So far as I know, there is nothing suspect, nothing disreputable in keeping sheep, but the minute I take a sheep in on my land every veterinary inspector in the service of the Roscommon County Council, every inspector authorised by the Minister for Agriculture, has a statutory right to enter on my lands and to stay on my lands as long as he likes, to cross-hackle me and cross-examine me about every sheep in my possession. No landlord's bailiff ever dared to make such a claim. Why do we multiply classes of persons now, authorised to assert the bailiff's claim against our people, authorised to enter at the entrant's will?
I have a bit of land and I have 50 sheep on it. Is that any crime? Why should the fact that I have 50 sheep on my land open my gates to every warrior the Minister for Agriculture cares to authorise to enter thereon? Do you take that as something natural? Mind you, the constitutional rights of the black marketeer functioning in this State are carefully respected. You cannot go in on his premises without a search warrant. If any inspector wants to go into a black marketeer's house to seek out illegal material, or goods improperly held, he must first go to the appropriate officer of the law, get a search warrant and produce it. Until he produces that search warrant that black marketeer is within his rights in throwing the inspector or the policeman out and using such force as may be necessary to exclude him.
Not so the farmer. The very fact that he keeps sheep gives every inspector an absolute right to enter on his lands at any reasonable time. Why has it become a more suspect occupation to raise sheep than to traffic in the black market? The house of the thief or the receiver of stolen goods cannot be entered without a search warrant. Suppose the police in this city believe a person has property on his premises which he received and accepted, well knowing it to have been stolen, I think I am right in saying that they cannot enter that man's house until they get a search warrant. The whole machinery of the law would be invoked against any public servant who attempted to enter without a search warrant. Not so when you keep sheep. The very fact that you have a sheep on your land entitles an authorised person to enter your premises and to remain upon them so long as he pleases. Why, why? Why can everybody kick the farmers about? Would not all the Deputies here react vigorously if an amendment were proposed to a Bill which would entitle the inspectors of any Department to enter their private houses without let or hindrance? Would we not all be on the qui vive, wondering when they would come knocking at our door and marching in through the house to satisfy themselves that there was no impropriety? Would we not in the next breath say: "Why should they have this right; are we all suspect?" On that question being put, such a proposal would be laughed out of the House. Yet, when we propose to invest all the inspectors of the local authority and of the Minister's Department with power to enter the lands of any farmer who dares to keep sheep, nobody seems a bit put out. Why?
Is all the glory and all the pride in fixity of tenure, fair rent and free sale forgotten? How often has the tale been told that an essential preliminary to enabling our people to be free is to make them secure in their own homes and independent of everybody. Is not that true? So long as the individual could be intimidated in his own home by the agents of oppression, is it not true that it was impossible effectively to organise the community in defence of the nation as a whole and that, therefore, the whole struggle for independence was laid aside in order to put our people in possession of their homes on terms which would enable them to bid defiance to all comers at their own threshold? Now, we are undoing all that. We are giving back into the hands of the agents of a very real, potential oppressor—the Government of the day—power to enter our premises at any time during the day. Do not Deputies realise how short a step it is from that to the position when, if a man in Cavan acts in a way acceptable to the Minister for Agriculture, his farm will never be entered and he will not be suspect? Do you imagine that Mr. L.'s farm in Cavan would ever be entered by an inspector? If any inspector contemplates that, he would be well advised, during his next lunch hour, to run around to the Board of Works and ask some of the inspectors there what their experience was when they were reckless enough to attempt an analogous operation.