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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 25 Apr 1945

Vol. 96 No. 23

Committee on Finance. - Vote 52—Lands (Resumed).

There is one matter that I brought to the Minister's notice last year but there has not been much done about it since, namely, the question of land that has been in the hands of the Land Commission for a long time, in some cases for over 30 years. I think something should be done about it. The Minister, no doubt, will plead shortage of staff but I cannot take that as an answer now. Many of the staff have returned to his Department and he can tackle this problem and relieve a lot of distress. There is a number of cases which I intended to bring to his notice by means of Parliamentary question. I take this opportunity of doing so. One is an estate in Ballinahone, Manulla, Castlebar. One I mentioned on Friday is the Peyton estate, outside Castlebar. Another is the O'Dowd estate in Louisburg. There is also the Prendergast estate outside Claremorris. The conditions on certain small farms adjoining that piece of land are truly appalling. There is a road leading into them about an Irish mile long, or more. I notice, by reference to the Dáil Debates, that Deputies who served a long time in this House raised this question frequently prior to the Minister taking office. I would appeal to the Minister very strongly to tackle this work and at least to wipe out what I describe as the very worst cases. I do not ask for impossible things but excuses cannot be accepted any longer for not doing something about the question, particularly in view of the fact that there is a lot of land in the hands of the Land Commission and a lot of land in the County Mayo that could be acquired without causing hardship to anybody. There is land there that is derelict in many cases and which could be acquired. In the case of holdings that fall vacant through the death of the owner, the owner having no family, the lands should be acquired by the Land Commission almost automatically, because in that case, from the legal point of view, it is easier to acquire the land. I do not see why the Land Commission should not take over that land and distribute it.

In regard to the allotment of land, I deprecate what happened in many cases, namely, giving small allotments of land, in some cases as far as two English miles from the allottees homes. I do not know whether or not that is the policy of the Land Commission at the moment. I hope it is not. I think it had the effect of undoing the work that the Congested Districts Board was established many years ago to do. I know cases in my own neighbourhood where small allotments of two, three and four statute acres of land have been given which are two and a half English miles from the allottees' homes. That seems to be ridiculous conduct on the part of the Land Commission. They could have blocked these farms into holdings; they could have migrated a tenant or two from the villages that are overcrowded and they could have divided the land among the remaining tenants. They could have given a clean cut holding of land to one tenant instead of splitting it up into a lot of small pieces, like a patch work quilt, with the result that the allottees have to go a long distance from their homes-to work the land, thereby reducing the value of the additional land.

There is another question to which I referred last year and which, I think, the Minister treated as a joke on that occasion, that is, the question of sanitation in houses that are being built by the Land Commission. As far as I recollect, the Minister quoted some British authority as saying that there was no need for it in country houses. One of the things that foreigners visiting this country are shocked at is the lack of proper sanitation in most country houses, particularly in the new houses. I mentioned some rough and ready system of the collection of roof water which would obviate labour, particularly on the women folk. I did not advocate an elaborate costly system of sanitation. I may not have expressed myself very clearly on that occasion, but I did not mean an elaborate hot and cold water system that one finds in the cities, but some kind of rough and ready system by which a lot of the slavery and labour that falls principally on women folk could be easily obviated. I think it would not greatly increase the initial cost of the houses if it were done. Some system should be established by which owners of existing houses could get a loan from the Land Commission or some other Government Department for the purpose of installing a decent sanitary system in the house. Even at the present high cost of material, it would not increase the cost of the house by more than £14 or £15.

If a good example were set, the people would gradually adopt it, just as they have adopted other improvements, such as in the matter of outside buildings and so on. They are very anxious and very quick to adopt any idea that will save labour and give better results, such as fencing, the erection of hay sheds, concrete water tanks. These can be obtained by means of farm improvements grants at the present time. I would ask the Minister to tackle the problem, which is a very serious one in County Mayo. I think the need is greater in parts of Mayo than in any other county. I want to make it perfectly clear that I am not asking for impossible things.

I would ask the Minister to tackle the land question in Mayo and to start at the worst spots that I have indicated. The rundale system still obtains in four or five estates and in some of these cases conditions are shocking. I know one particular village where there are five dwelling-houses which must be over 100 years old. They are pitched together in one common street that is hardly as big as the Dáil Chamber. That could easily be remedied. I have no doubt that in connection with the particular case I have mentioned I will be told that an offer of migration was made to the tenants some years ago, that some would accept but that others would not, thereby upsetting the whole plan of the Land Commission. I fully sympathise with the Land Commission in their difficulties because the moment Land Commission officials appear in a district to effect improvements of any kind, the people immediately stiffen and ask for things outside of all reason. We do not back that attitude and, in that regard, I want to say that any time that I or my colleague in South Mayo, Deputy Cafferky, or any member of the Farmers' Party, can help the Minister or his officials, in obstinate cases such as that, we will give every help possible. I am not speaking for any purpose other than to try to settle the worst cases which are really a blot on the country. Fortunately there are only five or six such cases left and I would ask the Minister, in the coming year, to tackle them.

The Minister in introducing the Estimate referred to the inactivity of the Land Commission, which we are all aware of, and put it down to the emergency conditions. It was pleasing anyway to hear him say that recently the Emergency Powers Order prohibiting the Land Commission from acquiring and dividing land had been revoked. I take it from that statement that during the coming year the Land Commission will make an effort to get into their stride again and go back to pre-emergency conditions and that the staff that has been transferred to other Departments will be brought back with a view to resuming the acquisition of land throughout the country and dividing it amongst deserving people. I could never understand why the emergency conditions were used to prohibit the acquisition or distribution of land. In fact one would think that the emergency conditions should spur the Land Commission on to acquire and divide more land than heretofore. I hope that when the Minister introduces his Estimate next year he will be able to give us a good report as to the land acquired and divided. There are a few items I should like to mention in connection with existing holdings. I suppose the officials in the Land Commission are the most obstinate bunch of officials you could meet in any Department.

The Minister is responsible for the administration of his Department.

I am sorry; I will not refer to them any more.

Whatever the Deputy has to say he should say it to the Minister.

Then I will abuse the Minister instead of the officials. The Land Commission acquired many estates in County Dublin and put new roads into them. These roads are in a disgraceful condition. It takes years of agitation, writing letters and calling on the Department before you can get them to do anything to these roads. I suggest to the Minister that some effort should be made by his Department to put these roads into a proper condition and then negotiate with the county councils or the county managers and hand them over to bodies which will keep them in better order. When the Land Commission contemplate putting a new road into an estate they should get the county council to do it and give them a fair contribution so that they can put in a good road, which will be rolled and tarred and put in a condition that will last for a number of years.

I have seen some of the roads that were made by the Land Commission on which delivery vans, threshing machines, etc., have to travel. Some of the owners of these refuse to go up the roads. The wheels and axles of carts are being broken on them every day of the week. They are in a deplorable condition. After annoying everybody for about two years, you may get something done to a road which will get over the difficulty for six or 12 months. Large numbers of children have to travel on those roads in the winter time when going to school, and people going to Mass on Sundays have also to travel on them, although they are in a disgraceful condition. I appeal to the Minister to have a survey made of these Land Commission roads, have them put into a proper state of repair, and then hand them over to the county council for maintenance. When new roads are being made into divided land the making of the roads should also be handed over to the county council. The Minister should also see, when land is divided, that a proper water supply is provided for the tenants. It takes 12 months between communicating with and interviewing officials of the Land Commission before they will sink a pump for the benefit of some of these tenants. Therefore, I suggest to the Minister that in the division of land in future the question of an adequate water supply should be taken into consideration.

Naturally every Deputy looks to his own constituency to see what can be done for it. I can say without exaggeration that a portion of my constituency contains some of the most hard-working and industrious small farmers in Ireland, or indeed in Europe. I refer to the areas around the seaboard, such as Rush, Skerries, Balbriggan, Portrane, Malahide, Baldoyle and Donabate. At present they are digging new potatoes in these districts; I had some of them to-day. In these areas you have small farmers with 4, 5 or 6 acres of land. A big number of them have lorries on the road two or three times a week, and are keeping 500,000 people in the City of Dublin supplied with vegetables and other foodstuffs. In these areas where there is intensive tillage the people should get every consideration from the Minister. If necessary, he should apply his migration scheme to people in these areas. There are thousands of acres of fertile land on the other side of the County Dublin which is in grass. Some of this land should be acquired, and people from the areas I have mentioned given farms of 30 or 40 acres. Then the little holdings they have at present could be allocated to other people in these districts. These people should be given a fair chance. A number of Deputies and Ministers know that I am speaking the truth about these areas, because they have been there on holidays and have seen the intensive tillage carried on there.

There is an enormous amount of fertile land in County Dublin which the Compulsory Tillage Order does not affect at all. The owners have other farms in other counties which are not as good for fattening cattle as the land in County Dublin. The result is that these owners till the land which they have down around the Midlands. They employ a tillage contractor and scatter the seed anyway. They have complied with the tillage Order and that is all they are concerned about. They do not give two hoots if the people of the country starve as long as they are all right. They just comply with the tillage Order and that is all. Their principal occupation is buying cattle and fattening them on their land in County Dublin. I have seen some of them beaming with pleasure at the huge rise in the price of cattle. The Minister should consider taking over these lands extending from Finglas as far as Garristown and from Rollistown to Ballyboghill and dividing them. During the coming 12 months I hope we will not get the stock reply from the Minister that, owing to emergency conditions, he regrets that nothing can be done. We are tired of reading that in the Official Reports and hearing it every day in the Dáil. I would make a special appeal to the Minister to do something so far as these lands are concerned. There is plenty of land out there to meet the demands of the uneconomic holders and other deserving people in County Dublin.

Why is it that no building contractor feels inclined to build a house for the Land Commission? In Swords recently, when they advertised for a contractor to build a house, the contractors, on hearing that it was for the Land Commission, would not touch it with a 40-foot pole and they did not even get a tender. If any Deputy put an advertisement in the paper, asking for a contractor to build a house, he would get five or six tenders, at least. The particular land I have referred to has been set out for years by the Land Commission. Any person will take it and pay £5 or £7 an acre for it, and then they will take the good out of it for three or four years. It is of no use then to the person who gets it, as they will need to manure it for five or six years before they get it back to fertility. I do not think it is right for the Land Commission to be setting land, year in and year out. They set this piece of land again this year. Let us hope it will be the last year it will be set.

I notice that the Land Commission gives formal notice about resuming holdings and gives notice that they have their eye on a particular estate. It is then put up for sale immediately and somebody buys it and complies with the tillage regulations by tilling a certain amount of it. The uneconomic holders and landless men of the area, who had been looking forward to getting a few acres when that land was divided, and who looked upon it as their only hope, find now that their chance is gone. I agree that it takes a little time for the Land Commission to carry out the work, but the moment they decide to acquire a certain farm the owner should be prohibited from making any effort to sell it.

The Minister himself has said that the Land Commission was very inactive during the past year, due to emergency conditions. However, now that the Order prohibiting the acquisition and division of land has been revoked, I hope the Land Commission will get into its stride and acquire these lands I have been talking about in County Dublin, so that they may go to uneconomic holders and landless men who will work them to the fullest advantage of the Irish people and themselves.

A visitor to this country or a casual observer might get the impression that the Land Commission was a State institution here to look after the national interests of our most precious property, the land, and whose responsibility it was to ensure that the disposition and utilisation of land here would be in the national interest. Bearing in mind the Minister's attitude to this whole problem, we should avail of this interregnum to examine our land policy. Have we any constructive land policy at all? Is the policy that has been operated in the past in the best interests of the country? What are other people thinking about this matter? Should the Land Commission be divorced — as it is at present—from the Department of Agriculture? There appears to be no co-operation between the two Departments and they are working along different lines.

We know that the British people are contemplating the setting up of a land utilisation authority to ensure that agricultural land will be preserved and not encroached on to the extent that has occurred in the past ten years. They are aware that over a million acres of really good agricultural land have been built on and its production capacity destroyed. We know that in the United States a soil conservation authority was set up some years ago to conserve the existing land there and ensure that the erosion and destruction which have taken place for a number of years will be stopped and to try to apply a constructive policy in that respect.

In our circumstances here, with our small population, it might appear that we have not a problem of that sort. But Dr. Bennett of the Soil Conservation Authority of the United States has pointed out clearly that the amount of reclaimed land in the world has not overtaken the amount of erosion and, if that position continues, the world may well face a situation when there will not be a sufficient amount of land to provide decent standards and a proper diet for all the people. I admit that the problem is not so acute in this country, yet we should look after our most precious possession. Our primary industry is agriculture and the most precious raw material we possess is the soil.

Well, this Department deals definitely and specifically with the disposition of land generally. I am questioning whether the policy in regard to disposition of land in recent years is in the national interest or not. There does not appear to be particular responsibility on any Department as to how land should be acquired by local authorities for building purposes or by manufacturers for factory sites. No Department appears to have any direct authority in that respect. I am merely suggesting that the whole matter should be reviewed. I think the Minister has a rather open mind on the question and I suggest that the time is opportune for an overhaul of our ideas.

The Minister informed us, in his introductory speech, that in the last year he had to dispossess a number of allottees. That is a reflection on the policy and work of his Department generally, as it is quite obvious that the selection of those allottees was bad in the first instance. In my opinion, the system of investigation is unsound. There is a secret service attitude adopted, under which the Department sends down an inspector to go amongst the neighbours in a locality where an estate is to be divided, trying to induce one neighbour to tell lies about another, so as to boost his own claim to land. I suggest there should be an investigation of the whole question of land policy, as to whether the amount we now look upon as an economic holding is, in fact, an economic holding at all. It would be useful to this House and to the Minister to have such an investigation, to ascertain whether the land divided in recent years, or even since the setting up of the State, has been utilised in the national interest, whether the families that have been settled on divided estates have proved a success and, where success was not attained, the cause of the failure.

Generally speaking, we know the unit of land that is looked upon by the Department as an economic unit and we should endeavour to find out whether it really is an economic unit at all or not. I think it is unfortunate that we did not set up some sort of commission of inquiry as that before now, as it is a very important matter. We should have an authority to deal with the disposition and utilisation of land, so as to ensure that it will be used nationally in the best interests of the people. The Minister has announced that his policy is that he is not prepared to acquire estates for division purposes unless he is satisfied beforehand that they will be used for better purposes in the future. That is a very sound point of view. If he intends to deal with this whole question of land settlement efficiently, he will find it invaluable to have in his hands a report from a competent committee of inquiry into all the activities of past years. If we are to adjust ourselves to the new situation, to the problems that have to be faced in the future; if we make up our minds that our land policy, and Land Commission operations generally, must be more effective and efficient in the future, we must start in that way.

Whether the machinery that we have for selecting future occupants is the best type of machinery that can be provided, is a matter for consideration. We must also consider whether it is wise, in present world circumstances, and in view of the tendency towards mechanisation, to settle men in small units, forget about their future welfare and not make sufficient provision for them in the way of co-operation. We must consider whether we can provide modern mechanised methods of production, and whether we can induce people to use them. I think there must be State intervention to bring about that co-operative organisation that is vital if the small man is to survive. In this country we are bound to have a substantial surplus for export and, if we have to sell against countries using modern methods of production, highly developed countries with a high degree of mechanisation introduced into food production, we will have to keep abreast of new ideas, not merely scientific methods of production, but mechanical application as well. I think a very effective means of dealing with the problem of the small man is to consider his economic circumstances and realise that very often he cannot afford to provide modern machinery for himself because it is economically unsound for him to expend money on a machine that he has not the capacity to use very much.

It is unfortunate that we have not experimented more fully with the question of co-operation. I think the Minister, in dividing big estates, could introduce co-operative methods among the allottees and encourage them to work their land co-operatively and provide through co-operative methods all the equipment that will be necessary, especially post-war. The Minister should give more attention to this matter. As a practical farmer, I believe there are definite possibilities there. The only way in which we can help the small men is by bringing them together and letting them work co-operatively. In many ways the co-operative system has not been successful here in the past. It made a certain amount of progress and achieved a certain measure of success. I think there is a future in it. When we realise what has been achieved in other agricultural countries, such as the Baltic countries and the United States, through co-operative methods, we should be encouraged to push the system as far as possible.

The Minister realises that the primary purpose of the Land Commission was to make tenant farmers fee-simple owners of their lands under the various Land Acts. The Minister gave some information in reply to a question of mine last week about the number of holdings in this country awaiting vesting. He mentioned there are 90,000 holdings still to be vested. That is an unfortunate state of affairs and it is an unfair situation so far as the tenant farmer is concerned. He is entitled to become the fee-simple owner of his property and provision in that connection was made for him under the various Acts passed by this House from 1923 onwards. The present position indicates that this matter has been neglected by the Land Commission.

There ought to be much greater progress so far as a solution as regards individual ownership of land is concerned. The Minister indicated that some improvement was effected last year with reference to the number of holdings vested. Vesting has undoubtedly increased, but the increase will have to be more substantial if we are to solve the problem within the next ten or 15 years. It is not unreasonable to suggest that vesting should be concluded within the next ten years. I appreciate that it is a big problem and requires a good deal of investigation; it is not by any means a simple matter. A big staff is required. I suggest to the Minister that if an increase of staff is necessary it should be provided, because vesting must be expedited.

So far as redemption is concerned, anyone desirous of redeeming his holding finds that the redemption price is based on the price of bonds which are purely fictitious, because they were discharged under the 1938 agreement. There is an appreciation in the price of these fictitious bonds and the redemption price goes up accordingly. That is most unfair and I think there should be some attempt to peg the price to a definite figure and not have it fluctuating.

Other speakers have referred to a number of things that give rise to abuse in regard to land. I think that where a resumption notice is served on an estate owner the question of the resumption ought to be determined at the earliest possible moment, because the normal human reaction is that if one owns property and gets a notice that the Land Commission have their eyes on it and will resume it some day for the purposes of division, one sets out immediately to get all he can out of the land—he will abuse the land; in other words.

Land is a precious possession and once you reduce its fertility, it requires time and patience and money to get it back into a suitable condition. We in this Parliament never seem to appreciate the importance of this matter, that the greatest thing that could be done for the country is to step up the fertility of the land. Any Minister who can achieve that will do a great service to the country. The reverse also applies. A man who can prevent the destruction of the fertility of the land will be serving his country well and there is no doubt that the Land Commission permits a good deal of abuse of our most precious asset in that they serve a resumption notice and then sit down for 10 or 15 years and let an individual abuse the land until they acquire it in a low state of fertility. The unfortunate allottees cannot be expected to get a living off such land.

In the same way, lands on the hands of the Land Commission are cropped year after year regardless of their condition or fertility. Cereals are taken out for three, four or five years under the Compulsory Tillage Order, regardless of decent husbandry methods. No attention is paid to a proper system of husbandry, while, at the same time, in the very Acts which this Department administers, there is provision that, if a man does not carry on a proper system of husbandry, his land may be taken over and divided. If there are abuses in the matter of husbandry, the Land Commission are the archpriests of inefficiency so far as a decent system of husbandary is concerned. That applies all over the country. It is not peculiar to any particular county. There are estates in the hands of the Land Commission for a number of years which have been cropped year after year under the Compulsory Tillage Order without any attempt at any system of modern husbandry.

That is an unfortunate state of affairs, and it is particularly unfortunate for the people who have to go in on that land some day, when the Land Commission makes up its mind to parcel it out, and who are expected to make a living off land which has been reduced to a condition in which it is on the verge of barrenness. They will have to wait patiently for a number of years until nature corrects the condition created by the policy now in operation. It is a bad policy for the Land Commission to adopt, especially in a period when Compulsory Tillage Orders are in force and when they are not in a position to provide farmyard manure.

I do not want to be unreasonable. I appreciate the difficulties which exist, but the solution is to get rid of it. If the Land Commission is not in a position to farm it in a practical way, let them give it out to the people and insist that they farm it properly, but if the Land Commission is to be entrusted with the task of deciding whether a man is carrying out good husbandry or not, one would expect that the deciding authority would not set a bad example, that no one would be able to point the finger at it. The Minister might very usefully pay some attention to that matter and have divided whatever lands the Land Commission has.

With regard to allowing allottees to sell, I know a case in North Kildare of a man who got a very substantial gift of land from the State, which the State obviously intended he should use in his own interests and in the interests of his family. He was not so very long in occupation of it when he was permitted to cash in on it. I do not think that was the intention of this House, and I do not believe the Minister subscribes to that policy, but it has happened, and I think it is a disgrace. When this Parliament decided to provide parcels of land for uneconomic holders, it was not intended that they should work them merely for a few years and then cash in on them. One case in North Kildare has created a good deal of scandal and I think the Minister ought to put a stop to that type of thing.

There ought to be some testing period in relation to the selection of tenants, and, to my mind, the Scottish system in that respect is good. If a man is put on a farm and makes good over a period, the amount of land he holds is increased. If he proves to be unsatisfactory, he may be dispossessed, and if his success is just moderate, he continues to operate the original amount of land given to him. I often think that it is that system which has made the Scottish farmer one of the most efficient farmers in the world. It allows for the elimination of the man who is a failure, but the system in our country very often permits a man who is a bad farmer and a failure from the standpoint of good standards of agriculture to hang on, with the result that there is not merely a loss to himself but a national loss, in that he occupies a piece of land which is not producing in the national interest.

I think the time is opportune for a general investigation of the whole matter. These are fundamental matters which require careful examination, and if the Minister and the Government think it over carefully, they will agree that the matter should be examined, in order to ensure that, immediately the war is over, we shall be able to launch out on a proper land policy.

I have not got a great deal to say on this matter, because, over the years, we have thrashed it out fairly well, but I think it would be advisable if there were more co-operation between the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Lands, and I might add another, the Department of Local Government. My chief complaint on this Estimate—and many Deputies have the same complaint—is in relation to the colony at Rathcarne near Athboy of something like 27 families, to which a school is attached. There are only three pumps for the entire colony, one of which has been out of action for some considerable time. It is true that the Land Commission promised me on many occasions that the matter would be put right, and if the 27 families were living close to each other, one could imagine three pumps being sufficient, but they are living on holdings of 21 acres and are fairly widely separated and, consequently, an amount of the water used there must be drawn from ditches, dikes and pools. The two pumps which are functioning would scarcely be sufficient to supply the 27 families.

I know it is a difficult matter, but, at the same time, the Land Commission should use a certain amount of commonsense and reason when dividing up these farms. All the knowledge about a farm and its water conditions is possessed by the local people and not by the Land Commission officials. They are generally ignorant of the particular conditions, such as the quality of a field or the reason for its being so big. They generally attribute the largeness of a field to the fact that County Meath is a ranching country. Very often that large field is due to the fact that water is not procurable. There are estates and colonies there in which you had three, four, five, six and even more pumps put down. It was then discovered that the water was absolutely dangerous. There were outbreaks of fever, and patients had to be taken to hospital as a result of drinking the water. I know myself that for years past the tradition there was that the pump water was useless. The owner of that land then made large fields in order to have the water convenient. The workers and the people on these particular farms had to resort then to the wells. It seems that the upper water was good and that the underneath water was not.

These are all matters of local knowledge, and it would be a good thing if the Land Commission would make more use of that local knowledge. If they did, so many mistakes would not be made. If there was a greater degree of co-operation between the Department of Agriculture and the Land Commission, the latter would possibly be able to lay out plans for future policy. It was pretty well known for some time before compulsory tillage was introduced that, if the war went on, we would have to supply our own needs. That meant that we would have to have compulsory tillage and would have to grow a good deal of corn of every description. When that policy was started it was discovered that these new tenants had no place in which to store the corn. Fairly substantial sheds were erected, but no lofts were put on them. On many occasions here I, personally, asked that these lofts be put up, because to do so only meant raising the shed one foot or more. I was told that the tenant could do that, but it was not always possible for him to do it. The result was that only in very few cases were lofts put on these sheds. In the last couple of years the tenants had to sell their oats. The last harvest season, as we all know, was a particularly wet one. These new tenants had to sell all their corn which was damp. In any event, they had to get rid of it, with the result that they had no feeding around the house for poultry. Pigs were not kept, all due to the fact that there was no place for them to store their corn. Many of those new tenants in the Gaelic Colony had to pay for the storage of their corn in the neighbouring town. Some of the sheds put up were rather leaky and are becoming useless. Some of the woodwork is beginning to decay. For that reason, I suggest there should be more co-operation between the two Departments I have mentioned to discover what is going to happen. That, however, is more a matter for the future.

I think there is something in what Deputy Hughes has said as regards the mechanisation of the land. It is almost certain that increased tillage will have to be continued for a long time after the war. I do not know if a co-operative scheme could be set up amongst the colonists and smallholders to enable them to procure machinery. We all know that the small man does not seem to have the same chance of getting a living or a profit out of tillage as the man who is able to put capital into it and purchase the necessary machinery. That is a point of view that should be examined. If the future compels us to mechanise tillage, something will have to be done to help the small farmer and keep him on the land.

My principal purpose in speaking was to raise the question of the vesting of holdings. Sometimes I am not quite sure as to what the policy of the Land Commission is—whether these holdings should or should not be vested. I understand that the vesting of a holding means that it is handed over in fee to the tenant with the right to sell or transfer it—in other words, that he has complete security in it. I believe that would be a good thing, because I know a number of tenants who, if their holdings were vested in them, are in a position to put some capital into their land. They are doubtful as to whether they should do that or not, especially when there is a good deal of talk about the power that the Land Commission has over land. The result is that a good many tenants are at a standstill. They are not sure that, if they put money into their land, they will be entitled to get it out of it. I think that the traditional system of land tenure in this country was a sound one. It was interrupted, of course, by the operation of British law in this country. The native Irish system gave security of tenure, and that is the system we should try to adopt. Men should be put in the position that they will be able to sell their land. The health of a man who owns land may break down as the health of a businessman may break down. His doctor may advise him to give up farming and go live in a city or town. A man in that position should be able to sell his farm. Men should also be encouraged to improve their land with a view to being able to cash it, if necessary. I think that is the only way in which you will get an improvement in land.

The sooner we get a bit courageous and face the open market, and have free sale in land, as far as the new Land Commission tenants are concerned, the quicker they will step up, and in consequence step up the fertility of the land. That is an important matter, and I would like to hear the Minister's view on it. I hope that, when he comes to deal with the question of vesting, he will tell us what is going to happen. Must all the holdings be handed over in good repair, must all the buildings be put into proper order, and must the boundary fences be properly divided between neighbouring tenants so as to prevent the possibility of disputes in the future? I think that, under the old British system, that was not done. The division of the boundaries was left purely and simply to the two adjoining tenants. I think the Minister will find out, if he makes inquiries, that the result of that has been that tenants have fallen out. Their boundary fences were not divided, and you had a sort of no-man's land, so that no one could touch it. All that was due to the fact that the tenants had fallen out over the boundary. Steps should be taken to see that the fences are properly divided, that half belongs to one man and half to the other, and that each man will be under a legal obligation to maintain his side of the fence. I would like the Minister to tell us what conditions will prevail when holdings come to be vested. I know that inspectors are going around to see how these holdings are being used, with a view to vesting. On the other side, I think the tenant has some claim to see that his house and installations will be put into good order as well as his pastures and the lane ways made to his home.

The main object that we all had in view was to create peasant proprietors. So far as other countries are concerned, that seems to have been a very successful system, mainly because the tenants were vested outright. Although the farms may have been much smaller, they seem to have been much more successful than we have been up to the present. They paid a good deal of attention to the fertility of the soil when the sale of holdings was taking place. One of the conditions laid down was that a certain amount of the holding would have to be manured, and that a certain quantity of manure would have to be kept in the farmyard to be ready to be put on the land. The object was to keep up the fertility of the soil which, after all, is the important thing so far as tillage is concerned. Tillage is easy enough if the soil is fertile. In the County Meath we would not have much difficulty in growing a very great number of barrels of corn per acre if the soil was fertile and properly manured. Even the rich lands of Meath need manure. Success in that direction would, perhaps, need some sort of a co-operative measure to provide a certain amount of credit for tenant farmers. I think, however, that before a farmer would commit himself to the expenditure of any large sum of money to do that, he must feel that he will have some ways or means of recovering the money he invests, either by way of income, or, if he is unable to continue in the land, by selling it.

I think that would remove a good deal of the abuses that exist. The question of the redemption of these holdings is an important one. There are many holdings in Meath, the position in regard to which has been very indefinite for the last ten, 15 or 20 years. The result is that on one side an effort is made to exploit the fertility of the land and on the other side there is no inclination to make improvements. There seems to be a tendency to allow the land to get into the position of being nobody's land. The Minister should seriously consider that aspect, because the land belongs to the whole community, and where there is good land every effort should be made to maintain fertility. I should be very glad if the Minister could tell us the conditions that will govern the vesting of holdings in fee— what liability is on the tenant and what liability is on the Land Commission.

This Estimate is a very important one as far as country Deputies are concerned. It embraces one of the chief problems that come before us constantly. I hope that in the period in which there has been no land division the Land Commission have made a general review of the position with regard to land division up to the present moment. I am not at all satisfied that we are getting a good return for the land division that has been carried out for the last 20 years. We have had far too many misfits placed on the land and they are a burden to themselves and to the Land Commission and a source of future trouble unless the Land Commission are brave enough to face up to their responsibilities.

For the last two or three years I have been asking repeatedly what the Land Commission are going to do in respect of those people who refuse to live on their holding and who have had land for five or seven years. The Land Commission have done nothing about it. They may call five or six times and ask the tenant why he is not living on the holding but they do not give him any specified time either to get in or to get out. In my county there is grave abuse. Land which was supposed to be given to an allottee for the purpose of being worked and in connection with which a house was provided in which the allottee was to live, is being let on the 11 months system, in many cases to a large rancher, with the result that land division is a failure. In many cases the previous owner has taken the land under the 11 months' system and somebody from Dublin is living in the new house, while the tenant who got the land is working on the roads in a permanent position, living in a labourer's cottage which he has in his own name. I think that is one of the gravest abuses as far as my county is concerned. The Land Commission claimed that these people were a failure and that that was why they had to bring so many migrants from the West of Ireland to Meath. They said: "Look at all the failures you have in Meath. We gave so many people in each locality land and we cannot get them to live on it. We must bring people from the West of Ireland to work the land." My answer to that is that there was not enough care taken in the beginning in the selection of allottees. Many people have got land who did not know the first thing about land, who had not a shilling in their pocket and who had never done a day's work in their life. Some of them were living on home assistance. How they got it I do not know. It is a shame that the Land Commission did not select proper applicants or did not ask somebody in the locality, such as the parish priest, who was entitled to get land and who was not. They did it on their own, with the help of some Fianna Fáil club, with the result that there are plenty of eyesores in Meath to-day.

I was afraid the Deputy would forget the Fianna Fáil clubs.

I am going to deal further with them, because I am definitely satisfied that in my own vicinity one farm was divided solely by the local Fianna Fáil club and they were proud to boast that of the list they gave in everyone got land although, unfortunately, as I have said before, many of them never did a day's work in their lives. With Deputy O'Reilly and Deputy Hughes, I am interested in the vesting of holdings which have been allocated for ten or 20 years. I, with other people, have a farm which has been divided for over 18 years and we have not the slightest idea when it is going to be vested. We are working under a great handicap because, although we are working the land and increasing the fertility of the soil as best we can, we have no title deeds to our homes. There is no use in going to the banks for money; we cannot get it unless we get some outside person to go security for us. I do not think that is right. In this case, where you have 50 men making every effort to get on, the land should be vested. It should not be left for ten or 12 years. It is not fair to the men who are making good use of it. It is not fair that two or three slackers on an estate who are not making an effort should hold back others who are making good. The land should be vested where the holder is making good. I hope the Minister will consider that in the near future and that those men who are making an effort to make a worthy contribution will receive consideration and get the title so that they can improve their position and know where they stand.

I do not think that land division as it has been operated for the last 20 or 30 years has brought the results it should have brought. One of the chief concerns in my county is that the farms are too small. I agree that there is not enough land to go around. I agree that the Land Commission have a big problem in relieving congestion in the West of Ireland and even in Meath, but I am not satisfied that it is right to relieve congestion in the West of Ireland and to create congestion in the Midlands. Deputy O'Reilly and Deputy Hilliard know as well as I do that there is congestion in Rathcarne, in Gibbstown and in nearly all the migrant colonies that were created in County Meath. I think the Minister will agree that no man, no matter how good he may be and no matter how much money he may have, can make a living and rear a family on 22 statute acres of land, and, in many cases, poor land. Generally, the farms are not up to the standard that many people think, because the rich land is for the big man and the tail end is always given to the poor man. The poor unfortunate devils get the tail end, the reeds, the rushes and the dirt, and it is a big job to bring it back into fertility. These poor fellows will never be able to do it. I would ask the Minister who, I believe, is a man who is not afraid or ashamed to face up to a thing, to try to do what is noble, national and good, that is, to give the land to men who will work it, no matter whether they come from the West or from the Midlands. Anything less than 35 or 40 acres is no use to anyone. At present many migrants in Meath are making a good thing out of their farms, but it is not on the farms that they are getting their living. They may have two or three sons and daughters, who are grown up, working in England, some in America, others working in the bogs. The home is really a home for the two old people and nothing more. When the slump comes after the war many of these men will be in dire straits and unable to pay their rates. I would ask the Minister to review the position of land division and to increase the size of the farm to 35 or 40 acres. A man with 40 acres of good land and a few hundred pounds would be a local asset. He cannot work it on his own, but must employ a servant boy and, perhaps a servant girl, with the result that there will be two families living on the holding, the employer and the employed. At the moment, every one of them is an employee; every one of them must try to get work from his local farmer. He cannot work his holding and work for the farmer. I would ask the Minister to make the farms a decent size in a county like Meath. In Mayo, where there is congestion, a man would have a fair living on ten or 12 acres of land. All he wants in Mayo is a home, because he must get to England or to Dublin to knock out his living, but in County Meath he must live by the land; there is nothing else; there is no such thing as going to Dublin or to England. It is a case of living on the land. There is no alternative. There is no such thing as fishing or local industries of any type. He must live on the land or get out. This aspect of the problem should receive consideration in Meath, Kildare and Westmeath, where intensive drives are being made in land division.

Another thing that causes trouble is the question of pumps. The Land Commission are not half careful enough in dividing land to see that the two necessities, land and water, are provided. They tear up a strip of land, run a mearing between two allotments, give one strip to one man and he may have all the water on that little estate. Right beside him is a man with a farm which has been allotted to him who has no water either in the summer or the winter. The farm is absolutely dry. That is really a shame. There is no use giving a man land if he has not a proper water supply. I know small farmers who were allotted land who, year after year, are dosing cattle which are dying from dry murrain because there is no decent water supply. It is a big problem. I hold that the Land Commission should provide a pump for every individual to whom they give land. Usually a pump is erected on the new road which is made and it has to serve eight or ten families. On many occasions the pump is out of order and the farmers have to travel miles across fields to get a few barrels of water. There is no reason why the Land Commission could not give a pump to each farmer. The water problem of most of these farms is very acute and the Land Commission are not making sufficient effort to provide these people with a water supply. What is the use of giving a farm to a man and leaving him in misery with his horses and cattle dying for want of a drink?

The system of allotting five or seven acre plots to cottiers is a very good one so long as the right type of people is selected. It is only right that these cottiers should be able to keep an ass or a pony or a cow and they cannot do that without having a few acres of land. I suggest, however, that where such land is allotted it should not be actually allotted to the person occupying the cottage but should go with the cottage. When the occupier of such a cottage dies at present, the new tenant does not get the plot. As I said, the plots should go with the cottages and not have people putting them on the market trying to sell them.

Now that the war is coming to a conclusion and the activities of the Land Commission are to be resumed, I hope they will not carry out their activities in the manner Deputy Fogarty advocated. I think that the speech of the Deputy was one of the most mischievous that could be made. He advocated the acquisition of every farm of land in certain districts in North Dublin right across to County Meath. These lands belong to decent, honest farmers who acquired them honestly and are working them well. If there is more money to be got out of fattening cattle than anything else, why should they not fatten cattle? I do not see why they should not be allowed to fatten cattle. Deputy Fogarty's slogan is: "Till or get out." In my county and in County Dublin there is too much political thimble-rigging going on. In my county, in the various clubs the first question raised is: "How many ranches are there? What is the size of them? How many can be divided? Make out a list and we will send it to the Land Commission and get them divided." You have that mean, rotten spirit of greed. Everyone who wants land either for himself or a relative gets into such a club. They get about 200 names on a list which is sent on to the Land Commission in order to get neighbours' land. That mean, dirty spirit will have to be eradicated. Many of these people who are so vocal never did a day's work in their lives. You will find that they do not even work their own farms; they have them set on the 11 months' system. Some of them have 200 acres of land set to Englishmen. These are the people who say: "Take the land from the rancher and divide it."

Every man in County Meath is not a rancher. Many of those who have 200 or 300 acres started with 30 or 40 acres and, through thrift, honesty, fair dealing and hard work raised themselves up to the position of having 200 or 300 acres. The greatest asset to County Meath or to Ireland is the man with 200 or 300 acres who works his land well. I warn the Minister and the Land Commission that they will be doing a bad day's work if they divide up the County Meath in the way advocated by these clubs. They will live to regret it, because County Meath is the gateway to the British market. Store cattle are bought in Longford, Ballinasloe, and other places and are finished in County Meath and exported to the British market. It would be wise for the Land Commission in future not to pay any heed to these political bosses, but to divide the land in the national interest. The lists which are being sent up from these clubs should be put in the waste-paper basket. I have seen many failures of people who got land in County Meath. I know of people who got land and will not work it. They were the wrong type of people. I want to see that stopped. I want to see every man who gets land made work it; otherwise he should get out. The Land Commission should not give land to any person who cannot work it. No one can work 30 or 40 acres of land unless he has £200 or £300 or can be helped by his people. A man starting with nothing generally ends up with nothing, unless in a very rare case. There is absolute chaos in the County Meath so far as land division is concerned. Where people are not in a position to work land, they should be put off it; they should either work the land or get out. Some of these people have houses which are kept in a dirty condition, while there are thousands of cottages wanted in County Meath. Some of the houses which have been built for these people are locked up and the cattle are knocking them down. Some of these new houses cost the best part of £1,000 to build. It is a disgrace to the Land Commission that something is not done about it.

In connection with the building of many of these houses for allottees in the last ten or 15 years, sufficient care was not taken in the selection of the contractors. Some of them did very bad work, so bad that you could tear down the walls with your hands. Some of them have not cement walls at all, only sand and clay. Many people have endless trouble in trying to keep these houses habitable. In many of them the smoke, instead of going up the chimney, comes out of the doors and the windows. No effort is made to put them in a proper condition. I hope there will be some improvement in that respect in the future, because what took place in the last ten years was a disgrace. I am not saying that every contractor built bad houses, but there were too many handy people doing building work. There was never much money to be made building Land Commission houses, but they chanced their arm and got away with it, with the result that the unfortunate allottees are paying for it to-day. I ask the Land Commission to undo much of that work. Where there are complaints about smoking chimneys and leaking sheds it is their duty to make those things right. The people are paying their rents and rates and expect some more consideration than they have got.

Deputy O'Reilly referred to the storage of grain. The trouble amongst small farmers is that they cannot hold the grain or potatoes for want of storage accommodation. When the Land Commission builds out-offices they generally build a fair-sized shed suitable for a few cows and a horse or two. There is no reason why they should not build the walls about three feet higher. I do not say that they should put in a loft, but rather that they should leave room for a loft, so that the farmer can get trees and then put in the loft himself. When that is not done there is no use in talking about the storage of grain. The grain cannot be stored on the ground, as it would malt. When the spring comes the farmer has to go to the shop for seed which he could have kept himself on the loft. That is a problem which will have to be tackled.

It is only right that, when we have this review once a year, we should speak out our minds. I am not speaking my mind only, but the mind of people in the county. I see their grievances, their burdens, their failures and successes. It is only right that they should be put before the Minister. Otherwise, how will the Land Commission ever be improved— and we all know there is great room for improvement? I agree that the officials are courteous and good men, but they are working under a great handicap. They go round in silence and secrecy, because there are too many political bosses watching them at every moment. The Deputy opposite is one of that kind who spends his time trying to see which officials he can meet, whose ear he can catch, so as to get land allotted to his people. That is the type of politician which is a great curse nationally. They are trying only to see how they can bring votes to their own little coffers. It is of no interest to them whether land division is in the national interest or not, and all they are anxious about is that everything should be all right for themselves and their pals.

In introducing his Estimate the Minister was rather unfortunate. He suggested that he had nothing new himself to say in regard to the Estimate and that Deputies would have nothing new either. He suggested finally that it would be better to pass the Estimate in silence. That was a challenge which Deputies would not be inclined to let pass. I hope the Minister will be punished for being so imprudent as to issue that challenge.

I hope that every Deputy will spend at least two hours trying to convince the Minister that he has something new to say in regard to this Estimate. The Minister says we should stand in respectful silence and watch the Land Commission pass by. In effect, that is his appeal to us to-day—to watch a blind, inefficient, aimless machine lumbering slowly by without any sense of direction. It is quite clear—and ought to be clear to the Minister now—that the Land Commission has no sense of direction.

It is not a Department at all. In fact, it is the result of a combination of two or three Departments, it is an attempt on the part of one Department to do work which belongs appropriately to other Departments. The functions of the Land Commission may be classed under three headings: revenue collection, land settlement and land improvement or development. Revenue collection is a function which could be more appropriately performed by the Department of Finance or the Revenue Commissioners. Land improvement and development is a function which could be more appropriately and efficiently performed by the Office of Public Works. Then we come to land settlement, which is, perhaps, the most important. Here we have a function which belongs appropriately to the Department of Agriculture. Therefore, if the Minister were to consider the position of his Department impartially and objectively, he would awake some morning to find his occupation gone.

Endless contention will always prevail regarding land settlement. It is the first function of whatever Department is concerned with land settlement to act impartially, justly and objectively, not to be influenced to the slightest degree by any pressure, particularly political pressure, locally. The situation will be appalling if every branch of a political organisation is to seek votes on the promise of dividing other people's land and to claim support on their ability to divide other people's land. There is some truth in what Deputy Giles has said. Wherever there has been agitation to divide an estate, we always find that, after exhaustive and intensive investigation, perhaps lasting for seven or eight years, it is the original agitators who get the land. It may be that the Land Commission follow the line of least resistance. They may say that these people have kicked up the row or have started the agitation and that it would only cause endless trouble if they were turned down. That may be the line taken by the Land Commission, but it is scarcely in accordance with the principles of equity and justice. If the Land Commission is to be guided by the ordinary Christian principle of distributive justice, they must see that those who get the land are the most deserving of it, from every point of view. The national interest must be taken into consideration as well as the relative merits of the claimants.

I have in mind one case in which a Land Commission inspector not only departed from that principle, but acted in an absolutely inefficient manner. He interviewed, first of all, the people who applied for land and then told those people that if any of their friends wanted land, they should apply and that he would meet them on the holding. The result was that, when the inspector came to the farm that was to be divided, he found there was hardly standing room upon it. He told the assembled applicants that, unless it was graves they were looking for on the holding, there was no possibility of accommodating them. In my opinion, that is not the way to go about the initial stages of land division.

The function of the Land Commission in regard to land division is mainly to relieve congestion. That comes under the heading, first of all, of enlarging existing holdings in a district. Here is a consideration which I want to put to the Land Commission. Let us say there are two uneconomic holders in a district. One of those uneconomic holders purchases an additional portion of land. As a result, he ceases to be an uneconomic holder. The other refrains from purchasing additional land, with the result that when a holding comes to be divided in the district the man who has, by thrift and industry, enlarged his holding, receives no benefit, while the other man, who has not been thrifty enough to accumulate savings, or has invested his money in something other than land, is entitled to, and receives, an enlargement of his holding. That does not seem to be in accordance with equity. Why should one citizen receive this concession, while another, equally deserving, is denied it?

All this turns on the question of the price at which the land is given to the applicant, and in this connection I hold that there should be no difference between the price charged to the applicant for the land he receives and the price at which that man would purchase the land in the open market, with this essential difference, that he would be given the land on an easy payment system. I have been trying to ascertain, but have not been successful, what is the net loss to the State in respect of each holding allocated on the basis of acreage, or in whatever way the Minister wishes to calculate it. What is the amount of loss to the State involved in the acquisition and division of land? If there is no loss, of course, it means that the incoming tenants are paying the full price for the land; but if the loss is substantial, it means the incoming tenants are receiving a very considerable gift from the community. I know that there are certain things to be considered. I will exclude from the Minister's consideration such expenses as are incurred in the erection of boundaries and roadways. That would naturally be a matter which the taxpayer should provide, but over and above that I would like to know what is the loss involved.

There has been a considerable discussion in regard to the abuse of land by land owners who know that the Land Commission is about to acquire their holdings. They wish to get the last ounce of productivity out of the land and they exhaust it to a considerable extent. All over my constituency, and I think the same applies to the country generally, there are complaints of the abuse of land by the Land Commission. Land is being let year after year for cereal crops without any manuring whatever, and I think that is setting, to put it very mildly, a very bad example to land owners in the country. The State should seek, in respect of land which it has under its control, to be a model to farmers.

In regard to the administration of the Department, I notice a substantial increase. I presume that is due to the increases of salaries and wages arising out of the emergency. Here again, as in connection with other Government Departments, I think there is need for a thorough investigation to find out if Departmental methods are as efficient as they should be. We have been building up in this country a steadily-increasing Civil Service. Year after year it is expanding and, so far as I know, no real effort has ever been made to investigate whether each Department is working on the most efficient and economical lines. I understand that in big businesses in America and other progressive countries efficiency experts are brought in to find out whether overlapping and waste can be eliminated. The Minister should get an efficiency expert into his Department and he might find out ways and means by which waste and overlapping could be reduced.

I do not know whether a very large area is involved in connection with the land purchased under the Soldiers' and Sailors' Settlement Trust after the last war. Most of the land purchased at that time was purchased at a very high price, with the result that it has been let to the tenants at a very high rental. I think there is a special case for investigation in regard to those holdings. If it is not desirable or possible to reduce the rents on these holdings so as to bring them into conformity with the rents on other holdings, it might be desirable to extend the period of repayment. I believe there is really no repayment fund involved in connection with those lands, because they were purchased under grants provided by the British Government. I think it causes very widespread discontent where you have tenants on an estate such as this paying a much higher rent than farmers in the adjoining areas, and it is a matter which should be investigated.

Another matter which has caused considerable discontent in my constituency, at any rate, is the system of what are known as tithe rent charges. The amount of money involved in these tithe rent charges is comparatively small. The proceeds are not applied to the purpose for which the system was originally instituted— they are applied to various public services; and the fact that the overwhelming majority of farmers are exempt creates a sense of grave injustice amongst those who are still liable. I think it is time that particular impost was wound up. It could be done with justice to everybody concerned.

I appeal finally to the Minister to seek close co-operation with the Department of Agriculture not only in regard to land settlement but in regard to all other problems affecting the improvement of estates and so on. Agriculture and land settlement and division are two services which are bound up with each other, which cannot be separated, and it is absolutely futile to have the two Departments working in separate water-tight compartments, without any relation apparently to each other. It is quite clear from the manner in which some estates have been divided that no consideration is given to the successful working of the land in future.

It is absolutely foolish to seek to divide an ordinary-sized farm—a farm of 100 or 150 statute acres—into small holdings, particularly if there are on the farm a farmhouse and complete set of out-offices, and more especially if it is a farm on which there is a considerable percentage of inferior land. It is almost a hopeless problem for any official of any Department of Lands to divide a farm of that type with justice or equity, or to make workable holdings out of it, because, as it has been pointed out, it is necessary to provide a water supply on each holding, to divide not only the arable but the inferior land as equitably as possible, and to provide roadways, with the result that enormous expense is incurred. In addition, there is the problem of the farmhouse and the buildings which are too large for any small holding, and in many cases we have the position that the Land Commission have to pull down a good house for that reason. That indicates not efficiency but a futile waste of time.

There is in my constituency—I can take the Minister down to it, if he wants to see it—an estate which was divided in 1909 into a number of small holdings for evicted tenants. Houses were built for each of the tenants, but, during the past 30 years, one by one, those separate holdings were bought up by a London business man, who, having bought up the holdings, allowed the dwellings to get into disrepair and to fall. The result after 30 years is that that ranch is back in the position in which it was when the Land Commission found it. The boundaries, to a great extent, have been broken down, the dwellings erected by the Land Commission allowed to fall, and the land which was grazed up to the time of the emergency and which is now being fairly intensively cultivated without manure, is deteriorating. Thus all the work performed by the Land Commission on that estate has gone for naught, and it is pertinent to ask if that state of affairs is to continue, or if it is to operate in relation to other estates throughout the country. If it is, the sooner the Land Commission is wound up the better.

When Deputy Seán Moylan was nominated as a member of the Cabinet and Minister for Lands, the appointment was welcomed by every member of the small group sitting here.

Not by your Party.

I said so at the time.

There is a definite condemnation on the record.

I said so at the time, and that is on record. However, I welcomed it personally, because I realised that, compared with his predecessors, the Minister had a full understanding of the viewpoint of the rural community and certainly, from what I could find out, a full realisation of the problems confronting the people living in the rural parts of the country. I had high hopes that, with that knowledge, experience and background, the Minister would make greater progress than his predecessors. I feel bound to admit that, if he has not made the progress which he and others desired, in the direction of dividing the lands of the country, it is properly attributable to emergency conditions.

The Minister, in introducing the Estimate, gave the impression that he had nothing different to say on this occasion from what he had said in the previous year. That is not so. The Minister made some very amazing admissions which were never made and would not have been made by any of his predecessors. Dealing with the division of land, he said:—

"We have learned by sad experience that it is worse than useless to set men up on new holdings without enough stock, implements, experience and capital to make the best use of the land."

I have suggested over a number of years, on every occasion on which I spoke on the Land Commission Estimates, that it was the duty of the Government in a country like this which desired to give portions of estates which were being divided to suitable landless men and smallholders to see that a reasonable amount of money was provided, free of interest or at a nominal rate of interest, to deserving landless men and smallholders who had not the capital to enable them to work the land they were thought fit to be given.

No previous Minister has ever made that admission. Now that the Minister has made it for the first time in this House, I hope he will tell us, when replying, how he proposes to solve that problem in the future. I presume it is the desire of the Minister and of the Government, in the future as in the past, to provide deserving, experienced agricultural labourers—landless men and smallholders—with portions of estates whenever and wherever they are divided, and that, as a result of their experience in the past, they will take steps to provide these applicants with the necessary capital to work the land. I say, again, in view of what the Minister has said here, that, unless the Government do what was done in the past, the great majority of agricultural labourers if they are put into land without capital to enable them to buy stock or machinery cannot make good, even though they get an economic holding as a result of land division. In some other countries where this problem had to be faced a limited amount of money —say, £200 or £300 in the currency of those countries—was given to landless men to enable them to make good. If the majority of landless men and smallholders have, "as a result of the sad experience of the Land Commission failed to make good," it is because they had not the money to enable them to do so. They had the experience and everything else required. The fact that they had not the money was the cause of their failure. I know some of those men myself. They were workers on estates that were divided. As was the custom, they were given a holding on the estate when it was divided. Some of those men, to my knowledge, were first-class ploughmen. In fact, in some cases they were managing the estates before they were taken over. They failed simply because they had not capital to enable them to make a good start and to face the future. I hope the Minister will have something positive to say on that when replying, and that he will take the House into his confidence and tell us what it is proposed to do in the future for that type of applicant.

The Minister, when introducing the Vote, said that without adequate staff and without adequate material it was impossible for the Land Commission to get on with land division. I was surprised to hear the Minister complain about a shortage of staff, because later in his short speech he said that a considerable section of the staff which had gone on loan to other Departments, particularly to the Department of Agriculture, had returned and were engaged in clearing off arrears of work in particular sections of the Land Commission. I take it that he was there referring mostly to outside staff, some of the members of which, I know, were transferred to the Department of Agriculture. They may still be engaged—I am not sure—in connection with the compulsory tillage operations. I do not think it is a question of staff in the Land Commission. I think it is one of reorganisation. Deputy Blowick, when speaking, referred to his failure to receive replies to some letters which he sent to the Land Commission 15 months ago. In other cases he said that he got no reply to communications that he handed in personally. That has been the experience of every Deputy over a long period of years. An explanation would seem to be needed as to why a particular Department of State cannot send a reply to communications from Deputies and the public generally within a reasonable period of time, whereas the same complaint cannot be levelled against any other Department of State so far as I know. I am certain, from my knowledge of a limited number of the senior officials of the Land Commission, that they are as efficient and competent as the senior officials in any other Department of State.

I respectfully make the suggestion to the Minister and his principal officials that there is a case for the reorganisation of the Land Commission, even if it be only for the purpose of seeing that letters sent in by Deputies and members of the public generally are attended to within the same reasonable period of time as letters sent in to other State Departments. No good reason can be given to the House, I think, as to why letters sent in to a State Department are not answered. I know, of course, that you will get an acknowledgment on a brown form if you are a member of the Dáil, but I still think that Deputy Blowick's statement was not an exaggeration. He said that in one case he did not get a reply to a letter that he sent in 15 months ago. There is a very big staff employed in the Land Commission. I am sure that, if the Minister desires it, he can give a direction for a reorganisation of the Department so that matters of that kind can be put right for the future.

There are a few matters that I desire to raise on the Estimate. It is not my intention to repeat anything that I said 12 months ago. I want to deal principally with the question of migrants and the importing into areas, where a small acreage of land has been divided, of persons from outside those areas, and, in some cases, of persons from outside the county concerned. I am not opposed to the migration policy as a policy, provided it is clearly understood that, in the division of land, first preference is given to those who live in the neighbourhood of that land, and particularly to the landless men and smallholders who had been using it before it was decided to divide it—men who had been taking it in conacre for tillage or grazing purposes. It was always understood—I do not know whether the Minister has changed that policy or not—that when land was being divided the persons entitled to portions of it would be, first of all, the workers who would lose their employment as a result of the change of ownership from the landlord to the Land Commission; secondly, smallholders in the area, and, thirdly, evicted tenants, if there were any, or their representatives who would be entitled to submit claims. Generally speaking, the policy was that smallholders, living within a fixed radius of the estate, landless men, and experienced agricultural labourers would be entitled to get a portion of that land. So far that was the policy of the two Governments that we have had in this State, and I am not sure whether there has been any change in it.

I think it is very unfair, and I am sure the Minister would say the same if anything of the same kind happened in his own constituency, to bring large numbers of people from outside an area and give them land as I have seen happening in a recent case. The land was handed over to migrants, while a large number of uneconomic holders in the areas were left completely out in the cold. Will it not be admitted by the Minister that cottage tenants, or holders of land of a few pounds' valuation who take land on the 11 months' system and work it in conacre for tillage or grazing, are well qualified by their proved experience to apply for and secure a portion of such land whenever it is being divided, as against outsiders who have no such experience? Recently, in connection with a recent case I, with three other members of my constituency, endeavoured to interview the Minister. I understood that he expressed his willingness to meet us, but at the time Deputy Flanagan was ill, and then Deputy O'Higgins got ill and the Minister himself was ill. When, however, the four of us were available I understood that the Minister stated he would not meet the deputation. That, however, is a matter for the Minister himself. But, in or or about the same time, the Minister, according to a Press cutting which I have here, received a Fianna Fáil member of the county council from the same county, accompanied by a deputation, and gave them details in connection with the division of land in that county. He even gave the date upon which this estate, if one can call it an estate, was to be divided—that is according to the Press report which was given by this Fianna Fáil councillor and his friends. If the Minister has any doubt about that I can pass this Press cutting to him. The report states that the Minister received the deputation and indicated the date upon which the scheme of division would be put into operation. That, I suppose, is one of the advantages which Fianna Fáil spokesmen through the country enjoy as against Opposition Deputies in this House, and it is one that was quoted locally. They can come to the Minister and see him any time they like. That is what some of them boast and there is proof of that and it is not the first case I can prove in that respect. That, of course, is given to the local papers as an indication that certain local spokesmen of Fianna Fáil have certain influence with the Ministry and it was published in the last couple of weeks in this particular case in a local paper, presumably with an eye to votes at the coming local elections. If the Minister thinks that is good policy, of course, that is his own business and he has the necessary support behind him in the House to justify him in continuing that kind of policy and in giving a decided preference to local spokesmen of the Government Party as against, if you like, even Deputies of his own Party.

However, in this particular case anyway, I only want to summarise the results of the land division scheme and to ask the Minister to justify the line of policy which has been adopted in this case and which, I understand, is about to be followed in other cases in my constituency. Here is a big acreage of land which was divided quite recently. Five employees on the estate got a farm each. Quite right. There is no objection to that locally. Next in turn were four uneconomic holders, who were given holdings of 12 acres each. May I have an admission from the Minister that in this particular case—the Waller estate, Moystown, Belmont, County Offaly—12 acres, even in that part of the country, is not on economic holding? When one comes to deal with the outsiders who were brought in from an adjoining county, we find that the outsiders got 320 acres amongst them. The migrants were given holdings of 30 acres each whereas the local uneconomic holders were given only 12 acres each. I would like the Minister to justify the kind of treatment that has been given to the local uneconomic holders as against the outsiders. I am reliably informed that some of the people who were brought in objected to signing for such a large acreage. They said they had not the capital and did not want such a large acreage of land. There are numbers of witnesses available to prove that. Perhaps time will tell and perhaps they will fail for the same reason as other migrants failed who were brought into the same county during the past few years.

In this particular case also I desire to draw attention to the fact that before the land was acquired and divided there were 23 persons living in the locality taking land under the conacre system and using it for tillage and grazing purposes. Twelve of the 23 were uneconomic holders with a valuation under the figure that is regarded in that area as uneconomic. I do not know what the valuation figure in that area is from the point of view of an uneconomic holding. The figure changes from time to time and I understand that in the view of some of the Land Commission officials it varies in the different districts, even in the same county or constituency. There were 12 uneconomic holders who were completely ignored and given no portion of land, although they had taken the land under the conacre system during the previous few years and had worked it for the purpose of maintaining themselves and their families. Eleven landless men, some of them Old I.R.A. men, who also took land under the conacre system, were completely ignored in the division scheme. I want to protest, as I have done in other cases— but this is a very bad case, in my opinion—against the bringing into this area of a number of people from another county and giving them holdings, which some of them say they did not want, from the point of view of acreage, and ignoring completely these 23 smallholders and landless men. I am protesting against it here because I am assured that the same policy is going to be followed in other land division schemes that are going to be put into operation in the course of the next year or two, in the same constituency at any rate. Of course, if the Minister supports the policy, he is entitled to do so. I cannot prevent him from doing it. I am not opposed to the policy of bringing in people from outside wherever there is a large acreage of land to be divided and where it is possible to satisfy the local genuine applicants in the division of that land. I have seen people brought in from outside where there were 1,500 acres of land to be divided. All the local deserving applicants were satisfied in that particular case and there was no objection by the local people to bringing in six or seven people from other areas, once the deserving local applicants were satisfied.

I know of another estate which has been taken over by the Land Commission in the past couple of years, but which has not yet been divided, where it is stated locally by spokesmen who, apparently, know more about Government policy than I do, that outsiders are going to be brought into this area also. It is the Kenny Estate, Rossdarragh, County Leix. It has been suggested to me that the reason why it is intended to bring in outsiders in this case is that they cannot find enough suitable applicants locally for all the land that is available there. I challenge the accuracy of that statement, if any such statement has been reported to the Land Commission or to the Minister in connection with that estate. I am speaking in that particular case on behalf of all sections of the community there. If the Minister would consult his own political supporters in that area, I think he will find that that statement, if it has been made to the Land Commission officials or by Land Commission officials, would be challenged. The land on that estate was put up for letting during the last couple of years and it was indicated publicly that if the local people did not pay so much per acre to the auctioneer for this land—he was letting it on behalf of the Land Commission—outsiders would be brought in from another part of the country and that they would take the land. The land was eventually given to the local people. That kind of activity goes to support the rumour that people are going to be brought in whenever this estate is being divided. I should like to hear from the Minister, when he is replying, if it is not too much trouble or, if he has not the information at his disposal, he can let me know later on by some other means, why it is that that particular estate has not been divided before now or why it has had to be let under the 11 months' system for the past couple of years instead of being divided amongst the most deserving applicants.

There is another case on which I should like some information. I do not like mentioning individual cases, but this is an historic case from the point of view of its association with land agitation, going back to the days of the late Michael Davitt. The late Michael Davitt dealt with this case when he was an active and very influential member of the Irish Party. It is the case of the estate called the Alley estate, Knockaroo, County Leix. The agitation for the acquisition of this estate goes back to the old Irish Party days. Subsequent to the passage of the 1923 Act in this House proceedings were instituted for the acquisition of portion of that estate. Different reasons have been given to me at different times during the last 20 years for the failure of the Land Commission, under the Cosgrave régime and under the de Valera régime, to divide this estate. What is the explanation for the failure of the Land Commission over a long period of years to divide this estate? Can any good reason be given even now as to why it was not divided before the war? The landlord concerned is a big land owner and he has asserted that it will never be taken from him as long as he lives. I doubt even if, in this particular case, the compulsory tillage regulations are being at present complied with. At any rate, this small estate is in an area where there is a considerable amount of congestion and nobody can get any good reason why the estate has not been divided long before now. I was assured by the present Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures, when he was Acting-Minister for Lands, that a certain section put into the 1936 Act was put in for the specific purpose of having this land acquired and divided, making certain that it would be, because in some previous appeals the Land Commission failed to get the Judicial Commissioner to take the point of view of the Land Commission in regard to the acquisition of the estate. If the Minister is not in a position to answer my queries now, perhaps he will be good enough to direct one of his officials to have replies to these queries given within a reasonable time.

The Land Commission have also been engaged in activities, over a long period in some cases, for the acquisition of other large areas of land, but up to the present they have failed in having them divided. In some of these cases the ownership of the lands has been changed since the Land Commission instituted proceedings in the first instance. Probably the Minister knows better than I do that in such cases, whenever the existing owner puts up the land for public auction, there is considerable agitation and pressure brought to bear upon Deputies of all Parties that the Land Commission should intervene and prevent the auction from taking place, or prevent the ownership of the land being changed until such time as the Land Commission are in a position to acquire and divide these lands. I assume that the Land Commission cannot go into cases of this kind, but the Land Commission can, at any rate, hurry up the proceedings, now that they are, as I understand, free from emergency powers restrictions and can intervene again in cases of this kind. I hope the Minister will instruct his officers to review all such cases and, whether or not the ownership of the land has changed in the meantime during the emergency period, use their compulsory powers for hurrying up the acquisition and division of the lands. It is quite true, as somebody stated, that if a great deal more of the land of this country had been divided before the emergency arose you would have less trouble in enforcing the compulsory tillage regulations, as the land would be in the hands of people who would be willing to till it without compulsion of any kind.

I represent a constituency where the compulsory tillage regulations were hardly needed. It is a constituency where the farmers generally, the small farmer and middle-class farmer, tilled the land for a long period of years. That is proved by the way in which the first beet factory set up in this State was supported by the farmers of Carlow, Leix, Offaly and North Tipperary. The acreage required for the first beet factory was freely provided and justified the Government of the day in erecting the first beet factory in Carlow. If you go around my constituency you will find that the cottage tenants were exceptionally good and are still very good in getting hold of conacre for the purpose of increasing beet production. I would ask the Minister and his officials, wherever there is land available for division, to consider more sympathetically than they have up to the present the claims of cottage tenants for five or ten-acre plots. I understand that under the Cottage Purchase Acts of 1936 power is given to the Land Commission to buy out a cottage where the Land Commission officers consider the tenant to be a good and deserving applicant for land. Wherever the commissioners are in a position to take advantage of that, I think it is a development which should be encouraged.

I understand that you, Sir, pointed out that discussion on this Vote would be confined to Land Commission matters and that we are not allowed to deal with other matters coming under the supervision of the Minister, such as forestry. I have tried, so far as possible, not to repeat anything I have said during a previous discussion, with the exception of the troublesome question of bringing in people from outside and giving them land where there is an excess of suitable applicants in the locality where the land is being divided. Unlike other constituencies, the constituency of LeixOffaly, with very few exceptions, has not very many large estates available for division. So far as I know, the majority of the big estates have been acquired and divided since the 1923 Act by the two Governments in succession. I am expressing the opinions of local people—and the same can be said of my Fianna Fáil colleagues— when I say that it is a cause of considerable irritation to local people to see outsiders being dumped on top of them and people who are fit and willing and who have the necessary machinery and capital to work land being ignored, as they were ignored in the one or two cases I have mentioned.

In dealing with this question of land division as it affects County Meath, in my opinion the Land Commission have done a reasonably good job. The Land Commission have a difficult job in selecting from different applicants for land the proper persons and the persons who, in their opinion, would be likely to work small farms satisfactorily. A great deal of criticism has been levelled at the Land Commission in relation to a certain number of failures on these farms. If you take the country generally, you will find that there is a certain number of failures on land in every county. That a man's father was a good farmer is no indication that that man will be a good farmer. I presume the same thing applies to persons who obtain land from the Land Commission But, when we come to the actual working, out of family life on farm allotted by the Land Commission, I think that the work which the Land Commission set out to do is in course of being done. We should be quite satisfied that so much of the land as is available for division has been divided or will be divided within a reasonably short space of time. The fact that land is being divided is, in my opinion, sufficient to meet the needs of the time. I think the Land Commission should now proceed to vest the holdings they have already allotted and that it is quite immaterial whether these holdings are put up for sale or not, so long as the people who occupy them use and work them.

If the Land Commission would now review the work they have done and come to a definite conclusion as to what is an economic holding or what is not an economic holding, it would be a good thing for the future of land division. In dealing with the question of a standard holding or an economic holding, it would be well for the Minister and the Land Commission to take into consideration the agricultural economy of this country. So long as the agricultural economy of this country is based on live stock, in my opinion a 20-acre farm is not an economic holding. It is an economic holding, given a certain set of circumstances. There is no doubt that there are people in this country who are in a position to obtain a comfortable living on a 20-acre farm. But it would be a mistake in my opinion for the Land Commission to proceed into the Midlands and take up every farm that it is possible to take up and divide it into 20-acre holdings. On another occasion in this House, a member of another Party expressed the opinion that every holding in the Midlands should be reduced to at least 50 acres and that the balance of holdings above 50 acres should be devoted to people from his constituency. Such a policy would be a mistake. If we are to continue with the present agricultural economy, we cannot take all the land in the Midlands and divide it up into 20-acre holdings.

When the Minister is considering the question of economic holdings, he should consider another type of people who live in the County Meath. They were referred to by Deputy Fogarty, as the same type is found in County Dublin. There are those in East Meath who have the tradition of fruit growing and market gardening. I have no personal knowledge of fruit growing but if a five, ten or 15-acre farm is suitable for fruit growing the Land Commission should give that aspect of the matter consideration. It is a type of farming to which the commission has not given any consideration. In that particular end of County Meath, when estates come to be divided, that type of farming should be considered, as economic holdings on those estates would consist of five, ten or 15 acres of land.

If the Minister tries to satisfy the desire of the human individual to better himself when he gets a certain distance in life, he will not be able to do it. When a man has got possession of a certain amount of worldly goods, he wants more. I am reliably informed that the economic holding for fruit and vegetable growing is from five to 15 acres. We have been told during this debate that the City of Dublin depends on growers of potatoes and vegetables in the County Dublin and portions of East Meath; but the people in the city live on something more than potatoes and vegetables—they live on milk, meat and the other necessities that go on the table. If the Land Commission proceeds to break up into 20-acre holdings all the available grass land in the Midlands, it will not be conducive to the proper working of our present agricultural economy.

When the Land Commission acquires an estate and has made roads on it, they should try to make those roads through-and-through roads and not have a large number of culs-de-sac. They should try to make the roads suitable for handing over to the local authority.

In creating a holding, the Land Commission should not alone build a house and shed but should try to make a comfortable farmyard as well. The farmyard is the secret of success on a small farm and, if it is not complete in every detail, if there are not sufficient outhouses, the man who comes in to work the holding cannot make full use of it. In regard to the accepting of applications from landless men, the commission should take power, if necessary, to ask the applicants to invest in the completion of the farmyard, in the event of their getting the land. It would be an inducement to some people and would be an indication to the commission that the applicants were prepared to live and work on the holding. The applicants should be prepared to put in a certain amount of the cost to make the holding suitable to be worked.

Not only should the Land Commission provide the holdings they are about to acquire with a house, a shed and a yard, but they should also provide houses and farmyards on the holdings which they have distributed already. Some estates were divided under the 1923 Act in County Meath, but no farmyard was built. I have known men with families live on those holdings and have no houses, as they were not in a position to build them. Even under the 1933 Act, in isolated cases on certain estates, holdings were given to young men, without houses or farmyards. Those men are now married and have families and have to live out in rented houses. I know one case in which the Land Commission gave a holding and a house to two brothers. The two brothers are now married and live in the one house on the one holding and have two families. Such a state of affairs should not be allowed to continue.

If we are to have land division in the post-war years on the same scale as we had pre-war, the Land Commission should examine the whole question and see how it has developed up to the present, and whether or not, in the main, the people they have put on the land are making a success of it. The public are led to believe, by certain speeches made inside and outside this House, that the majority of allottees have failed on the land. In my opinion, they have not. I know very many County Meath men who got land, who went into it without money and have made a first-class success of their holdings, which are a credit to the country.

In regard to group migration, I have no objection to it. Speaking as a County Meath man, I am glad to see the remnants of the Gael come back into County Meath. However, I want to warn the Deputies from the congested districts that if they think they are about to solve the economic problem that exists in those congested districts solely by the division of land in the Midlands, they are making a big mistake. I do not believe you can solve that problem by the migration of a certain number of families from those districts into County Meath.

Along with its migration policy, the Land Commission give certain benefits to the people who live in the congested districts. I often wonder why we here do not consider dealing with the younger people who live in the congested districts—they are called farmers, but they are not farmers, because the amount of land they hold is too small to term them farmers. Many of the young people are inclined to leave the country; they are inclined to live in towns, and I cannot see why somebody does not suggest that we can solve this question of congestion by the building of a number of towns on the outskirts of congested districts, to be occupied solely by people who speak Irish, and have not alone Gaelic colonies, people living on the land, but Gaelic towns, or a Gaelic city, if you wish.

The Land Commission have a difficult job to do in the matter of land division. Land legislation is an inheritance; it came to us from a long period of agitation and from the expressed desire of the people to get back what was taken from them. The Land Commission, in dealing with this question, have behind them legislation passed in a foreign Parliament. We have added to that legislation. Legislation which enables the division of land to be carried out is based solely on the need to relieve congestion. I think that is wrong. In my opinion the Land Acts were passed for the benefit of all our people. The division of land cannot and should not be confined to any particular section of the people. Everybody is entitled to ask the Land Commission to consider his or her claim. I think the young boys and girls who are sent to agricultural schools, and to whose education there the State contributes a certain amount, should be considered for the division of land. I do not agree with Deputy Davin, when he says that the State should contribute a certain amount towards the setting up of people on the land.

It had to be done in other countries.

If we hold out the inducement of money as well as land, the Land Commission offices will not be large enough to contain the number of applicants for land, and if what another Deputy on the opposite benches suggested is correct, that when an estate is being divided the Fianna Fáil cumainn are the only people who submit names, then you will fill the country with Fianna Fáil cumainn. I do not believe that the State should advance money towards the betterment of any applicant who intends to work land. Any farmer's son who gets one of the standard holdings, if he is a farmer and if his people are farmers, does not require any assistance from the State to work that holding.

What about the worker who loses his employment?

I have seen workers in my county who lost their employment. I have known them to go in on land and make a success of that land without assistance from any outsider or the State.

Read what the Minister said.

I have known people who went in on a small holding with money and lost that money because they did not know how to work a small-holding. In passing, I want to pay a tribute to the Land Commission for their wisdom in relieving congestion in North Meath. They found out during the past two, three or four years, that there are in North Meath men who were reared on small holdings and who know how to work them. They are now taking those people from North Meath and giving them holdings, relieving congestion in a very congested district. The Minister is well aware of the fact that those people are making a success of their small holdings because they know how to live on them and work them. Anybody who knows how to work a small holding and how to use the farmyard, does not require assistance in order to live and bring up a family there.

I was rather interested in some of the points made by Deputy Hilliard. With some of his remarks I agree, but I certainly do not agree with others. I was rather surprised that the Deputy was so emphatic in denouncing the suggestion that certain classes of people should get financial aid when they were given allotments of land. I did not expect such a denunciation of the policy of the present Government to come from behind the Minister's back. Surely Deputy Hilliard is aware of the fact that there were certain plantations in the County Meath where not only were there unusually large grants, but there were also financial weekly subsidies over a considerable period that made the ordinary natives feel they were getting the raw end of the deal. I wonder is it the Deputy's point of view that subsidisation is quite correct when applied to people from certain counties, but is intolerable when brought to bear in order to assist the ploughman or the labouring man in getting a fair start on land?

I think that in every walk of life, agriculture included, capital is always helpful, and the unfortunate person who finds himself with an allocation of land without a penny and with no credit is the type of person best calculated to fail, because he has not the capital or the credit to buy at the right time so as to aim at a reasonable profit. Such people have no facilities in an emergency, such as if the weather comes against them, and they have no way of getting assistance. The question of assisting people should be left to the discrimination of the Department. Where it is required, it should be available; where it is not required, it should not be given.

The point in the Deputy's speech that attracted my attention most was his criticism of the policy of dividing the whole country into 20-acre holdings, and he indicated that as long as portion of our economy was to be based on cattle, that particular policy was unsound. I think a mistake was made many years ago when the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Lands were divorced, one from the other. I think the agricultural policy of any country, particularly this country, should direct the land policy of the country and, with the complete separation of the Department dealing with the agricultural policy from the Department dealing with lands, I can see that we are heading for a condition of chaos in this country.

We know how in a little country like this these Departments work behind barriers which cannot be either seen through or climbed over. We know that it is easier for the Department of Lands to establish contact with the Department of Agriculture in Sweden than it is for them to establish contact with the Department of Agriculture in Ireland. Every one of us in our experience as Deputies and in our experience in other walks of life knows that there is no contact, no co-operation and certainly no co-ordination between the work being done by one Government Department and another Government Department in this country. Before we ever had any necessity for compulsory tillage arising out of the war situation, we had a fantastic kind of ramp throughout the country. Quite suddenly, wheat became a political crop. Wheat got a kind of patriotic flavour. There was something Fianna Fáil about the long ear of wheat, and if you did not grow wheat, you were not a good "Fianna Fáiler," which meant that you were not a good Irishman. By reason of threat, verbal and otherwise, by speeches made by Ministers who had the authority to deprive people of the land which was their livelihood, we had a peculiar state of fear-driven economy evidenced in certain holdings. We had people who had been carrying cattle, building up the finances of the country, and by their purchases establishing a livelihood for small tillage farmers in neighbouring counties, driven into tillage, into growing their own oats, their own crops, and we had the small farmer in the neighbouring counties, who was always a tillage man and who wanted to make a living out of his small holding, practically driven out of business.

What has that to do with the Department of Lands?

I relate it to my earlier remarks with regard to the policy that you must have big holdings to buy the produce of the small holding. That is the point I am making. I remember when a great number of the small tillage people in Cavan and Offaly supplied the raw material for the agricultural industry in Meath, and when the Meath man was driven into the same line of farming, the other fellow, but for the war, would have been driven out of business. The point I am making, however, is the necessity for close co-operation between the Department of Lands and the Department of Agriculture.

I do not want unduly to prolong the debate, but there are some points on which I feel I must make some remarks. In particular, I want to reinforce the remarks made by my colleague, Deputy Davin. Some of the handling, or rather, the mishandling, of estates in the Counties Leix and Offaly was, so far as evidence presented to us goes, a complete outrage on the people there and a trampling on any conception we ever had of what the functions of the Land Commission were. We had very extraordinary contrasts. We had big estates in Leix—one in particular— bought by an immensely wealthy financial speculator, an estate portions of which small people had been working for more than 25 years, and when the Land Commission was asked to safeguard the rights of these small people, we were told that the Land Commission was not functioning, that its staff had been taken away to man the defences of the country and to wait for enemies on the beaches.

We were told that the whole machine was paralysed, or semi-paralysed, because the staff had been taken elsewhere, that the position was such that the Government had brought in an Emergency Order which made it impossible for the Land Commission to acquire and distribute land so long as the emergency lasted and that, because of that Emergency Order, injustices had to be done and the people had either to lump it or like it. Whatever panic there may have been in Government circles four or five years ago, every child, man and woman in this country for three years back has been perfectly satisfied that the tide of war has passed this country and that all the effort at keeping up steam and keeping the fear of invasion before the people is so much theatrical nonsense. It is about time that the ordinary affairs of the country were dealt with, that the Land Commission began to function again in the ordinary way, that where people are enjoying the use of land and building their livelihood on the enjoyment of the use of that land, their right, built up over a long period of years, should be safeguarded and that the staffs of the Land Commission were brought back.

Another thing resultant on the removal of Land Commission staffs— a matter that is doing a lot of harm and creating a lot of annoyance—is the undue delay in sanctioning the subdivision or sale of portions of farms. Every one of us has become a kind of assistant tó a group of solicitors in our constituencies. Solicitors find that they cannot, with any reasonable degree of speed, get consideration for such applications. A man wants to sell a field to his neighbour. The neighbour, if he pays cash, wants to feel that he is the owner of that field. There is no suggestion that an economic holding is being made an uneconomic holding. The matter is put to the Land Commission for sanction and one year after another passes and nothing is done. They then go to a solicitor, increasing the cost, and the solicitor tries his best for a period, throws up his hands and appeals to a Deputy to take it up. My experience is that the Deputy does not succeed in hastening the machine.

If the machine is starved, if the personnel has been brought into other Departments, such as the Department of the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures, surely it is high time that the nonsense stopped and that the staffs were sent back to work in the interests of the people. I definitely want to protest against the delays of the Land Commission. Whether there is an explanation of the delay or not is another matter, but I give the explanation I got and I say that it is unfair to the people. It is a costly Department. People down below are trying to get on with their business and they are entitled to demand that the people at the top get on with their business and stop a lot of the nonsense that is going on.

While we had that state of affairs in County Leix—all kinds of apologies for the non-functioning of the Land Commission, all kinds of excuses for injustice being done—we had the Land Commission in the neighbouring county perhaps only too active.

The Land Commission took over an estate and divided it but not in the interests of the people in Offaly. They passed over uneconomic holders as well as the claims of people who had lived and worked on that estate from generation to generation, giving the greater portion of it to people from another county who had not the same claim either on the grounds of agricultural experience or of economic necessity, and certainly no historical claim to association with the estate in question. I, with other Deputies from the constituency, went down there and, in the broad light of day among people who had got portions of the land, alongside people who had not and with well-intentioned local people present, we got statements from the people concerned. Those statements were read out. A challenge was invited as to whether they were incorrect or untrue. Assuming that the statements were correct, then I never in my public career witnessed a more abominable piece of land division, or a more abominable piece of discrimination as between persons and cases. It was simply shocking to pass over the claims of these people.

I am long enough here to know that, in most cases, there is an answer to any case made. I said down there that there was possibly an answer to that case because it appeared shocking. Together with my colleagues, we sought an interview with the Minister. As Deputy Davin has said, illness amongst a number of us postponed that particular meeting, but when we were all on our feet again we sought an interview with the Minister so as to have this list examined and to hear the explanation, if any. The reply we got was that "no useful purpose would be served". I do not know what mentality is opposite to me, but I claim to be a democrat and I claim, and believe, that each of us is here only in a representative capacity. I believe that every Minister is the servant of this House and of the people outside. But the dictatorial mind is growing and growing apace. Deputies of all Parties, from any constituency, have a perfect right at any time, and without appealing for it, to see a Minister with regard to their constituency. They should not even have to appeal for the exercise of that right beyond the convenience of having the appointment made.

When Deputies from a constituency believe that there is an evil running sore and that injustices are being done —not the Deputies of one Party but the Deputies of all Parties—and they decide to discuss them with the Minister to see if such a state of affairs can possibly exist and are then told that no useful purpose can be served, what are Deputies to believe? They are to believe that the Minister meant what he said at a Fianna Fáil ArdFheis that he would give land only to the followers of Fianna Fáil, other things being equal. We all know that it is very easy to make other things equal under that declaration of policy by the Minister for Lands at a public function in the Mansion House—that his policy was to give land to the followers of his Party. That gave us all a jolt. It made us all suspicious, but when we see that policy followed up by the division of land in an area and when that division appears to be very unjust and very tainted and when a Minister refuses even to discuss it, then I believe not only the Deputies for that constituency, but Parliament as a whole, definitely have a grievance.

Now, I abhor that mentality. I protest against it, and it is not confined to one Ministry. I am sorry the Minister for Lands is not present, because I wanted to say, in his presence, that if that is his interpretation of his functions as a Minister, the sooner a motion is put down here that will insist on the right of Deputies representing a constituency to discuss constituency matters with a Minister, the better, and if that right is not conceded, we will have to go higher up and find out if that is the policy of the Government. If it is, then Parliament has got to deal with the Government as a whole. If it is the policy of one individual Minister, then, again, if Parliament has any self-respect, it will have to see that a person of such mentality no longer debases an Irish Ministry.

I hope that every word I have said will be conveyed to the Minister, and that in his reply he will state his views and justify his statement that no useful purpose can be served by meeting all the Deputies of a constituency where there is a big grievance so that they may hear his explanation or justification of the circumstances. We saw, in an unsettled part of my constituency—a remote rural area—when Deputy Davin, Deputy Flanagan and myself went down to investigate what all the complaints were about, that the police were so panicky that they would not allow us to meet the local people on the roadside. We had to get a distance from the road. When Deputies representing a constituency like that appeal to a Minister to find out what it was all about—whether there was any particular reason for that allocation of land—and are told by the Minister that no useful purpose can be served, and they merely use Parliament as a platform to protest, it shows the moderation of the Deputies opposing the Minister.

I am of opinion that this question of the Department of Lands, and everything appertaining to it, should be approached in a rather broadminded way. It should not be a question of Deputies getting up from different sides of the House and trying to score off their political opponents, using certain equivocal words in order to make their points of misrepresentation. It was contended by the last speaker that nobody, except Fianna Fáil supporters, are given land, and that the Fianna Fáil organisation and even a Minister for Lands have a hand in the allocation of land.

We had a very sad experience of that, unfortunately, from 1923 to 1932, all over the country, but I am glad to say that when Fianna Fáil came into power they altered that. I am sure the last speaker is just as capable of reading an Act as I am. Anybody, even a child in the fourth standard of the primary school, can read Section 6 of the 1933 Land Act, which took all powers in connection with the acquisition and division of land out of the hands of the Minister and charged the Land Commission with that work. Since then it has been done by the Land Commission and, in my experience, it has been done very fairly. For Deputies to get up here and suggest that it is on the representation of Fianna Fáil Deputies that land is divided is, I think, ridiculous indeed, to say the least about it. I do not think it should be a barrier to any man getting land that he is a member of the Fianna Fáil organisation. Is that what is contended? Is it contended that the supporters of the Government Party should be ruled out of everything and that they should not get any chance at all? As far as I understand, all a Deputy can do, as far as the division of land is concerned, is to make representations on behalf of an applicant and to ensure, as far as possible, that he is visited by an inspector.

And go around with the inspector.

I have not known that to happen in my constituency and I am sure it has not happened anywhere. But I maintain that, having done that, their duty is finished because the applicant himself is the best man to make his case and I am quite sure that the inspectors of the Land Commission are conscientious people who will do their duty and have done their duty in a conscientious manner and that there has been very little, if any, interference with them since the passage of the 1933 Act. As I said at the outset, I expected that this question of the acquisition and division of land and all activities of the Land Commission would be approached in a broadminded national way. Undoubtedly, the land settlement question has been a burning one over a number of years and, if it is suggested, even by the Land Commission, that it is almost completed, I hold a very different view. It is not completed and I think it would be a happy day for any Government in power, no matter what Government, if the day were hastened when the land resettlement policy would be completed. It is one of the cornerstones of the movement for the freedom of this country and it is not yet on a very secure foundation, nor will it be until it is completed. I can understand the inactivity of the Land Commission in the matter of the acquisition and division of land from 1939 to the present day. I can understand how difficult it would be to acquire land and to pay for it the inflated market price. But there is one thing with which I do not agree and that is the almost wholesale taking away of the outdoor staffs of the Land Commission. I can agree with it up to a point. I can agree with the seconding of a number of the outdoor staff of the Land Commission to the Department of Agriculture in order to ensure that the tillage that was necessary would be carried on, but when they had been in the Department of Agriculture for two years or, at most, three years, I am sure that they had the country scheduled and that they had apportioned the amount of tillage that was to be done on each holding. When that work was completed it should have been handed over to junior men and the officials concerned should have been returned to the Land Commission to do the very important works of improvement that are far from completion.

If the Minister is led to believe, or if the Department imagines, in connection with estates that have been divided, not merely during the Cumann na nGaedheal régime or the Fianna Fáil régime, but that were divided even 30 years ago, that the improvements have been completed, I assure them that such is not the case. I could quote numerous estates that were divided in the old days of the Estates Commissioners and the Congested Districts Board, where bogs were divided, where a road was marked out, the turbary allotments lockspitted and the tenants assured that the necessary improvements would be carried out. From that day to this no improvements have been carried out, and the people who were given allotments of turbary were forced to go elsewhere and pay a very heavy price for turbary as well as having to pay their rent for turbary to the Land Commission. There are numerous such cases all over the country, and I think it would have been a very good thing if the outdoor staff of the Land Commission who were seconded to the Department of Agriculture had been utilised in carrying out the necessary improvements. They will have to be carried out some day and the emergency period was a very opportune time in which to do so and it would have provided very useful employment. The rearrangement of holdings is a big question—I think it was mentioned by other Deputies— which could also have been dealt with during the emergency period and, if necessary, extra staff could have been taken on to do the work. I am sure this House would not refuse to vote the necessary money for that work.

I am glad that Emergency Powers Order No. 110 has been revoked. I know that it is not possible to go on with the acquisition and division of land at the normal rate but certainly I believe that any land that the Land Commission has in hands should be divided with the least possible delay because it is a fact that large portions of each estate in the hands of the Land Commission have been set in conacre tillage for the past five years, and that no manure crop whatsoever has been set in that land. Of course, those who take the conacre tillage are only interested in getting as much out of it as possible and they put the least possible into it. As fast as is humanly possible, such estates should be divided, if possible within the present year. I know of an estate which it is proposed to divide—I will not mention the particular estate—and I know that it is proposed to migrate a man from a distance of 25 miles. The estate is in the centre of congestion. I find no fault at all with migration. I find no fault with migrating the particular man. I do not know anything about him. But I think it is quite wrong to bring a man into an estate around which there is acute congestion because, if that man can migrate 25 miles, it is just as easy to migrate him 50 miles, and leave the land there to the congests within a five-or seven-mile radius where they will be near their friends and relatives to help them in carrying out work necessary to improve the holding after getting it and to co-operate with them in tilling the land.

I should also like to direct the attention of the Minister and his Department to the failure to migrate people who have what are termed nonarable holdings. I have one district in mind where there is a number of people on mountain land. The amount of arable land in each holding is not more than two acres. A scheme was prepared and sent up to the Land Commission in which it was proposed to give those people holdings on arable land. Apparently the difficulty was to get the Forestry Department to take over the land on which they were, although it comprised an area of several hundred acres. That is a matter which should be considered. People like that, who are capable of working land and have sufficient stock on their mountain range but who have very little tillage land and who are prepared to work tillage land, should not be penalised and doomed to live in that mountain fastness for ever.

Deputy Hilliard referred to the making of new roads. I am sorry to say that I have had an experience of that kind where the Land Commission made accommodation roads to houses and left just the breadth of one holding between the two roads. Had they continued the road and made it a through road, the road could be maintained by the county council. When I took up the matter with the Land Commission and asked them if they intended to make the remaining portion of the road, I was told that they did not; that the roads they made suited the Land Commission purposes. I think that is a short-sighted view; that it is a penny wise and pound foolish policy, because, had they gone on with the road, it would be quite easy to make it a public road, as in numerous instances these roads were made public roads, and it would mean a short cut of several miles to a market town, a corn mill, and other places which would be of great advantage not merely to the people living on the estate but to a great number of other people.

I protest very strongly against the charges that have been made against the Minister and the Land Commission that land is being divided on a political basis. It is not. One of the big things we have to stand up against when we go around to various meetings of our organisation is that things are not continued to-day as they were at the time when the passport to a holding of land was an affiliation card of another organisation whose Party was then in power.

I look upon this Estimate as a very important one. I think every Deputy who comes from a rural district looks upon it as most important. Some Deputy, I think from the Farmers' Party, last week made a reference to the fact that it was very hard to get replies from the Land Commission. He complained that he had written on numerous occasions to the Land Commission and failed to receive any reply. I must say that the Land Commission is one of the most efficient Departments of State in replying to correspondence. I have never written to the Land Commission yet that I did not get a reply within ten or 12 days. So far as correspondence is concerned, I have no complaint to make. I find them very efficient. In dealing with the question of land division, Deputy Beegan referred to the fact that no political pull is used when allotting land. He said that he is convinced that an applicant's political affiliations are not considered when land is being divided. Then I want to know from the Minister what takes a Land Commission inspector to the secretary of every Fianna Fáil club the moment he goes into an area. I have never known a case in my constituency where the secretary of the Fianna Fáil club was not interviewed.

A Deputy

Were you interviewed when you were a secretary?

I was interviewed when I was a secretary of a club and brought into conspiracy meetings to keep all those who were entitled to land out of it. I was secretary of the Fianna Fáil club in my area for a number of years. A big farm was being divided called Robinsons of the Rock. I was secretary of the Fianna Fáil club at the time. I had interviews with the inspector and the inspector informed me that I was the first man in that district that he had received instructions from the Minister to come to because I was secretary of the Fianna Fáil club. I must say this much, that on every occasion the applicant's political affiliations were investigated. Inquiries were made as to whether he was an Old I.R.A. man, which was only right, as I always consider that the Old I.R.A. men were entitled to every sympathetic consideration when applying for land because, if it were not for the Old I.R.A., it would be impossible for this Government or any Irish Government to carry out any scheme of land division. Even though the measure of freedom we have is not complete, the Old I.R.A. are responsible for the measure of freedom we have. I would not be speaking with a clear conscience if I did not openly admit that, when I was secretary of a Fianna Fáil club, I saw the most corrupt and the most disgraceful things done to keep individuals out of land that I have ever known of in all my years of public life. I ask God for forgiveness for any hand, act or part I had in it.

The Deputy must deal with the administration of the present Minister.

I think the present Minister was in charge during the term in which I happened to act as secretary of a Fianna Fáil club. I must say further that I think it was the greatest regret of Fianna Fáil that I ever had hand, act or part in that, because I am letting all the cats out of the bag. That is the reason that I am regarded as so much of an enemy by the Fianna Fáil Party, because I was in on every trick. I think it is a disgrace to give an applicant only 25 or 30 acres of land, because a farmer is unable to exist at present on 25 or 30 acres. I think the Land Commission, when dividing land, should give about 40 or 45 acres; 25 or 30 acres are not sufficient. What is the use of giving a smallholder 30 or 40 acres of land without giving him some capital to work it and to buy implements? In a great many cases, I find that where 15 or 20 acres are given to an allottee, in seven or eight or ten years' time that allottee applies to the Land Commission for permission to sell and sells the land. Eventually the land goes back into the hands of the big farmer again because a small farmer is unable to purchase it. The result is that, after some years, the land which had been divided up will be turned into ranches again and the Land Commission will be faced with the same problem.

Steps should be taken by the Land Commission to see that every applicant who secures land from the Land Commission is put into a good financial way of working land. I know people who applied for capital when they secured a division of land and they were unsuccessful, the result being that they are put to the pin of their collar to pay their annuities.

I appeal to the Minister, now that the emergency is near an end, when he resumes land division on a very large scale, which I hope he will, to use his influence to see that the portion of land allotted to successful applicants is considerably increased. A holding of 15 or 30 acres is practically useless and he should make up decent holdings of 40 or 45 acres.

I do not agree at all with the way in which the Land Commission has carried on up to the present in regard to fencing. Deputy Roddy referred to sod fencing here during the week. I think the sod fence is a complete failure. Why not build decent fences with concrete blocks? We have plenty of sand, gravel and cement. Why not do a lasting job and not have the farmers complaining when the fences give way and they are told by the commission that they are responsible for the maintenance of fences? If the commission put down a proper fence in the beginning—a concrete wall or a proper iron railing with wire—it would stay for many years before there would be any complaints. I strongly advocate the concrete wall up through the centre of the fields. We have plenty of sand and cement and there is no reason why the Land Commission should not do a good job.

With regard to land division, I am not at all satisfied with the way the Government has carried through the scheme in the past. Although we must admit that a great many of the ranches have been attended to the ranches still exist. One of our greatest enemies at the present is the rancher. The ranches are not being attacked as they should be by the Government. I will give the House an explanation as to why the Government is not attacking them. Every big farmer's son in the country is in a Fianna Fáil cumann —not for the love of Fianna Fáil but to see that his father's land will not be divided. Those big farmers do not care very much for Fianna Fáil, and the Minister would not get a vote from them, and they are in the cumann for no other purpose than to hold on to the ranches, as once they are in the cumann their lands will not be divided. I know of cases where they are in the cumann only in order to keep the farm. That is most unfair and it is a downright disgrace for political influence to be used in that way.

In my constituency, for which I can speak with a fair amount of authority, as can Deputy Davin and Deputy O'Higgins, I have seen nothing but complaints regarding land division. These complaints are all genuine and anyone can stand over them. Does the Minister remember that, about 18 months ago, 12 of the best Laoighis men that ever stood on Irish soil did six months in Mountjoy because of the failure of the Land Commission to give proper attention to land division in Ballickmoyler and Killeshin areas, quite convenient to Carlow town? The Land Commission stood by and let the "emergency men" in to buy these lands to which the local men were entitled. Fintan Lalor said: "The land of Ireland for the people of Ireland ... from God alone who gave it." Sooner or later some steps will have to be taken. We have seen that mighty Governments have ruled with an iron hand in Europe and have fallen in 24 hours. Fianna Fáil has ruled with an iron hand but, with God's help, that will not always be so. If they do not tackle the job, someone else will.

The ranches and "emergency men" have been let in, but they should be routed out by the powers that be and the land given to the smallholders and landless men, who are duly entitled to get it. In my area, the tenants have been evicted, with the whole-hearted support of the Government, and people have been allowed to come along and purchase estates and divide them up. Mr. Davy Frame did not buy for the benefit of the people, but for speculation, in order to buy at a low price and sell at ten times the price. The Minister said in this House that men like Davy Frame are an asset to the country and were saving the Land Commission the trouble of doing their work. We all know why he said that —because men like Davy Frame are keeping the Minister in his job. While I am dealing with that, I would point out that Deputy Gorry, who is at present in the House on the Fianna Fáil Benches, met Davy Frame in Aird's Hotel in Portlaoighise, and had a confab about land division, with the chairman of the Comhairle Ceanntair, Mr. M.P. Collier. Why did an individual Fianna Fáil member for my constituency meet him?

That remark is out of order.

With all respect to your ruling, it is not. I do not desire to challenge your ruling, but I am dealing with land division.

The Deputy is referring to the actions of a gentleman who is not in the House and not able to reply.

And is not likely to be a member, either, for that area.

Not for Laoighis-Offaly.

The Deputy might refer to the matter without bringing in personal names.

With all respect to your ruling, the Minister might not be as intelligent as yourself and it is only right that I should enlighten him, and that I should give him the full facts of the case. Otherwise, he will get up and say he does not know who it is.

The Deputy should leave personalities out of it.

Very well, I will leave personalities out of it, but this individual came to sweep through my constituency as Cromwell swept through it, by buying up every big estate and mansion he could find. He tumbled those mansions to the ground, and sold the stones and slates. The people who should get that land from the Land Commission were deprived of it, although there was agitation there for a number of years. It is an extraordinary state of affairs, when a private meeting can be held in a hotel in Portlaoighise and nobody is asked to it but this individual and the chairman of the Fianna Fáil Comhairle Ceanntair and the Fianna Fáil T.D. I want to know what they were doing at that meeting. Certainly, they were not trying to divide it, as Mr. Davy Frame told me at the auction, accompanied by the auctioneer, that Mr. Gorry and he and the chairman of the Portlaoighise Comhairle Ceanntair, were brought to Mr. Frame to arrange for the sale of the land and not for the division of the land.

I do not think the Deputy should bring in a conversation with a gentleman and give the particular name in a discussion like this.

It is a disgraceful state of affairs when you see three Deputies for a constituency trying to impress on the Minister the necessity for land division, in order to satisfy the needs of our constituents, many of whom are good, hard-working agricultural labourers, prepared to work and well prepared with finance to equip the land.

As elected representatives, we have pressed to get the land for these people, and have brought the matter before the Land Commission and the responsible Minister. Then you see a Government man coming along and advocating the sale of the lands, behind people's backs and over their heads, depriving people of their livelihood and taking the daily bread out of their mouths.

On a point of order, I think it would be well for Deputy Flanagan to keep to what is before the House and not to be putting further untruths before the House. I appreciate the right of everyone to speak here, but I think he should not abuse the privileges of the House in making statements like that.

With all respect to Deputy Gorry, the truth is bitter. The only place I can deal with Deputy Gorry and the Minister for Lands is at the cross-roads where I got 10,000 votes.

This is a matter that concerns the Minister for Lands and the Deputy is confined to criticising the administration of the Minister.

What else am I doing but criticising the Minister?

The Deputy is going far outside it.

I am not, with all respect to your ruling. Of course, I bow to the ruling of the Chair. I am giving facts. Not only did those things occur with reference to lands in my constituency within the past 12 months but they occurred within the past four months. I have day and date for everything. I say that the Department of Lands is the subject of very severe criticism in my constituency and there is every reason why that should be so. My idea of land division, from the time I came into public life, was: "Away with the ranchers and give the land to the people and no half-way measures." But where you see members of the Government supporting ranchers, you can expect very little for the agricultural worker, the smallholder or the landless man, many of whom are well prepared and equipped to work the land.

The division of the Waller estate at Belmont took place quite recently. The Waller estate is a huge estate in County Offaly, in the parish of Ferbane. There you have a lot of smallholders and landless men. This estate contains over 500 acres. The estate was eagerly looked upon as the means whereby farmers' sons could marry, rear their families and live in decency for the remainder of their lives. All the people in the area were looking hopefully to the Land Commission. The land was eventually divided. Who got it? Men were brought from County Galway and put into the lands in the parish of Ferbane in Offaly. I want to make it clear here, for fear the Minister might turn any statement of mine, that I would be the first man in my constituency to welcome a Galway man with open arms to a farm there, provided that all my constituents were satisfied and that no local grievance existed. There you have people who held this land in conacre for many years past and they could not get a rood of ground on which to grow potatoes. Many of them had to bring their cows into the fair of Birr and sell them, simply because, as a result of the Land Commission scheme, they were deprived of their few acres of grazing land.

I demand an explanation from the Minister in regard to this estate. When the Land Commission were dividing this estate the local people received only 12 acres. I fail to understand why the local people got only 12 acres and outsiders from Galway got holdings of 33 and 30 acres. Is it the Land Comsion and the Government policy to give 33 acres of land to a single man 65 years of age? Is it the Government's policy to give 30 acres to a man at the age of 70 who never married?

And no hope of him.

No hope. What Land Commissioner was responsible for giving them that land?

Were they all Galway people?

Yes, all from your constituency.

And none of them married?

I must protest in the strongest possible manner against these people depriving my constituents of the land. I do not blame the individuals. I say they are heartily welcome, but it was most unfair that those people should get land while the local people, who deserve it, are deprived of it. I fail to understand why the few local people who did get land got only 12 acres, while outsiders from the far side of the Shannon received 33-acre and 30-acre holdings, one of them a man of 70 years. There was one individual who wanted a right-of-way through a field on the same farm. The Land Commission were so generous that when they were giving him a right-of-way they gave him one of eight acres. The man who got the eight-acre right of way is the owner of 500 acres. Is it any wonder that we criticise the stupidity of the Land Commission? They gave a large landholder eight acres as a right-of-way, while the man who has to put his cow to graze on the high road could not get one or two acres on that holding. The local people, between employees and others, received 206 acres of this farm, and the outsiders received 262 acres. Is it fair that so much of these lands should be given to outsiders while the local people are deprived of land? It is a Deputy's job to look after his constituents and when Deputy Davin, Deputy O'Higgins and myself met at Belmont to investigate this very serious grievance—I understand the Fianna Fáil Deputies were invited also, but for some reason best known to themselves they were absent—the whole village was crawling with policemen and that rendered it impossible for us to have a conversation with our constituents and investigate their grievances. We had to cross to the centre of the estate, and over 1,000 people followed us. We heard their grievances and decided that we would approach the Minister for Lands and place the facts before him.

It was arranged to send a deputation to wait on the Minister. Deputy O'Higgins became ill in the meantime and, unfortunately, I was absent from the House owing to the pressure of business at home and the deputation had to be cancelled for a week. The next thing was that the Minister got the 'flu and he was absent for a fortnight and could not see the deputation. Five Deputies then prepared to approach the Minister. I assume that five would have attended, because Deputy Boland gave us an assurance, on behalf of Fianna Fáil, that he would see the Minister, but he took care to explain that our interview would be hopeless, that the lands were divided and he was sure nothing could be done. The Minister refused to receive the Deputies from the Leix-Offaly constituency. What sort of a Government have we when a responsible Minister refused to interview the elected representatives of the people, and how are their constituents, the unfortunate members of the public, to be relieved of their grievance unless the spokesmen of the general public, the elected representatives, are able to secure an interview with the Minister?

The Minister refused to receive the deputation, although a fortnight before that a report appeared in the Midland Tribune stating that a deputation was received from the Clonmore Fianna Fáil Cumann with reference to the division of land in the Clonmore area. It was headed by Mr. George O'Connell and he expressed his thanks to the Minister for Lands for the courteous manner in which he received them. Why did the Minister receive a deputation of ordinary private individuals and refuse to give an interview to the five elected representatives for the constituency? I think it speaks very badly for any responsible Minister to ignore the request of five responsible Deputies and, three weeks before that, receive a deputation from a Fianna Fáil cumann. Did the Minister think that his time would be occupied much better in receiving a deputation from Clonmore Fianna Fáil Cumann to discuss the division of land in the area, than to receive the five Deputies who were to place before him a very important grievance which concerned not one or two, but the whole parish of Ferbane?

I shall be very interested to hear the Minister's explanation of how these people got the land, how the estate was divided, who was responsible for bringing in the people from the far side of the Shannon, and on what grounds my constituents were deprived of land. I should further like to know why eight acres of land were given to a man with 500 acres as a right-of-way, and whether it is the Government's policy to give land to men with 500 acres of land. I remember when I was a member of the Fianna Fáil Party, it was the policy of the Government to give land to landless men and smallholders, but that policy has changed radically since. It has changed to the extent that a man with 500 acres is to get land from the Land Commission.

The position in that area is that many of those who were deprived of land had from five acres to one acre for tillage. Some had five acres, some had two acres, five or six had one acre, and others had three acres. They also had from five acres to one acre for meadow. Is it not a disgraceful state of affairs that the very livelihood of these people in Belmont should be taken away and that the land should be given to people from the far side of the Shannon who, I firmly believe, do not know what good land is? I am not a prophet, and never pretended to be a prophet, but I prophesy that these people whom the Minister brought in will not remain working in good land for long.

It is a downright disgrace that a farm which was the only hope of the vast majority of the smallholders and agricultural workers in the area should not have been given to them, and that they should have lost their whole livelihood. The most important fact, of which I shall be interested to hear the Minister's explanation, is his refusal to interview the five Deputies from the constituency. He refused to meet them simply because he knew that Deputy Davin, Deputy O'Higgins and I had the facts, and were convinced that political influence was used, and because he was afraid to face the music. I always thought the Minister was a courageous man, but he refused to face facts in this case, simply because he knew that the lands had been divided unfairly and that there was a real grievance in the parish of Ferbane.

Not alone was there a grievance in that parish, but similar grievances existed all over the area. In County Laoighis, there is the Forrest Estate, Mountrath, which was the subject of agitation for 14 years. I have here a letter from the secretary of the local Fianna Fáil cumann—they still keep in touch with me—who states that this land has been the subject of agitation for 14 years, and that it was sold by the bank to an individual named Clegg, who was a very big farmer in the area. The facts were placed before the Land Commission, but the Land Commission refused to act, with the result that once again the local people were deprived of the estate. The secretary goes on to say that in spite of the fact that when the Minister for Education came to Portlaoighise some time ago, the Fianna Fáil cumann in the area passed a resolution asking the Minister for Lands to have these lands acquired compulsorily from the individual who purchased them over the heads of the people, no action has been taken, nor do we hear the voices of the Fianna Fáil Deputies raised to express the protests made at that meeting.

I want to know why some steps were not taken by the Government to deal with these emergency men. Remember that the day is coming when, if the Government does not deal with them, the people themselves will deal with them. I have dealt with one of them in my own way, and I will deal with more of them, because I have one ideal to fight for, and I am sure that other Deputies have the same ideal. We are prepared to make sacrifices as did men before us to get the land for the people because we believe the people are entitled to it. Does it ever play on the Minister's conscience that one of the 12 men sentenced to six months in jail for land agitation in Ballickmoyler was carried in a coffin from Mountjoy Prison? Surely, the men of Laoighis would be traitors to that great Laoighis man, the late Padraig McGamhna, who was a T.D., if we did not carry on where he left off. He was prepared to go to prison and died there some months ago, so that the lands of Ballickmoyler and Killeshin would be divided, but these lands are still in the hands of emergency men, and no steps have been taken by the Government to see that justice is done to the people in those areas.

The very same conditions exist near the town of Mountrath. There is the estate of Cremorgan, Timahoe, of which the Minister is well aware, and there are the mansions of Brockley Park and Lamberton Park, which the gentleman to whom I have referred bought up not so long ago. If the Government does not take steps to divide these estates, they need not do so, but they will be divided some time, because mighty Governments have ruled and mighty Governments have fallen, and if this Government does not do its duty, a Government will be elected which will stand by the smallholder and the landless man.

I would not have risen were it not that I wished to protest in the strongest possible manner against the Land Commission's manner of dividing land in my constituency. It was done in a most unsatisfactory manner. I wonder if it was through downright ignorance the Minister refused to receive the five Deputies who wished to discuss it. We were Deputies from three Parties, and I think that, as a matter of courtesy to those who elected us, the Minister should have received us and heard the grievances which our constituents had requested us to place before him.

The Land Commission, so far as my constituency is concerned, has done absolutely nothing on which it is to be congratulated. Any job they did they did badly, and very badly. I have just quoted an instance of their most recent failure in that constituency. The people are complaining, and it is our duty to put these complaints before the Minister, and if the Minister and the Land Commission are taking the wrong road it is our duty to hunt them on to the right road. I am sorry that the time of Parliament should have to be occupied with these local grievances, but Parliament is the only place in which our voices can be heard in protest on behalf of our constituents.

I am interested in two points, which I am confident the Minister will deal with: why he received the Clonmore cumann and refused to meet the five Deputies from the constituency, and on what grounds were the people who had conacre on the Waller estate in Belmont deprived of land to which, I believe, they are fully entitled. Finally, I want to ask the Minister and the Land Commission to go ahead with schemes of land division and to increase the allotments they are giving, so that the agricultural worker or small farmer who may own a small portion of land will be put in the position in which he will be able to rear his family in Christian decency on the land.

In the course of this debate I have heard members of the House make attacks on certain people who have benefited by land division. I can say, as regards my own constituency of North Cork, that those who have received land have done everything possible to work it for the benefit of the country as a whole. I welcome the attitude of the Land Commission in giving land to the descendants of evicted tenants and to people who fought for this country when they were required to do so. As we are led to believe that there will be a further division of land, I would like to know if it is the intention of the Land Commission to give better consideration to the claims of cottage tenants. So far, that is the only objection that I have to the division of the land that has taken place up to the present—that more has not been done for the cottage tenants. Land has been divided in my constituency in and around Buttevant, Doneraile and Kanturk, but cottage tenants have not benefited by that division to the extent that I would like. I would be glad if the Minister would say he is prepared to give additional land to cottage tenants. Of course, certain people may not be in agreement with the giving of land to cottage tenants. In my experience, cottage tenants who have been given land have made the best possible use of it. Recently, in the course of a debate at the Cork County Committee of Agriculture it was pointed out that one cottage tenant had a return of £75 last year from his holding. I think great credit is due to him for that. I hope the Minister will be able to give me further information on the point I have raised.

Listening to the speeches of the three Deputies from Laoighis I have come to the conclusion that they are the three best organisers Fianna Fáil could have. They said that if you want to get land you must belong to a Fianna Fáil cumann. They developed their arguments on that line or at least two of them did. To my knowledge, if they wanted to try to organise a Fianna Fáil organisation they could not do it in a better way.

They know, of course, that that statement of theirs is wrong. My experience in the County Dublin is that Land Commission inspectors investigate every case on its merits. The inspector is not concerned as to whether a man is Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael, provided he is a citizen of the country. If he has an application in for land it is considered worthy of investigation. I heard other Deputies talk about not getting answers to letters they sent to the Land Commission. Deputy Blowick said that he wrote 15 months ago and was still awaiting a reply. My opinion is that he must have sent his letter to the wrong address.

I would like the Minister to bear in mind a few areas in the County Dublin where we have some uneconomic holdings. I feel that in appealing to the Minister I am really pushing an open door because, since he became Minister for Lands, he has done everything humanly possible to forward the work of land division. However, as a public representative it is my job to ask him favourably to consider the claims of Rush, Lusk, Clondalkin, Lucan, Ballyboughal and other areas in County Dublin where we have uneconomic holdings. I wish to refer especially to Rush where, in my opinion, you have the most hard-working people in the country. During the summer months some of them work 18 hours a day. There are still some large holdings in North County Dublin to be acquired, and I am sure the Minister will consider them in a judicious way.

I wish to call attention to some roads that have been made into holdings in the County Dublin. I would be glad if the Minister would enter into an agreement with the county council because the maintenance of these roads has been a bone of contention over a number of years. The roads are laid down by the Land Commission, but some of them are really only culs-desacs. The county council, when it is appealed to to maintain them, makes the case that it cannot do anything— that the roads simply run into the area between one main road and another.

Has the Land Commission a responsibility for these roads?

It is responsible for the making of them into divided holdings. I would be glad if the Land Commission would try to do something to meet the present position, and not have people complaining about the bad roads going into their lands. These are new roads which were made by the Land Commission when the land was divided.

As regards the allotment of land in the County Dublin, I would be glad if the Minister would consider applications from Old I.R.A. men, because we would not be enjoying the freedom we have to-day if it were not for the sacrifices made by those men. In my opinion, they have superseded the old Land League movement, and are worthy of any consideration they get, provided their claims, when investigated, meet the requirements of the inspectors.

I was delighted to hear that the Minister was anxious to make the new holdings approximately 30 statute acres. Such a holding will be more economical than one of 22 acres or 23 acres. Unless a man has at least 30 statute acres he cannot keep two horses to enable him to do the work of the farm, except of course we advance later on to co-operative farming, which is another day's work. When people get a small divide of land, they complain that they are not able to live on it. When a man is given a holding of land, whether he be a labourer or a farmer's son, he should be encouraged by being given a certain amount of capital to enable him to work it. I know, of course, that there is a farm improvement scheme, but at the same time I would like to urge on this Vote that people should be encouraged to improve their farmyards. I am afraid that farm improvement scheme has not been availed of as much as it should be. I hope, however, that attention will be given to my suggestion about farmyards.

There is one point that a number of people are very sore about, and that is, the vesting of their holdings. If a man has a holding for a number of years and desires to raise some capital through a bank to improve it, he is held back from doing so because the holding is not vested in him. I know, of course, the difficulties that the Minister is up against, but I mention this because numbers of people have come to me on this question of the vesting of holdings. Some of them have been in occupation for ten or 12 years, and yet the holdings are not vested in them. While they are in that position they cannot raise a loan of money to carry out improvements. I hope that the Minister, in his own good time, will try to expedite the vesting of holdings in present occupiers. With reference to shelter belts, the country is devoid to a great extent of trees.

That is not a matter that can be raised on this Vote.

That being so, I have not much more to say on this Vote. I desire to compliment the Land Commission and the Minister on their work. I have found them very easy to deal with. They have met every grievance that I had to bring to their notice and that it was possible for them to meet. I again wish to contradict the statements of other Deputies in reference to Fianna Fáil cumainn and that kind of thing.

It is not my intention to speak at any length on this Vote. I join with Deputy Beegan in what he said with regard to the land held by the Land Commission in the County Galway. That is a work that the Land Commission should now get down to. The position in Galway, especially in the northern portion of it, is that land which has been taken over by the Land Commission is being set in conacre. The land, unfortunately, is naturally poor. It has given three, four and, in some cases, five crops of oats without any artificial manure whatever being put into it. The Minister is well aware of what a holding of land of that description means to the ordinary tenant who gets it. Instead of the land being able to support these people, it is not able to feed a worm. I think it is time to forget about the emergency and to abandon the plea that nothing can be done during the emergency. I think that has become a bit too old. I would urge on the Minister and the Land Commission that the division of these lands and their distribution to the tenants should be undertaken immediately.

Some time ago I put down a question to the Minister in this connection and I think his reply was that there are something like 80,000 holdings of land at the present time in the hands of the Land Commission for distribution. Surely he must realise what that means. It means that 80,000 families are being prevented from settling down on the land of this country. When the present Minister came in, I believed there was going to be a speeding-up because he was a very active man in other fields and I expected that he would be very active in this matter. Instead of that, he pleads the emergency all along. As he knows well, Deputies, even from the Fianna Fáil Benches, from Galway, have pressed for land division. Land division is a crying need, regardless of Party politics, in Galway and I would ask the Minister and the Land Commission to turn their attention to it.

Reference has been made to the fact that land is given to people with certain political views. I would regret it if that were the case, but I am compelled to state—and I am the last man who would say it—that people have told me that in the division of the Bellew estate, Mountbellew, the land was given to people because their views, politically, were Fianna Fáil. I regret making that statement but certainly that is the view of the people there. The people of a town should get land, but while there are uneconomic holders living in the district, I believe they should get preference before business people of any town. The strange thing about the division of the Mountbellew estate was that of all the business people in Mountbellew town, only one business man got land and he was the only Fianna Fáil supporter in the town of Mountbellew.

Another case has been brought to my notice in connection with the Mountbellew estate. It is the case of a man who worked on the estate for 17 years. He told me that the Land Commission deprived him of his way of living and that he did not get a holding on the estate. These are matters I would ask the Minister to look into. I may tell the Minister that I have approached the Land Commission and put that matter specially before them, of the man who worked on the estate for 17 years. So far, I have got a reply that they are investigating the matter, but I hope that if the case is as stated it will be remedied in some way.

There is one thing that is happening in Galway as well as in Leix-Offaly, that is, the purchase of estates. As the Minister is well aware we in Galway are in a different position from the people of Leix-Offaly. There is congestion in Galway, especially in the northern portion. Certain people come in and buy estates. I do not wish to mention names, but it is happening. Some of these estates are sold with the consent of the Land Commission. The sale takes place, and later on the buyer sub-divides the land into holdings and sells it to the highest bidder, with the result that some of the people who had small holdings of land in the area, and who were looking forward to the Land Commission taking over the land so that they could get additions to their holdings, are disappointed. The individuals to whom I refer sell it out in 40 and 50 acre plots, with the result that there is no hope for the uneconomic holder in the district. I do not know whether or not the statement was made in a rush, but the Minister said on one occasion in the Dáil that the man who was able to buy land is a greater asset to the State than the man who has to be assisted by any Department of State. These may not be the Minister's exact words, but that is the meaning of them. From a business point of view I suppose that is correct, but from the point of view of the uneconomic holder and the poor people of this country who are trying to exist on a few acres of land, I think it is bad policy, and I think it is a disgrace.

There is another matter in connection with giving additions of land about which the Land Commission should be very careful, that is, giving a man land three or four miles away from his holding. I put it to the Minister that that is very bad policy, because when an economic holder, or a man with nine or 10 acres of land gets an additional four or five acres, three miles away, it is not worth while. Life is not worth living for him. Eventually he gets tired of it, and the next thing is he is appealing to the Land Commission for permission to sell it, and he loses it entirely. In future, I think the Land Commission should give additional land at a much smaller distance—I would say, not more than two miles at any rate from his holding. If it is any further away it is of no use to him. I think it would be better to take the man from the congested area and give him a holding of land and let his original holding be divided up, so that he would not have to travel to the additional land he would receive.

I regret the statement made by Deputy Flanagan, that the migrants from Galway to Leix-Offaly are people who are 65 and 70 years of age, and are unmarried. I do not know whether or not the Deputy was serious in that statement. As far as I can see, there are not many of these people in Galway, and they are not people who are looking for land, and they are not people who should get land. I believe that one of the matters the Land Commission should consider when giving additional land or holdings is—is the man a suitable applicant. If he is not a suitable applicant, he should not get it. In many cases in the past, anyhow, people got additional land who should not have got it.

I believe that married men with families should get first preference. So far as East Galway is concerned, at any rate, without being critical in the matter, I think I may say that we are dissatisfied with the way the Land Commission is moving. I think the same thing can be said by the Fianna Fáil Deputies from that constituency. It is not so very long ago that I heard an important supporter of the Government, a man in public life, say that he believed that the people would have to use the blackthorn stick again owing to the way the Land Commission is carrying on. Although it had to be used when a foreign Government ruled us, I hope we will never have to come to that again. The Minister should turn his attention specially to the west and to the lands I have referred to. I ask him to see that the portions of land which are to be given to these people will be given to them immediately, otherwise the heart will be taken out of the land they have and they will be in a worse position than they were before. So far as the Mountbellew estate is concerned, I ask the Minister to have an investigation into the matter of the employees there and to see that they are not deprived of their livelihood and turned out on the road.

I am glad that the Government has now declared the emergency at an end so far as land division is concerned. I do not intend to draw the Minister's attention to any individual estates, but I should like to get some information from him as to the Government's intentions in regard to the congested districts. It is time that we got some definite information in respect of the major congested districts. I am, of course, interested particularly in the West Galway area. It would be a good thing if the public representatives were taken more into the confidence of the Land Commission, notwithstanding the criticisms that have been made this evening. They should give us some information as to what their intentions are in regard to those areas. It would be a good thing if the public representatives were able to go into a given area and say that so many tenants will be taken from that area. It ought to be within the competence of the Land Commission to give an approximately accurate figure as to the extent of the migration they will be able to carry out in an area like Connemara. The uncertainty in regard to the matter affects other activities seriously, such as housing activities. There are two or three Departments of State carrying on housing activities. We know that new houses are being built on portions of land that are not sufficiently economic to support a family. It seems a waste that money should be expended on the provision of houses when it is expected by everybody that the people for whom these houses have been built will have to be migrated when any sort of rearrangement scheme has to be carried out. This is not a matter reserved to the Land Commission; it is a matter of Government policy and primarily one for the Minister. I think that the intentions of the Government on this very important matter should be made known. We all know the size of the problem. The extent to which the Government and the Land Commission will be able to relieve it should be made known as soon as possible and an estimate should be made of the time it will take to do it.

I should also like to direct the Minister's attention to the operation of the Appeals Tribunal. I think that this tribunal gives its decisions very often on insufficient evidence and without having examined the facts in all cases. In view of the fact that the representatives of the uneconomic holders in any district who want to get an estate divided are not allowed to make representations before the tribunal, I think there is a serious obligation on the Minister's representative to see that all the facts in favour of the people who naturally expect to get portion of the land should be brought to the notice of the tribunal. I think that work has very often been done in a very haphazard manner and it has given rise to great complaint.

With regard to the charges made that the inspectors call only on Fianna Fáil cumann secretaries and Deputies, I was very interested to hear these statements made. I would be very glad if the Minister would transfer to my constituency some of the inspectors who are operating in these other areas, because my experience of inspectors is that they close up like a clam as soon as a Deputy looks for any information from them. They are the most secretive and uncommunicative people that I know of in the Government service. They tell us quite frankly that they are not entitled to give us any information until all their schemes have been approved by the Land Commission. I think that policy is quite wrong. I think the officials should be allowed to tell us as public representatives what their intentions are in respect of an estate so that we might communicate it in broad outlines to the people interested. I do not see anything wrong about that. It is possible that the purpose in making these charges is to warn the people off from having representations made to Fianna Fáil representatives. I should like the Minister to bear that aspect of the matter in mind.

Deputy Burke complimented the Minister on the way the Land Commission are doing their work. A few weeks ago, during the discussion on the Mental Treatment Bill, he almost put a crown on the head of the Parliamentary Secretary. I am very interested in the division of estates in my own constituency. One Deputy said to-day that the Land Commission have a hard job to do from now on. The hardest job they will have is to oil up the whole machinery of the Land Commission so that it can get down to work and divide the land in this country. I am interested in the Cashman estate at Donreigh, Ballyheigue. I put down a question in this House about 12 months ago about the division of that estate. The estate was inspected some six months ago, but we have not yet heard anything about the division of it. Although the owner of the estate offered it to the Land Commission, they have so far failed to, divide it. People in that district who are real honest workers are very anxious to get a portion of that estate so that they may have an economic holding on which to rear their families. I ask the Minister to impress on the Land Commission that they should have this estate divided as soon as possible so as to give the people in that district some kind of economic holdings. In the division of the estate, they should also include the cottiers. In that district a number of cottiers are very anxious to get some share of that land.

I am also in correspondence with the Department regarding houses in Aughuasla district which have been vacated by those who have migrated up the country. Those houses have been lying idle for a number of years, while there are people living in houses unfit for habitation, which would hardly be used for pigs. I have asked the Department to investigate that and to let those houses to people badly in need of them. I have got a reply that the matter has been transferred to the inspectors for investigation. It is a matter which should be cleared up, as it is a disgrace that the Department should have houses locked up, while people in the district are looking for them and living in unfit dwellings.

There was a question here the other day about people who have migrated up the country from my county. I am sure there are people in Meath who are very glad to see the people from the Kingdom living among them. I myself have been there for some time and have met the people and they have said that the only chance they might have of winning freedom for all Ireland was to migrate the people from Kerry to County Meath. The people of Kerry might be good footballers, but they are also good workers. They are people who know how to work the land. I am sure they are doing their part in this emergency, in helping to produce food for the nation. Now that the emergency is nearly over, and that the Department of Lands is getting down to work, I ask the Minister to oil up the cogs and get the Department moving quickly to divide the land and, when he is dividing it, not to forget to divide the Cashman estate in Ballyheigue.

Tá a fhios ag gach aoinne go raibh baint agam ar feadh mo shaoghail le gluaiseachtai náisiúnta agus gur beag an bhaint a bhí agam le cúrsaí poilitíochta. Everybody here knows that, throughout my life, I had very little contact with Party politics but devoted my energies to national movements of various kinds. While purely parochial matters go to make up the bulk of what is known as the land agitation, every Deputy knows that, if success is to be achieved, the problem must be dealt with from a broadly national aspect.

It often surprised me since I came into the House that, in a country where the land is so important and where so much technical and legal knowledge is required, neither the Minister for Lands nor the Minister for Agriculture has a Parliamentary Secretary to help in the discharge of the onerous duties of those Departments. I believe that to be the first step necessary to speed up the division of land. I have heard many criticisms of what has been done for members of one political Party or the other, but since I came into public life, I have found very little of that. I have found that the criticisms and grievances are about equally balanced between one political Party and another. If more Fianna Fáil people get land in particular areas, I suppose that is only in the natural course of events, as the votes of the people seem to be directed that way. If you divide the land on that basis of population, it is only natural that more Fianna Fáil people should get allotments. I do not think there has been any partiality—if so, it would be against myself and the Fianna Fáil Party, that we did not do better for our followers.

I do not believe in looking at this matter from a narrow point of view. I believe the Minister is enthusiastic and energetic and has the ability and knowledge to deal with this problem now, after his years of experience, and that he is the only man we could have in that position. I believe he is anxious and willing to go ahead and, now that the emergency is over, I am sure he will attend in a reasonable way to the matters that have been referred to here to-day from all sides of the House. Criticisms and speeches have been made here which are no credit to this Assembly. I would appeal to the Minister, much on the lines of Deputy Donnellan, that in the congested districts when land is being divided, he should not give small allocations but should give a decent allotment and take a man out of a congested district and then divide the land he has left amongst the smallholders there.

The question of the roads has created a lot of grievances in my constituency, as the people are not able to carry on their business over the roads which have been provided. The emergency has been responsible for lots of things but, now that it is over, let us, in a spirit of goodwill, tackle this task of land division, which has meant so much to our people and towards which their hopes and their anxieties for many years have been directed.

Deputy Bartley makes the surprising suggestion that land inspectors should invite the Deputies of this House to assist them in their labours. Any more disastrous proposal I could not conceive. We are already aware that the general impression in the country is that if the inspectors keep their mouths as closely closed as they can, the Deputies of the Fianna Fáil Party certainly do not. We are led to believe down the country that, having attempted to deafen the inspectors with their representations, they then attempt to deafen their neighbours with suggestions that their representations to the inspectors have been so effective that the benefits about to descend on the heads of loyal members of the local Fianna Fáil cumann will astonish the natives.

If the Fianna Fáil Deputies are believed to interfere in the distribution of land, they have no one to blame but themselves. Their supporters in the country report to their neighbours that the Fianna Fáil Deputies assure them at frequent intervals that they are getting them parcels of land, that they will get them parcels of land, and that they alone can get them parcels of land, and if they do not join the cumann and be in good standing they have no chance of getting any parcel of land. That is notorious all through the country. I remember going up to Cavan one day and being told that a certain Deputy of this House was holding a meeting below on a holding that had been acquired by the Land Commission, and was dividing it at a meeting of the Fianna Fáil cumann, that he had announced by public notice that he wanted the members of the cumann at the meeting, in order to divide the estate and see that the right men got the land.

I am sure the Deputy did not believe that story.

I do not believe that the Land Commissioners, if they were let alone, would fall in with that gentleman's designs, but I was not at all certain that they would be let alone. In so far as the Land Commissioners can be influenced by the Minister, I had no doubt that the Fianna Fáil Deputies' designs would be given effect to. Nothing stood between the deserving tenant purchasers of that area and the designs of the Fianna Fáil Deputy but the Land Commissioners.

I urge upon the Minister, now that he is about to embark upon the division of land again, to call up all the Land Commission inspectors and tell them that their instructions to proceed exclusively as servants of the Land Commission, without any regard to influential persons in any particular district, are reaffirmed and that they may rest assured that the Land Commission and the Minister responsible for the Department will stand behind them in doing their duty conscientiously, no matter whom it pleases.

The suggestion that Deputies can teach responsible inspectors of the Land Commission how to do their job is so grotesque as to be laughable. I met only two inspectors of the Land Commission in my life and they came to interview me about the best way of sorting out a rundale bog that had got into confusion as the result of being vested in trustees some 45 years ago. The only reason they came to me was that they understood that my father had some connection with the appointment of the trustees and they thought that I might be able to help them in identifying the trustees. I remember talking to those men and, in the course of our conversation, being struck by their phenomenal understanding of the mentality of the people and the people's problems and of the effective way to meet those problems.

As compared with a lot of the trash I hear talked in this House, ten minutes' conversation with those men gave one hope that the very difficult problems that the Land Commission are called upon to meet from time to time will be satisfactorily solved, provided only that the experienced inspectors of the Land Commission are allowed to do their work in peace and with the assurance that if they do their duty conscientiously as between one claimant and another, they will be supported by the commissioners and by the Minister, if needs be. Therefore, I beg of the Minister to make it quite clear that well-intentioned as Deputy Bartley's proposals may be, he categorically rejects them and that he is resolved to leave the work of land acquisition and distribution in the hands of the commission appointed for that purpose.

I should like to hear from the Minister what his impression is of the useful purpose served by the appointment of lay commissioners to the Appeal Tribunal. I think the institution of that system under the 1932 Act was just one of Fianna Fáil's stunts at that particular period. The Minister and his colleagues at that time were concerned to prove to the country that the Land Commission was a gang of corrupt, unscrupulous hirelings and that they had to put in watchdogs to drag the bloodsuckers of the Land Commission off the defenceless backs of the down-trodden people of Ireland. In order to do that, two watchdogs were appointed. How are the watchdogs getting on? Is the Minister as fond of his watchdogs as he was when they were appointed? Is he assured that their services are as invaluable as he was when they were appointed? When their term of office is ended, does he intend to appoint successors, or does he propose, with the commonsense peculiarly characteristic of him in his calmer moments, to let the office die out? I suggest the time has come when he might start his commonsense working on that problem with a view to persuading his colleagues to join him in having a decent interment of that office when the two who now occupy the positions propose to relinquish them. Their original appointment was a scandal. The enactment which put them there was a farce. The institution to which they belong is a nuisance and the sooner it is disposed of the better it will be for everybody.

I suppose Deputies will think me old-fashioned if I say a word on behalf of evicted tenants. Past favours in this country are soon forgotten. If we have the land and the power to distribute it, we have it because people had the courage 40 or 50 years ago to leave their homes and go out on the roadside rather than pay rackrents. We have it because the shopkeepers of Tipperary left their prosperous businesses and went to New Tipperary, ruined and in poverty, in order that our people might own their holdings. Have all their descendants been dealt with justly, or have we reached the stage in this country when the legitimate claimant, the descendant of an evicted tenant, is told that his claim is now stale and nobody is interested in evicted tenants any longer? If we have, then we have every reason to be ashamed.

I would be grateful if the Minister would tell us to-day whether there are any claims in his Department for land in the name of evicted tenants and, if so, when these claims will be disposed of, or is he satisfied that every genuine claimant, the descendant of an evicted tenant, has had his due? If he is not in a position to give that undertaking, I would be grateful if he would tell us whether it is the resolve of the Land Commission and himself to ensure that at the earliest possible opportunity these soldiers of the land war will get no pensions—they never asked for pensions—no rewards—they never wanted them—but their own, that which they willingly gave up in the course of the fight with the assurance that when the fight was won they would get it back. They do not want a farthing more, only that, no more, and if the Irish people, as the Irish people unquestionably did, gave them a solemn bond that if they stood their ground in that time of crisis the Irish people would see them restored to the position they left and nothing more, then that promise should be honoured. And because those who made the promise on behalf of the Irish people are now in their graves, those of us who come after them should not go back on that promise. So long as I can get 8,000 people to send me to Dáil Éireann, those who are responsible for going back upon that promise will be reminded of their obligations.

Now I come to the two last points I want to make. Deputy Spring and a number of other Deputies every year make eloquent speeches about dividing the land, giving the people the land. Has Deputy Spring not yet wakened up to the fact that there is not enough land in Ireland to make every existing uneconomic holding economic? Are we going to make up our minds now that we are about to reopen the process of land distribution, that those persons living on uneconomic holdings, holdings which require them to go away and labour in Great Britain or elsewhere in order to make ends meet, holdings on which a man and his family cannot live, are to be a permanent feature of our agricultural economy, because unless we have made up our minds to that, we might as well make up our minds to the fact that there is not enough land to give to new persons desiring to acquire holdings under the land code? Every acre of land in this country, if acquired and distributed by the Land Commission to provide existing uneconomic holders with the minimum economic holding, would be insufficient.

I should like the Minister to tell us if it is his policy to abolish the uneconomic holding or to leave the existing agricultural slums, which the landlords created when they allowed excessive sub-division of their rent rolls, and to create new agricultural slums in other parts of the country, or is it his intention to go back over the fell work of the landlords who increased their rent rolls at the expense of their tenants' livelihood and to give to every man who is making his living out of the land not a large holding but the smallest holding that experienced agriculturists believe to be sufficient to maintain a man, his wife and family? That is the clear issue upon which the Minister ought to be able to give us a statement of policy to-day and it is madness to start distributing land again until we have made up our minds on that vital question of fundamental policy.

I now come to the last point on which I want to hear the Minister express his views. I should also be interested to hear the views of other Deputies on this point, but I lay 6 to 4—I will lay more; I will lay 2 to 1— that I will not get three Deputies to give their opinion on it. In 1932, legislation was brought into the House and passed triumphantly whereby the land annuities were halved. Observe what the position now is. The Minister acquires an estate and pays £100 for a parcel of land. He improves the land; he allots the land; and he levies on the land an annuity sufficient to redeem the purchase price, always provided that the land is sufficiently fertile to yield that annuity, plus a reasonable allowance for the farmer, his wife and family. Remember that if it is not sufficient to do that, the livelihood of the farmer, his wife and family is sacrosanct, and the annuity must be abated in order to bring it within the capacity of the tenant purchaser to pay.

That was the system, pre-1932. Post-1932, having ascertained the annuity chargeable on the land, we cut it in half and we convey the land to the allottee at half the price it cost. We tax his neighbours and the people of the country at large in order to convey land to people at one half its cost price. When we are doing that, we have the idea that we are planting someone on the soil for all time and we lay the soothing unction to our souls that while we are charging half the price of this farm to the public debt, we are at least making a farmer for all times. I saw a fellow whose land was vested last week and who sold it the following morning. Ten years ago, the land was allotted to him. It was vested in him some day last month and the vesting order was not made before he had sold the land.

Observe what he did. He got the land for nothing, subject to the payment of his annuity. He pays the annuity for ten years and he then goes to his neighbour and says: "I have a holding worth £400. The capital value of the annuity charged upon it is only £200. What will you give me for it?" He says to him: "Before 1932, if you were buying the land subject to the total annuity, what would you give me?" His neighbour says: "I will give you £350," and he says: "Put another £200 to that because the Government made me a present of £200 and I am passing it on to you because you will finish the payment of the annuity." Do Deputies understand that? There may be a 60 years' annuity payable on the land. If the fellow has paid 20 semi-annual instalments, he can sell the land to his neighbour, in the assurance that, for the remaining 50 years, the incoming purchaser will pay not the price of the land but only half, the rest being quartered on the national debt, which his neighbours must pay.

God knows what mentality moved this Dáil to pass the 1932 Land Act. I never understood it. Thanks be to God, I voted against it. It did many queer things. It ended fixity of tenure and free sale in this country, and the policy of the Party which introduced it ended fair rent, but I confess that that was not the limit of its extravagance. Is there any Deputy who will say that it is same—never mind just—to convey land to people for half its value, to charge up the other half to their neighbours and to enable the people to whom the land is allotted to sell it at the end of ten years for its full value and buy a shop in one of the streets of a neighbouring town? It would be much more sane to introduce a measure under which we would hold a lottery every year, draw out of the hat 200 names and give each a public house and set them up.

That is what we are doing. Every one of these fellows can sell his holding, and, out of the surplus value which we, by legislation, have created, buy a public house. The only difference is that, in 1935, the fellow either had another farm or was a landless man or an evicted tenant's descendant and he went into a farm having nothing. He pays 20 semi-annual instalments and, in 1945, walks out with a public house. Would it not be much shorter and save a lot of time if we gave the fellow a public house in 1935 and then conveyed the land to a man who meant to live upon it and charged him an annuity which represents the value of the land repayable over 60 years? If that is too heavy a burden, I see no objection whatever to extending the purchase period to 100 years. I think it is possible to change the period of an annuity without legislation—that it is a matter within the discretion of the Land Commission, although I am not quite certain—but in the old Gladstonian days, there was a kind of idea that if you lent money, everybody was shaking and trembling until you got it back again, that it was a most dangerous thing to lend money and, therefore, you fixed 40 years as the longest possible period for which money should be left out. Modern thought has demonstrated that that is grotesque. Credit is there for the people to use, and if it facilitates the conveyance of land to deserving people, there is no conceivable objection to extending the period of the purchase agreement to 100 years.

I have no doubt that money will be available to the Minister very soon after this emergency has passed at a very much lower rate than that which he has been constrained to pay in the past. I think his land bonds will probably bear a lower rate of interest in the years to come than they do now, so that we could and should get from the allottees the value of the land calculated in accordance with the well-established Land Commission practice which obtained in this country from 1885 to 1932. I know that Fianna Fáil floundered in a number of grotesque follies in their early days. for many of which they have stood up in the market place and cried "Peccavi", but what I am afraid of is that, inasmuch as this reform, this overdue reform, which I advocate would affront a very considerable vested interest in the country, they will not have the moral courage to face it, nor do I think it would be reasonable to ask any political chief of a Department to announce that he proposed to abolish the concession granted to tenants under the 1932 Act who are already in enjoyment of it. Therefore, I suggest to the Minister that he should give notice that, from this time forward, allotments of land will be made to those who are prepared to pay for them, and not to those who are not prepared to pay any more than 50 per cent. of the value. I am not asking him to go back on any agreements that have been made. Let them stand as a monument to Fianna Fáil incompetence and, I am obliged to add, dishonesty. I think it was a dishonest transaction.

The Deputy is not permitted to criticise the merits of legislation—only the administration thereunder.

I recognise that at once.

Well, the Deputy forgot it for a moment.

I express my regret to the Chair if I did transgress the rules of order. It is difficult for me to perceive errors of that character. These are the only points that I have to make, and when you have made your point the best thing you can do is to sit down.

I would like to suggest to the Minister, now that the Emergency Order has been revoked and that the Land Commission will be getting back its staff again, that he should continue the good work that has been done in various parts of the country in acquiring, developing and distributing bogs. I would like to take this opportunity of paying tribute to the Land Commission officials for the excellent piece of work they did in acquiring and dividing a bog estate in the neighbourhood close to me with which I am familiar. I am glad to say, despite all that has been said in this House about giving certain advantages to the supporters of Fianna Fáil, that the Land Commission in that particular case, and in other cases that I am familiar with, gave absolute fair play all round. They made available a bog which, three years ago, was worthless, on which there were only about 20 people cutting turf. This year there are close on 80 families getting turf from that particular bog. The Land Commission have drained it and put in a good road. I know that, in other parts of the constituency that I have the honour to represent, and, in fact, all over the country, despite the amount of work that has been done in developing bogs during the last couple of years, there is still a lot of work to be done. In many instances I think it would be well for the Land Commission to go in and take over the work of allocating turbary fairly amongst the people. In the bog that I have referred to, the Land Commission inspector had the foresight to make available plots of turbary for future cottage holders—I mean to make available a supply of fuel for cottages that, we all hope, will be built in the next ten years or so. I challenge anyone to come to my district and say that any preference, pro or con, was made on the basis of political influence or in favour of political supporters. I do not mind the charges that were levelled against me in this House recently when I was ill, by a Deputy from my constituency who spoke here this evening. It is my privilege to be able to claim that I have been a member of the House—I was out of it for a short period—for almost 20 years. I look upon this House as the national Assembly. We come here to do the work of the country, and Deputies from one's constituency should not abuse the privileges of the House by trying to score a point which they think will get into the Press and add to their political prestige outside. I deny emphatically the charges made by Deputy Flanagan. I liken them to the charges that he made against the Administration under Minister Boland. Last week he made the callous statement that the executions carried out in Mountjoy were so brutal that an unfortunate person who was being executed had his head and neck pulled from his body, and that in another instance a certain poor unfortunate man was alive after execution.

That is not on the Land Commission Vote.

I use it with your permission.

My permission has not been asked.

The Ceann Comhairle was not present when I sat silent in my place this evening and heard certain charges levelled against me. I will not go further than to say that the other things which this particular Deputy chooses to say here and at his famous cross-road meetings are akin to the statements which he made in the House last week, and which were so easily disposed of by the Minister for Justice. I leave the matter there. The question of my going to the private meetings of certain people was referred to. I think every Deputy has the right to go where he will. If he is invited by a group of people to make inquiries as to how any land owner proposes to sell his land, by public auction or otherwise, I think he is perfectly entitled to do so. I make no apology to anyone for doing what I consider to be my duty at any time.

There is just one other matter I wish to deal with, although I do not want to detain the Minister. As a matter of fact, I have certain suggestions which I will make to him by way of memorandum. I would say this to Deputies and ask them to consider it with me. Now that the Land Commission will, please God, be coming into their own again—that they will be finishing the work which they had begun all over the country—I want to bring to their notice the cases of tenant purchasers of theirs who are living in very bad houses, houses that want to be replaced or in some cases reconstructed. The occupiers are not in a position to carry out the reconstruction themselves without assistance from the Land Commission. I think that the Land Commission, through their housing section would be the proper authority to deal with this matter. The cost of building materials is not likely to come back to normal during the next ten years. Therefore, I would suggest to the Land Commission that they should reopen that particular section of the Department so as to make provision for the housing of the people. They should help to improve housing conditions with more generous grants than those given heretofore. More generous assistance will, I believe, need to be provided in the future. When such assistance was provided in the past it was pegged down to houses with a poor law valuation at £25. There was a further requirement that the applicant had to get a grant from the Department of Local Government under the Housing Acts. I suggest that the poor law valuation qualification should be raised from £25 to £40. Even by making that allowance there will still be many tenant purchasers of the Land Commission who will not be entitled to assistance and yet who are as equally deserving of getting assistance as those with holdings below the £25 valuation.

As the time left to the Minister to reply is short, I will not detain the House longer. I assure the House I am sorry that I have had to refer to what any other Deputy has said, but when I was absent certain things were alleged here which were untrue. I take this opportunity of saying that any charge that Deputy has made was contrary to the facts.

There is just one small matter that I want to bring to the Minister's notice. Several representations have been made to me by responsible people in my constituency that something should be done to check the destruction of mansions and large houses on estates which have been taken over and divided by the Land Commission. In one case in my constituency the mansion house was allotted to a penniless individual who, over a period of 12 years, paid neither his rates nor annuities, and in the same period destroyed both the exterior and interior of the mansion house. The place is now a wilderness although, some years ago, it was one of the beauty spots in the County Kilkenny. I refer to Woodstock. I think that something should be done to let these houses rest there for the moment. A use may be found for them later on. It might be possible, perhaps in consultation or in cooperation with the Tourist Board, to make some use of them in the fishing, hunting or shooting districts. Possibly, the Tourist Board might find some use for them as hotels or the Local Government Department might use them as sanatoria or local hospitals. I think it is bad for the country that these houses should be demolished in the manner in which they are being demolished at present and being left as a scar upon the countryside. I suggest that in the division of land in future consideration should be given to the question of using these residences for some useful purpose. I raise this point because it has been brought to my notice by many of my constituents.

Is there any special time by which the Minister is to conclude?

No time has been fixed.

Deputy Dillon made a statement to-night in regard to the selling of holdings. I should like to know how many of the holdings that are handed over are afterwards sold. I know of none in my constituency anyway. He made a suggestion that seems rather peculiar coming from a Deputy who can claim this much anyway, that he did one man's part to prevent the farmers of this country from being in a position to have their annuities halved. As far as the collection of annuities for Britain was concerned, he did his job, and the farmers of this country suffered four years of torture on account of his attitude. I cannot understand his demand now that tenants who got holdings from the Land Commission should have to pay the full annuity instead of the halved annuity in respect of them. I know that the majority of the holdings that have been taken over are estate land and that the valuation per acre on estate land is far higher than it is on ordinary agricultural holdings that previously were bearing a rent. My personal opinion is—and I consider that I know land and farming as well as any man in this House—that the tenants have more than they can do to pay the halved annuity, plus the rates on the holdings. I know of no case of a tenant getting a holding, holding it for a period and then selling it out—as Deputy Dillon alleges. I know that in my constituency the tenants were fairly and impartially selected by the Land Commission and no man got land who was not entitled to it. The only fault I have to find— again it is a personal opinion—is that the acreage of the holding is too small to allow the tenant to eke out a livelihood for himself and his family on the holding and to pay the annuities on it. I do not think the holdings are sufficiently large to allow that to be done. Anything from 22 to 30 acres of land is not sufficient at any time to enable a man to exist and to maintain his wife and family. That is my main objection to the manner in which land is being divided. In my opinion, we are only creating further uneconomic holdings and a further problem. We are not providing economic holdings. I cannot understand the argument of Deputy Dillon. He is bitter in heart because the farmers of this country to-day are enjoying what he did his utmost to prevent them enjoying, namely, a 50 per cent. reduction of their annuities.

Now he says that the unfortunate man who was left in the bog and in the poor land of this country and who is transferred to these holdings should pay twice as much as his neighbour. That was Deputy Dillon's demand here to-night, that where his neighbour pays £10 by way of annuities, this poor man should pay £20, should pay the pre-1933 annuity. I think that is a ridiculous demand, made by a Deputy who has done one man's part to prevent this nation from being in the position to give the farmers of this country a 50 per cent. reduction in their annuities. He now says that these poor devils who were taken out of the uneconomic holdings and put into holdings by the Land Commission should pay twice what their neighbour is paying. I think that is an atrocious demand, an unjust and unfair demand, and I am more than astonished to hear it, even from Deputy Dillon. I take no great notice of what he says.

I should like to have from the Minister some return, if he can give it to us, of the number of holdings that are sold immediately after being vested. I know of none in my constituency and I do not know where they can be unless it is a brain-wave of his own. I am sorry to take up the time of the House but I would again urge that some recasting be made in connection with the acreage allotted. I do not believe that the holdings allotted are sufficient to enable a man to maintain a wife and family on them and, as I have said, it means that we are creating a further problem.

I wish to deal with matters which have been brought to my notice in Roscommon. I agree with Deputy Corry that the holdings are not sufficiently large in the congested districts. A man living on, perhaps, 20 or 30 acres of very good land can make a living out of it but men living on poor land in my constituency, particularly on the plains of Boyle, who are being given 20 to 30 acres of very moderate land, find their conditions very trying indeed. In these cases at least 40 acres of arable land would be needed for an economic holding. With less than that the people are unable to live and to meet their commitments.

Another matter that has been brought to my notice in my constituency is that certain guarantees were given by the Land Commission that an adequate supply of water both for domestic purposes and for live stock would be available.

I have in mind one farm which was divided eight or nine years ago and up to the present no provision has been made by the Land Commission for the supply of water either for domestic purposes or for live stock. I know of three or four cases where tenants in these farms have to travel from three to five miles for water for live stock and from a mile to a mile-and-a-half for water for domestic purposes. That is not fair and I would request the Minister to see that there is some redress for these grievances.

Then there is the matter of fences which has been brought to my notice on numerous occasions by various people in the area I represent. Fences which were made eight or nine years ago are now almost level with the ground. Something should be done to prevent that. I suggest that where fences are being made there should be a planting of some kind to give them a grip. As it is, they have all crumbled to the ground and there are practically no fences at all there. I have received several complaints with regard to the houses erected by the Land Commission in my area during the last eight or nine years. In some cases the material used has not been by any means good, with the result that the walls have cracked and the roofs are bad and letting in water. In one particular case which I brought to the notice of the Land Commission a porch had to be erected to hold up the front wall which was all cracked. When any Deputy makes representations in such a case as that, the matter should be expedited. I regret to say that up to the present that has not been the case.

Another matter which I wish to bring to the Minister's notice is the land in the hands of the Land Commission. The Land Commission have let that land to uneconomic holders in the district for tillage and grazing. The rents charged, however, are much in excess of what the people can afford to pay. In former times grazing and conacre were let by private individuals at a much cheaper rate than these lands are let by the Land Commission. In the case of cattle, it is unfair that an uneconomic holder should have to pay £2 for grazing for a year-old calf for six months. Then £4 an acre is an excessive rate for tillage and that has been charged repeatedly by the Land Commission. These rates should be considerably reduced.

People going into these farms are not in a position in many cases to stock them and they are just living from hand to mouth. There should be some co-operation between the Land Commission and other Departments so that these people could get loans at a reasonable rate of interest. That would enable them to stock their lands and give them a start in life. At present these lands in many cases are not stocked by the owner. Many of these farms are let on the 11 months' system to neighbouring farmers who have the cash to stock them. That is not an incentive to progress on the part of the people who got these holdings. I think that some arrangement should be made by the Land Commission whereby these people would get loans at a reasonable rate of interest, say, around 2 per cent. It would be an incentive to good farming and a great assistance to these people.

I would impress on the Minister again the desirability of providing water on these farms. I know the hardship which the people in these localities have to undergo. I live very convenient to some of them and, on my way in and out of town, at the busiest seasons of the year, during the turf-cutting season, the hay-saving season and the harvest, I meet men going a distance of three or four miles with two or three barrels on their carts in order to get water for their cattle. In other cases I know they have to drive cattle a distance of three miles. That is not just or right. I appeal to the Minister to see that that is remedied. I know that an effort has been made to provide water in some cases. In one case an attempt was made to sink a pump but the efforts were unsuccessful. In a case like that they should try again as water can be got at a certain depth. If they use explosives I think water can be got. I cannot impress on the Minister too much the desirability of having the houses which I have referred to looked after. I have had numerous complaints from all over the county, particularly in the Boyle area.

I made representations to the Land Commission on behalf of these tenants but, after a period of two or three years, I find that nothing has been done. Some of these houses are scarcely habitable in the winter. The roofs are bad and the water is coming in. The people living in them will never suffer from want of fresh air as it is coming in through the cracks in the doors and windows. I ask the Minister to have these matters attended to.

Ní fiú tosnú anois mar, níl ach cúig noimeataí fágtha agam. When I introduced this Estimate on Friday last I told the Dáil that there was nothing new or strange in it compared with last year's Estimate, that it had in no way suffered a sea change, sad or otherwise. While I did not appeal, as Deputy Cogan said, for the Estimate to be passed in silence, I did suggest that the debate on the Estimate might be made much shorter if Deputies devoted the discussion and criticism of the Estimate towards some new and effective suggestions we had not had before. I foretold that all the criticisms that would be directed towards the Estimate would be criticisms that we already had last year. I made a list of them. Every single criticism that was directed to the Land Commission Estimate last year was repeated this year. It was pathetic to listen to the Deputies criticising the Land Commission Estimate.

Deputy Cogan spoke about getting efficiency experts, I suppose from America, to reconstruct the whole administration of the Land Commission. Now I know America and I have a very high opinion of America. I also know efficiency experts, and I think that when O Henry was talking about the "rude four flushers of the hamlet" of New York he was talking about most of the efficiency experts I happen to know. It is a habit with Deputy Cogan and Deputy Hughes, particularly, to exhibit for us here the tremendous width of their reading in regard to agricultural matters and Land Commission matters. It is a good thing to know that Deputies are students of affairs. At the same time, one would think that a real student would bring some critical faculty to bear on what he reads. When Deputy Hughes and Deputy Cogan, with their eyes on the ends of the earth like a very famous character, tell us about what is done in Britain, what is done in America, what is done in Denmark, and even what is done in Scotland and how good the Scottish farmers are, like John Mitchel I do not despair of the old land yet. I think our own farmers are just as good as the farmers in any country in the world.

I move to report progress.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again to-morrow.
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