensary doctor. We know that that dispensary doctor was one of the very best canvassers that Fianna Fáil had at the last election in South Mayo. We know that every patient who came to that doctor's dispensary was canvassed on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Party. We know that that doctor stood outside a polling booth in the County Mayo, canvassing the people who were going in and asking them to vote for Fianna Fáil. Now he is getting his reward; he is getting his reward at the expense of the State; he is getting his reward at the expense of the owners of congested holdings in the County Mayo; he is sold seven acres of admirable land at the price, if you please, of £12 5s. 0d. an acre, in fee simple, subject to no annuity—subject to nothing. At £12 5s. 0d. an acre he is receiving this seven acres of land. I need hardly say, of course, that the school teachers who received those plots are also staunch supporters of the present Administration. I want to make this perfectly clear; I do not believe that the local officials are responsible for this. I believe that the local officials in the County Mayo, as I have said before, try to do their work honestly and in a straightforward fashion. I do not believe that this scandalous proceeding is due to anything that has been done, or any suggestions that have been made by the local officials. I believe that, as the Minister said, the Land Commission gave its approval for this scheme, and that the scheme was not locally proposed. This thing is a scandal. Here you have 17 acres of splendid land which must be sold—in my opinion at any rate, and I hold that opinion until I hear some answer to the contrary—for the purpose for which it was acquired; which must be sold for the relief of congestion, and I do not believe that the local officials suggested that the law should be broken and that the poor should be robbed in this fashion.
We want a definite explanation. When the Parliamentary Secretary made his reply the other day, we were told they wanted them for building plots. But the doctor had a dispensary house already, so that would not work, and we got a new idea and a new phrase to-day—they wanted them for cow plots. I want to know where the Minister gets his authority for selling land to persons who are not land owners, selling it not under the provisions of the Act, but for cash, or rather I should say giving it away for the purpose of cow plots. If a doctor or if a school teacher wants land for his own purpose, then let that doctor or that school teacher go into the market, and if he wants a farm of land let him buy that farm of land in the open market. He is no object of charity. He does not belong to the class of persons for whom the land code was passed.
Hear, hear!
But of course if those friends of the present Administration want to buy cow plots in the open market they would have to pay the market value. Let them go into the open market; let them buy their holdings of land in the open market, and let them pay the market value. They will not get a sale—if you could call it a sale— at one-third of the value of the land. I am sure there are plenty of Deputies in this House who know what sums are paid for building plots. They know what the county councils pay for building plots when they want to build labourers' cottages. I should like to know what body is willing to sell to, say, county councils or to urban councils, seven acres of land at £12 5s. an acre. I am very anxious to hear the Parliamentary Secretary's explanation, and for that reason I am only speaking for a very short time; I am going to give him a very full opportunity to reply. I want to know from him how he justifies the taking over of land for the relief of congestion and not utilising every perch of land for the purpose for which it was taken over. I want to know by what authority and in exercise of what power did the Land Commission sell this land to political friends and followers of the Minister.
Before the Parliamentary Secretary replies I wish to ask him a few questions. He will remember when I brought this matter before the Dáil on November 27th, I asked him if he was aware that acute congestion existed in the parish of Kilcommon, that there was a large number of small farmers with large families whose poor law valuations were under £5, living in the immediate vicinity of that farm, and if it was the policy of the Land Commission to give allotments to medical practitioners and school teachers in districts where acute congestion existed. His reply then was that the plots referred to are accommodation plots for building purposes. Will the Parliamentary Secretary now state if seven acres of the best land in South Mayo is necessary for a residence for a medical doctor who has a new house which was recently built by the Mayo Board of Health? Is 12 acres required for teachers' residences, and is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that the teachers have also built new houses and are now living in them? The people of the parish of Kilcommon are practically unanimous in their condemnation of this highhanded action of the Land Commission in selling land to professional people who enjoy substantial salaries from the State, land which should be given to the holders of uneconomic holdings with large families whose only livelihood is derived from the land. Just look at the price given for this land. The land given to the doctor was sold to him at £12 10s. per acre or £86 in all. If that land were put up for sale, it would go to at least £300. Therefore Fianna Fáil is practically giving a present of £214 to that doctor. In like manner, the school teachers were given the land at a price much below its market value.
This matter has caused a great deal of agitation in South Mayo. I hope the Land Commission is not anxious to encourage agrarian agitations of that description. There is no doubt that owing to the action of the Land Commission the people of that district are practically up in arms against the methods of the Land Commission. We all know that there are several families in the immediate neighbourhood of this farm whose valuations are under £5. They have been brushed aside while the Land Commission gives the land to a doctor and two school teachers. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary does not stand for a policy of that description, and I hope he will see that land acquired for distribution amongst congests is not disposed of in that way. We do not want to see agrarian crime starting in Mayo, but we cannot stop it, if this method of distribution is followed.
What price did the unfortunate man from whom the holding was resumed get?
I do not wish to occupy the time of the House for any length of time as I wish to give the Parliamentary Secretary plenty of time to reply. Certainly it was interesting to listen to Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney and Deputy Nally speaking here to-night, but I would ask them to brush up their memories a little, and to remember the manner in which the Major Browne Estate at Breaffy was dealt with when Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney was Minister for Justice. I would ask them to remember that I raised in this House the question of an ex-police sergeant, with £4 10s. per week pension, getting nearly 40 acres of land while his brother, another ex-policeman, got over 30.
That has nothing to do with this case.
It has this much to do with it, that it is rather late in the day to get into hysteries over this matter. I am not standing for giving land to professional people——
Hear, hear!
——whether they be teachers or doctors. I never stood for it and I do not stand for it now, but I do think it is rather hypocritical to come here at this hour of the day after the scandal that was perpetrated in the division of the Browne estate. When I raised the matter three times in this House I got no support from any of the Opposition Deputies who were then the Government Party in my efforts to get the matter righted. It is now rather late to get very indignant over these matters.
These persons had already holdings of land.
They had not. The mother of one of them had a post office and blacksmith's shop and acres of land. The other, as I have said, was in receipt of a pension of £4 10s. 0d. per week because he served his King well and loyally up to the last minute. I am not making a plea for the giving of this land to professional people——
Hear, hear!
——but it has been the custom of the Land Commission to give accommodation plots to such people, and not alone to give it to such people, but to give it to shopkeepers as they gave it to a shopkeeper with a turnover of £20,000 per year on the Browne estate. It has been the custom of the Land Commission to give them accommodation plots.
What a helpful speech.
I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to go closely into the matter of the division of land in Mayo during the administration of the previous Government, and I can tell him that, as far as I can, I shall give him every assistance in reopening cases if it is possible to reopen them.
They do not arise now. There is a specific case before the House.
The administration of the Land Commission is attacked in this question, and I have a right to quote instances in which worse than Deputies now allege has been done was done in the past. Therefore, I again appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary to go very closely into the administration of the previous Government in these matters.
A question on the adjournment is for the purpose of elucidating further the basic question asked at question time, and not to review the administration of any Department.
All I have to say is that nothing is being done by the Land Commission at the present time except——
The Parliamentary Secretary.
——what was the practice established by the previous Government.
Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney has been attempting to make a mountain out of a molehill. The inspector, in submitting his scheme for these lands, reported that owing to the small area of arable land available on that farm it was not possible to provide accommodation for more than three migrants. The question then arose as to the distribution of the residue, and after careful investigation, it was agreed that accommodation plots should be provided for five persons—one of them a labourer, one a hackney man, one a dispensary doctor, and two teachers. I have gone carefully over the files, both of the people who have been accommodated and of the rejected applicants, and I have satisfied myself that the Land Commission in this instance did the only possible thing they could have done in the circumstances. There are 42 persons on this list of rejected applicants, and of these only 12 were under a valuation of £8 10s. 0d. On closer investigation it was found that many of these had already been provided with accommodation plots and others were found to be ineligible for various reasons. The practice of providing accommodation plots is not new; it is an old one and follows long-established precedent. The Congested Districts Board in the past provided accommodation plots in that particular area, as Deputy Fitzgerald-Kenney must be well aware. That policy has been followed by the Land Commission, as was done in this instance. It was not possible to divide the residue amongst the congests in the only convenient area, namely, Ballina, for this reason——
Ballina is 80 miles away.
I am well aware that the town of Ballina is probably 80 miles away, but there is a townland of that name. I understood that the Deputy was so familiar with his case that he described this land as the most wonderful in Mayo.
I know the land well and I know it is good land.
Now we find that he does not even know where it is.
You are wrong. I know the land perfectly well.
If you are so familiar with it as you pretend to be how is it you are unaware of the existence of the townland of Ballina?
I do not know the name of every townland, and I do not believe anybody else does either.
He is not aware that there is a townland in the parish of Kilcommon called Ballina.
It was impossible to do that as the only people in the area who could have been considered were those resident in the townland of Ballina. These refused to migrate and accept a plot of this land, and it was impossible to give them additional plots attached to their existing holdings because of the distance away from the land and the cost of making an accommodation road thereto. I might point out that the Government do not approve of giving plots either to shopkeepers or professional men.
To your friends.
In this instance that intimation was conveyed to the commissioners and despite that, upon closer examination of the scheme by the commissioners it was found that there was no other alternative—that no other avenue was open to them. So much for the charge that the Government are giving land to professional people. With regard to the other charge, that it was because this doctor was supposed to have canvassed for Fianna Fáil he was given this accommodation plot, that is the first I have heard of whatever political leanings this doctor may have. The Deputy knows, as everybody else knows, that the determination of persons to whom land will be given is not a matter either for the Minister or for me. It is one of the excepted matters, as the Deputy well knows.
As to the question raised by Deputy Nally as to acute congestion in the area, I invite a very close inspection by any impartial tribunal, composed either of members of this House or persons outside. Let them examine the files as I have done and go over the successful and the non-successful applicants and show me how a better job could have been made of the division of that land than has been made by the commissioners. The commissioners were confronted with the position that they had taken over a certain area of land, some good land and some waste land, or practically waste land. They could only divide the good land, and in the circumstances they had to dispose of the residue. They did that, as the Deputy is aware, and as he has already indicated. As to the question of the sale of the land to these applicants, that is not new either. It is merely tantamount to the redemption of the annuities of the applicants concerned. That has been frequently done in the past.
Will the Parliamentary Secretary say by what authority these sales were made? What section and what statute gave that power? They had resumed land for the purpose of congestion and had 17 acres available for the relief of congestion.
The Land Commission acquired the lands for the relief of congestion and they have disposed of them as I have indicated. They should either then give the residue for the purpose of providing accommodation plots or leave it with the former owner to whom it would be utterly useless, as, in the circumstances, it was not found possible to give it to the only other congests in the area, those resident in Ballina.
Why not bring in a congest for the 17 acres?
Because the residue would not provide an economic holding for a congest.
Seventeen acres of good land?
You could have 17 or 170 acres of so-called land and yet not have an economic holding.
This is excellent land.
I do not think there is any other point.
Will the Parliamentary Secretary answer my plain question? Will he name the section or statute under which he had power to sell this land?
The Land Commission are fully satisfied that they have all the powers necessary to acquire land for the relief of congestion.
They have, but how to dispose of it is what we want.
Surely the doctor's cow was not congested?
I think the less said about cows the better.
Will the Parliamentary Secretary answer my plain question?
I have already told you that the Land Commission are satisfied that they possess the necessary power to acquire the land. I do not think the Deputy can challenge that.
They have power to acquire the land, but I am asking about selling the land they acquired. Surely you can answer that question.
In selling the land in this instance they merely did what they have been doing in the past. It has never been challenged by anybody.
What power have they?
The question of their power is not a matter for me to decide. The Deputy, if he had a case, would be fully competent to take it where it could be decided.
The Dáil adjourned at 11 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, the 11th December.