Since we released the Minister, who has a big plant to main-out"—maintain, and adjourned for tea, I hope, now that he has absorbed the vitamins, he will continue to exude the milk of human kindness. Our concern, in relation to the redrafting of this section, is that the Minister will retain the powers of the Land Commissioners as they are in paragraphs (b) and (c) of sub-section (1) of Section 10. I hope that is the Minister's intention.
Land Bill, 1949—Committee (Resumed).
Debate resumed on amendment No. 21 :—
In sub-section (1), page 5, to delete all the words after the word "plots" in line 27 to the end of the section.—(Deputy Moylan.)
That is correct. Paragraphs (b) and (c) are not touched at all.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I move amendment No. 22:—
To delete sub-section (2).
Amendment No. 22, which deals with the deletion of powers, and amendments Nos. 23, 24, 26, 27, 28 and 29 are all related.
Would it be possible to take them all together?
In a general discussion, yes.
I want to emphasise the point of view that we do not wish to curb the authority of the Minister over the Department in any fashion other than in relation to excepted matters. While, on the one hand, the Minister agrees that such matters should be outside the domain of everyday politics, on the other hand he proceeds to amend the terms in which the excepted matters are set out under paragraphs (d) and (e) of sub-section (1) of Section 10. In the final paragraph of the section he arrogates to himself the power to nominate the allottees and to control the distribution of all land. That is a complete reversal of all precedents. It is entirely unwise. We feel it is an authority that should be denied to any Minister. Sub-section (2) says:—
"Any power or duty for the time being vested by law (including this Act) in the Land Commission or the lay commissioners may, save in relation to excepted matters, be exercised or performed by—
(a) the Minister, or..."
If the excepted matters were left stand there would be no difficulty. What we find fault with is where the Minister makes an exception to the exceptions. We find fault particularly with paragraph (b):—
"Any officer of the Minister or the Land Commission for the time being exercised, whether specifically or by reference to a class of such officers, in that behalf by the Minister."
That seems to me to read that even the rawest typist in the Minister's office, so long as she is an accredited civil servant, may be given authority to deal with all these vital matters in the Bill. The Minister should really take it upon himself to make that provision much more narrow. As it stands, I think it is entirely unwise. The safety of all those who hold land, or who are seeking to have land allotted to them, should lie and does lie at the moment in the hands of the judicial authority. We completely disagree with the Minister because he is making these exceptions and is taking authority from the commissioners, the judicial body, and is claiming to hand it over to any particular servant, no matter of what rank.
Did the Deputy read the Minister's amendment No. 30?
The Deputy should not ask me to pursue a matter that is at the other end of the book.
It actually deals with the problem to which the Deputy is referring. I am only trying to help the Deputy.
Amendment No. 30 reads:—
"To delete sub-section (8), page 6, and substitute the following sub-section:—
(8) The Minister shall not authorise pursuant to this section an officer to approve any scheme for the rearrangement of lands held in rundale or intermixed plots whether with or without the distribution of other lands to facilitate the said rearrangement unless such officer is an officer of the Land Commission and not below the rank of senior inspector."
I hope the House will give me that amendment when we come to it.
Maybe. If the Minister is willing even to go to the length of having a senior inspector deal with the matter——
That is a step above the typist you mentioned a while ago.
——why does he put in this section "any officer of the Minister or the Land Commission for the time being authorised"? In view of this amendment, to which Deputy Collins has drawn my attention, there is definitely need for an amendment to this section to bring it into line with the other. I disagree entirely with the Minister's taking authority unto himself from the Land Commission in regard to what should be excepted matters. It is making bad worse. I suggest to Deputy Collins that a judge, in interpreting the law, will weigh one section of an Act against another and decide which particular section applies to a particular case. There will be no certainty in the law if that is the position. No matter how bad the law is, as it will be, it is wholly desirable that it should have the virtue of certainty.
I can see that possibly paragraph (b) of Section 2, which reads,
"any officer of the Minister or the Land Commission for the time being authorised, whether specifically or by reference to a class of such officers, in that behalf by the Minister",
may be very wide. I would ask the Minister to indicate to the House whether he is limiting the rank of officer below which he could not conceive this power being exercised. I suggest to him that he could amend this to the extent of limiting his powers of delegation within the actual Land Commission itself to certain officers. It seems to me that the Minister's amendment No. 30 presupposes the rank of the officer to whom he would be prepared to give the power in connection with rearrangement, anyway. I suggest that it might be at least of some statutory value and consequence in the subsequent interpretation of the Act and it might also meet the Opposition's wishes if he did lay down what was the rank below which he would not allow the power to be exercised.
If the Minister would give us some information about the powers and the duties in regard to matters, other than the excepted matters, which the commissioners are performing at present without reference to the Minister, we would have a better idea of what we are discussing. One of these matters was adverted to earlier to-day, the question of sub-division. The Minister admitted himself that the commissioners were carrying out sub-division because the Minister had not power to do it.
That seems to be the whole situation.
Unless he amends on Report the portion of the section already passed, under this sub-section we are dealing with now the Minister will have the full powers of sub-division in the future. It is not an excepted matter. That is the object of this sub-section.
I am not clear that it should not be.
The object is to give the Minister powers in connection with sub-division. That is one item. There are many others over which the Minister is taking power from the commissioners which they are exercising at present. According to the sub-section, it is quite plain that the commissioners in future will only be responsible for exercising powers in excepted matters. I am wondering if the Minister is wise in taking unto himself power with regard to several matters that could be mentioned. Several functions that the commissioners are performing at present the Minister proposes to perform in future.
It must be apparent to Deputies that one of the principal purposes of this Bill is the reorganisation of the Land Commission in order to clear up a lot of doubts and misgivings which existed heretofore. Although attempts were made in the 1933 Act and in the 1939 Act to clarify the powers of the Minister and the commissioners, both of these attempts failed. Unfortunately, I can give no guarantee that this Bill may not also fail in attaining that objective. I am, however, making an attempt and I think it will succeed where the other two attempts failed. Only time and the working of it can prove whether it will or not. I believe it will clear up once and for all the question of the powers of the commissioners and of the Minister. Deputy Moylan, Deputy Derrig, Deputy Aiken and all those who were Ministers for Lands during the last 18 years know quite well that neither the commissioners nor the Ministers knew where their powers ended and the powers of the others began. That is not as it should be. In introducing the 1933 Act, Deputy Aiken gave an assurance to the House that Section 6 of that Act was going to do what I am proposing to do under this section, and which, by the way, these amendments tabled by Deputy Moylan and others would throw back into the same old hazy fog so that nobody would know where he was or what he was doing.
The result of the previous legislation was that the whole work of the Land Commission fell on the commissioners. That is not as it should be. That is why the excepted matters in this Bill are more than doubled, as I am trying to set out exactly what the commissioners are to do and what the Minister is to do, or at least the ordinary staff is to do. The commissioners have a very important position. I do not think the commissioners should have their time taken up by small matters costing a few shillings. Commissioners in any other departments are not paid for that kind of thing. These small matters are utterly beneath their station, and they should not have been burdened with them.
Deputy Aiken, in introducing the 1933 Act, said, at column 2381, Volume 48, of the Official Debates:
"One of the principal objects for which Fianna Fáil was founded was to establish on the land as many families as practicable. This was also one of the fundamental objects of the old Sinn Féin Movement and of the First Dáil. The Bill is designed to meet the needs of the present situation, and to rearrange the administration of the Land Commission so that the object which the Government have in view may be achieved with the shortest possible delay. The Land Commission was set up here when the people had very little contact with their governors, and when the Ministers in London had neither the desire nor the opportunity to supervise in detail its administration in the interests of the Irish people. Before the setting up of the Free State, there were a number of other departments operating on the same basis; notably the Intermediate Education Commissioners, the Commissioners of Education, the Department of Agriculture, the Forestry Commissioners and the Local Government Department. Since 1922 the six departments I have mentioned, and seven others, have been reorganised to conform to the new situation. The Bill proposes to bring the Land Commission into line with all the other Government Departments...."
That shows clearly that Deputy Aiken set out then to reorganise the Land Commission, a very laudable objective, but any of the ex-Ministers will agree that that has not been achieved. Why, I do not know—perhaps it is the draftsman's fault. It is impossible to say with whom the fault lies. I should say, however, that Deputy Roddy pointed out at the time that, because of the wording of Section 6, the object which Deputy Aiken, the acting Minister for Lands, said it would achieve would not be achieved. He pointed out that it would not do anything like that.
You are not amending Section 6.
Yes, definitely. Deputy Roddy said at column 49, Volume 49, of the Official Debates:
"Before I pass from Section 6, I just want to make this comment. I do not know who drafted this Bill but whoever it was, I cannot compliment the draftsman on his work. It is a very badly drafted Bill and particularly bad in some of its parts. There are sections complementary and explanatory of each other which are not related at all. There are other sections very badly and loosely drafted, but I submit this section is vitiated in the sense that the Minister cannot assume these extraordinary powers he is seeking without repealing certain relevant sections in the Act of 1881 and without amending in certain respects and repealing certain sections of the Land Law (Ireland) Acts and subsequent Acts. I submit only then would this Section 6 be legally watertight; as it is worded at the moment and if it is not amended, it will afford plenty of employment for lawyers in interpreting its real scope and intention."
What Section 6 of the 1933 Act set out to achieve and failed to achieve is quite obvious. I am trying to do it now, and that is why the number of excepted matters in this Bill is increased. While I have no objection whatever to increasing indefinitely the number of excepted matters, if it would have the effect of clearing the air, I want the House to set out clearly what duties the commissioners will have and what duties the Minister will have. At present, neither the commissioners nor I know where our duties are, and Deputy Moylan must agree with me in that.
Not at all.
If he does not he is completely at variance with his colleagues and it is tantamount to saying that Deputy Aiken was not speaking truthfully when he made the statement I have quoted. This is relevant because I am repealing Section 6 of the 1933 Act and substituting my Section 10 which I claim will definitely, once and for all, clear the air and let the Minister and the commissioners know exactly where their duties begin and end. At present, as I say, neither the commissioners nor I know where we stand.
Would the Minister deal with the point of the limit below which he does not contemplate authorising an officer to act?
In the case of rearrangement schemes, it is proposed to give the sanctioning of such schemes to a divisional inspector. For the benefit of Deputies who may not be aware of it, the inspectorate is graded in this way: a chief inspector at the top, with four divisional inspectors, each in charge of four fairly large areas—in charge sometimes of counties, sometimes an area larger than counties and sometimes half a county, according to the amount of congestion or Land Commission work in the area. These inspectors are rated grade 1 and under these are grade 2 and grade 3 inspectors, the whole inspectorial staff running up to something between 126 and 130. It is proposed to give the approving of rearrangement schemes to the divisional inspectors, of whom there are only four in the service.
As regards the other matters with which sub-section (2) of Section 10 deals, these will be given to the staff in the ordinary way. As Deputy Moylan mentioned typing, it will be given to typists. The vesting or resale of lands will be given to the appropriate director and his staff, the collection of annuities to the director of the Collection Branch and his staff, and so on. At present none of us knows who is responsible for a particular job and who should carry it out, or give instructions to have it carried out.
My principal objection, and, I think, Deputy Moylan's, to this sub-section is that we had to read it in conjunction with the powers which the Minister has got the Dáil to give him in sub-section (1). Were it not for the fact that the Minister is taking on himself the exercise of functions in relation to matters which we think should be left in the hands of the Land Commission for the exercise of a judicial judgment, I could see no great objection to this sub-section (2). The Minister is making a great fuss about what he is doing in this section and about how he is amending Section 6 of the 1933 Act in order to reorganise as he calls it the Land Commission; but actually sub-sections (3) and (4) are taken word for word from Section 6 of the 1933 Act, with a few small amendments which have relation to the new powers the Minister is assuming.
Quite right, and some of the excepted matters are word for word taken from Section 6 of the 1933 Act.
The Minister need not try to sell this sub-section to us with the idea that he is doing anything new to reorganise the Land Commission and bring it up to date.
Why all the bother about it then?
Because the Minister is taking back in sub-section (1) powers which, for a very good reason, were left to the Land Commission. If it were not for these powers which the Minister now takes back to himself, there would be no grave objection to the section or any clause in it; but Deputy Moylan had to read this, when he put down the amendment to delete the section, in relation to sub-clauses (d) and (e) of sub-section (10), and it is because we object to the Minister's taking these powers to fix the price of rearrangement holdings and so on that we object to the Minister nominating some perhaps junior official of the Land Commission to do the job and then to fix the seal of the lay commissioners to it as if it were a decision of the lay commissioners. That is why we object, and for no other reason. If the commissioners had left Section 6, the division of the powers and functions as between the commissioners and himself, as it was in the 1933 Act, no one would bother about the words of this particular clause; but because he has (d) and (e) of sub-section (1) we object to it.
The Minister said that the 1933 Act failed to define the separate powers of the commissioners and the Minister. That is not correct.
Indeed it is.
Not at all. These excepted matters definitely gave specific powers to the commissioners and took them out of the Minister's hand. The Minister divested himself of these particular powers. What does the Minister do? He quotes Deputy Roddy, who said that Section 6 was badly drafted. If it was badly drafted, does the inclusion of exceptions to exceptions make it a better drafting? That is a surprising way of amending the powers.
The Minister says that he is reorganising the Land Commission organisation because he feels that all the work devolves on the commissioners. In spite of that, he is, in another section, reducing the number of commissioners. It seems to me that he is completely incorrect in saying that all the work fell on the Land Commissioners. All the work of the Land Commission was carried out by the officers of the Department, and the two commissioners acted in a judicial capacity. It is most essential that the public should be protected by an authority that has judicial powers. Sometimes it has been said here that the courts of justice would be the right place to decide all these cases. I entirely disagree, since it would be impossible to have the Land Commission cases heard there, in view of the tremendous amount of work the courts of justice have to get through. It is highly desirable for a judicial authority to be fully conversant with the matters on which they are giving decisions.
As Deputy Aiken said, we would not object to this section so much if the Minister had not taken from the Land Commissioners the authority he is taking from them in (d) and (e) of sub-section (1) of Section 10.
It should have been taken from them 20 years ago.
I think it is very wrong that he should do that. It will not be helpful and will not make for greater speed.
Indeed it will.
It will create a lack of confidence in the authority of the Land Commission. The Minister has taken up sub-section (3) of Section 10. As Deputy Aiken pointed out, that is entirely a transcript of (3) and (4) of the Land Act of 1933, with the significant addition: "or done by any officer in the exercise or performance by virtue of sub-section (2) of this section of any power or duty". In other words, the Minister builds up the camouflage of two sections already passed into law in the 1933 Act, in order to cover up the final significant phrase which gives the power to any officer of the Minister or the Land Commission "for the time being authorised, whether specifically or by reference to a class of such officers, in that behalf by the Minister". The authority that is specifically given to the commissioners in (3) and (4) of Section 6 are taken from the commissioners by this insignificant yet very significant phrase which tails off this particular sub-section.
We will hear about in on amendment No. 24 as well.
I understood you were inclined to let us roam over the whole point now.
Very well, if it will shorten the discussion. The Deputy is quite correct, I did say they might all be discussed together.
I am such a bad debater that when interrupted I dry up. I want to emphasise our very sincere and definite view that public confidence in the Land Commission will be undermined by the fact that certain authority is to be taken from the judicial authority that exists and given to any officer of the Land Commission whom the Minister may care to nominate. Remember, that a former Minister for Agriculture who was in charge of Lands, pointed out specifically here that a civil servant was the agent of the Minister and should do as he was ordered by the Minister. I had to correct the Minister when he suggested that the commissioners were civil servants.
I did not accept the correction.
The commissioners are not civil servants. They have a judicial function and in that judicial function the confidence of the public rests and must not be disturbed.
Would the Deputy agree that the commissioners are civil servants with a judicial function in excepted matters?
While we are on this subject of commissioners, it would be remarkable if I let it pass without saying something about the slowness of the Land Commission generally. Everyone knows that the real delay in the Land Commission and in this resettlement is due to the delay in providing sufficient land to relieve congestion and in giving decisions which should be given in a short space of time. That is the real cause of all the trouble.
The Minister, fortunately, has not taken to himself the powers the Opposition claim he has. I would be very happy if he did take unto himself the power to determine the person from whom land is to be acquired or resumed and to determine the actual land to be acquired or resumed. He is not doing that or even nominating senior officials of his Department to do it. He is nominating senior officials to carry out the work detailed in paragraphs (d) and (e), which does not point in any way to the determination of the persons or of the land. I do not see why all this row occurs over the powers the Minister is handing over to officials, now that he has assured us that they will not be below the rank of senior inspector or divisional inspector, whichever it may be. These men have a thorough knowledge of what is required, especially rearrangement and resettlement.
As I have said many times before, is it not the schemes submitted by senior inspectors, local and divisional inspectors that finally get sanction from the commissioners? It would be very interesting if some Minister for Lands—perhaps the present Minister would do it—would delve into the files and find out for this House how many times schemes submitted by those inspectors have been altered by the commissioners?
Once in about every 20.
It has been done very rarely—a few times because of political interference. We must realise that the men at the top have to be guided by the men at the bottom. If I thought I could convince the Minister to give the divisional inspectors the power to determine the lands to be acquired or resumed, I would not hesitate to do it because I would know that it would be good for the commission and for the congested tenants.
I think the issue is knit between us quite simply on this matter. There are no new powers at all here except powers that are consequent on the change that was made by the Minister in regard to rearrangement schemes in connection with rundale and intermixed plots. There is no deviation at all under this section save what is necessary to bring it into line with what is contemplated in sub-section (1) of Section 10. The two particular sub-sections to which the Opposition take exception were argued at full length on Section 10 sub-section (1). Sub-section (2) and the following sub-sections are bringing the land code into line with the changes made. Again the issue between the Government and the Opposition is as to whether the Minister was doing right in taking certain powers to himself. I would suggest that there is no departure in any of these sub-sections other than to bring the Bill into line with that power which the Minister is taking. We argued fully here whether he should or should not take that power. The House arrived at a decision and, at this stage, I suggest, with respect to you, a Chinn Chomhairle, and to Deputy Moylan, that all we are doing now is arguing on a change consequential on a change that the House has already accepted, that the matter should be approached in that light and put to the House for determination on that basis rather than have a prolonged discussion again.
I do not think we can agree that there is hardly any change in this matter. It is quite true that, as well as being a judicial body, the Land Commission is an administrative body. It was to strengthen the hands of the Minister and to place him, vis-á-vis the commissioners and the administration of their offices, as far as was possible, in the same relation as Ministers in other Departments vis-á-vis the administrative officers of those Departments that Section 6 of the 1933 Act was passed. In this case the Minister is, in the first place, putting forward the illogical and, as Deputy Moylan pointed out, inconsistent argument that the section has not operated satisfactorily while at the same time he is taking the section and putting it into the new Bill. If there is any lawyer present who could show in what particular the Minister's hands will be strengthened by the new drafting, I hope we will hear from him before the discussion closes.
It seems to me that the Minister is simply taking the existing sections, represented in sub-sections (3) and (4) here, from the 1933 Act and carrying them on. He is taking, it is true, the additional power of delegation to his officers and, in so far as the Minister can make a case for that, I suppose, if the House agrees that the Minister should have the same power over the administration as other Ministers have in their respective spheres, this delegation of authority to individual officers should, perhaps, naturally follow.
The difficulty that arises is that the Land Commission is a judicial body. While the House will, no doubt, be anxious to strengthen the Minister, in so far as he can make a case that there is any doubt as to his having that power that we would wish over the administration, the courts take a very jealous view of the judicial functions of the commission and, if it were to be suggested that the Minister or an officer of the Minister were to interfere or to purport to be authorised by the Oireachtas to carry out functions that appropriately belong to the commissioners in their judicial capacity, I have no doubt that the matter would be taken into the courts.
Deputy Commons, perhaps, does not understand that from the point of view of our laws and Constitution the Land Commission is a judicial body which is entrusted with the transfer of property from the citizens to the State and from them, in due course, to other citizens and that, therefore, the functions of the Land Commission have to be regarded as judicial functions. Whatever the House may do about this matter, the decisions of the Land Commission in that matter can always be tested and have been tested in the courts. If this House were to adopt the position of appearing to confer arbitrary powers upon inspectors or other persons that trespass upon these judicial functions, the persons aggrieved, of course, would have their remedy. That is one of the reasons why, as the pool of land grew smaller and the compulsory powers of the commission had to be increased to enable it to get on with the work of trying to solve congestion, more and more resistance made itself felt in the courts and in this House.
Did you ever read the Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act, 1891?
It was not a very important Act.
That shows all you know about it.
I do not know that I read the whole of it. I probably read some part of it. In any case, we cannot get away from the position of the Land Commission that I have described. If it is suggested that the Minister is to have the power of delegation, if it were the case that it could be challenged as an interference or an attempt in some way to interfere with the prerogatives of the Land Commission as a judicial body, of course, it would simply mean that the whole work of the Land Commission would be held up again as in the past. Therefore, while we ought to be wholeheartedly in favour of strengthening the Minister's position vis-á-vis the administration, we have to be careful, in the interests of the policy and the purpose he has in mind, not to go too far.
In sub-section (5) the Minister is taking power, where he or an officer exercises or performs by virtue of sub-section (2) of this section any power or duty, he may exercise or perform the power or duty (a) in his own name or (b) in the name of the Land Commission or the lay commissioners.
What is wrong about that?
I think the Minister ought to act in his own name as far as possible and, if there is a case for acting in the name of the Land Commission or the lay commissioners, the House ought to be acquainted with it. I think that the lay commissioners and the Land Commission should be responsible for their own sins and get credit for their acts. They should not be put in the position as a judicial body that the public and the Oireachtas do not know exactly what their responsibilities are. If, in the long run, it is the Minister who is to make the decision in the name of the Land Commission or the commissioners and if he may come to a decision by delegating power to an officer, it is surely infringing, to put it very mildly, upon the sphere of the lay commissioners as a judicial body. There may be no other way of solving this difficulty, as no matter what we do there will be administrative and judicial functions which will be related and even in these excepted matters it will be very hard with any phraseology to exclude what is administrative from what is judicial. Here the Minister is taking power not only on his own behalf but through an officer appointed by him to act in the name of the Land Commission or the commissioners. I do not know why that should be. If a legal question is involved there is also a public question and the Land Commission and the commissioners should know where they stand. They should not be placed in the position where in the case of something with which they disagree—because for all we know they may have given a contrary recommendation—they are not going to be heard and the Minister will take power on his own shoulders to speak on their behalf. I do not know how the commissioners could be expected to carry out their duties satisfactorily if that condition is going to obtain. I do not know how anybody is going to know where the functions of the commissioners and the functions of the Minister begin and end.
In sub-section (6) he takes sub-section (3) of the 1933 Act and applies this determination that the powers and duties which should properly belong to the Minister should belong not only to him but to an officer who may be appointed by him:
"The exercise or performance of the power or duties and anything done in such exercise or performance, shall be as valid and effectual as if the exercise or performance of the power or duty or the doing of the thing were by...the Land Commission, the lay commissioners or, where the power or duty may be exercised or performed or the thing may be done by a particular number of lay commissioners (including one lay commissioner acting alone), by that number of lay commissioners, and, in particular, shall not be open to challenge or question by objection, appeal or otherwise on the ground of absence of concurrence in, consent to or cognisance of the exercise or performance of the power or duty, or the doing of the thing, whether on the part of the Land Commission, the lay commissioners or any of them or of any other person."
We suggested, and the Minister seemed to agree, that these powers which guaranteed to him the necessary control over the operations of the Land Commission so that it should discharge its administrative work properly and so that the work should be shared out between the lay commissioners seemed to have been fairly satisfactorily arranged in the 1933 Act. The Minister is going further with the question of delegation. The delegated officer is not alone in the position of the Minister himself but there may be no challenge or appeal against any act of the said officer in the discharge of his duties. The servant, like the Minister, will be permitted to act in the name of the Land Commission or the lay commissioners and no qualification is laid down. Later on in sub-section (8) we are told that where an officer is to be entrusted with rearrangement he shall be an officer not below the rank of senior inspector. That is in regard to rundale or intermixed plots.
As Deputy Collins pointed out, however, in regard to the general functions which the Minister proposes to delegate we are not told the degree of seniority and, what is more important, we have no safeguard as to the experience, knowledge or qualifications of officers in determining these matters. While we must admit that a senior inspector who has been dealing with rearrangements and has experience is capable of fulfilling these functions, his manner of doing so may be a different matter. If the Minister proposes to confer on administrative officers in the Land Commission power to determine these questions down the country a situation might arise where an officer with very little practical experience in dealing with this particular type of problem might be called upon to come to a decision.
That is the very thing I am taking from them.
There is no safeguard to the Oireachtas against some of the most important functions of the Minister being delegated to a person with very little knowledge and experience in fact of the working of the Land Commission in the country.
Humbug.
Deputy Collins rightly says that this discussion is consequential. The reason for carrying it on is, of course, justifiable in so far as we are trying to salvage something from the wreckage. It is a feature of democracy that a politician shall be subject to influence and it is not in any way wrong that it should be so as otherwise we would have a dictatorship. The Minister, being a politician, is subject to influence. He must, where he is dealing in his ministerial capacity in justice between one man and another, protect himself by having these matters submitted to a judicial body. A lot of the argument in support of the Minister's position is that this Bill will tend to substitute for complete failure on the part of the Land Commission complete success.
Success is never an even progress along a clearly defined path. It is the overcoming of obstacles, the committing of errors, the learning from the errors committed and above all, it is a refusal to admit failure. I do not admit failure on the part of the Land Commission. There are many things the Land Commission have not been able to do but what we are emphasising here is not the success of the Land Commission but the relatively minor failures in comparison with its success.
What I seek to do is to preserve public confidence in the working of the Land Commission. May I point out again that a politician is subject to influence? The Minister is a politician and he must protect himself. Here he is doing things which are not justifiable. One of the greatest evils ever inflicted upon this country was the civil war. The civil war was brought about by pretence, by people pretending to do certain things they did not do and to stand for certain things for which they did not stand. I object to pretence in legislation because pretence is always an evil thing.
Here is a White Paper which talks about Section 10. Section 10 defines and enlarges the number of excepted matters which are to be within the commissioners' exclusive jurisdiction. It also confirms the control of the Minister for Lands over the Land Commission in non-excepted matters. Now the commissioners' exclusive jurisdiction is eaten into by the creation of exceptions to exceptions. The Minister is taking certain powers in (d) and (e) of sub-section (1) of Section 10 which completely destroy the effect of Section 6 of the Land Act, 1933. The Minister said that Section 6 of the 1933 Act was badly drafted. Yet, his method of correcting that draft is by the addition of certain words which completely eliminate the power he purports to give to the Land Commissioners.
Our whole purpose, and again I wish to emphasise it, is to preserve a judicial authority in which the people will have confidence because no politician out of office can have confidence in a politician in office. Perhaps the Minister will not always be where he is now. Perhaps he will have an opportunity of showing his lack of confidence in the Minister who is there when he operates, as he unfortunately must, for a while at any rate, these unfortunate sections of this Bill.
Question put: "That the lines proposed to be deleted stand."
The Committee divided : Tá, 65; Níl, 49.
Tá
- Beirne, John.
- Belton, John.
- Blowick, Joseph.
- Browne, Noel C.
- Browne, Patrick.
- Byrne, Alfred.
- Byrne, Alfred Patrick.
- Coburn, James.
- Collins, Seán.
- Commons, Bernard.
- Connolly, Roderick J.
- Corish, Brendan.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Costello, John A.
- Cowan, Peadar.
- Crotty, Patrick J.
- Davin, William.
- Desmond, Daniel.
- Dillon, James M.
- Dockrell, Maurice E.
- Donnellan, Michael.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Dunne, Seán.
- Esmonde, Sir John L.
- Everett, James.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Finucane, Patrick.
- O'Reilly, Patrick.
- Palmer, Patrick W.
- Reidy, James.
- Reynolds, Mary.
- Rooney, Eamonn.
- Sheehan, Michael.
- Fitzpatrick, Michael.
- Flanagan, Oliver J.
- Flynn, John.
- Giles, Patrick.
- Halliden, Patrick J.
- Hickey, James.
- Hughes, Joseph.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Kyne, Thomas A.
- Larkin, James.
- Lehane, Con.
- McAuliffe, Patrick.
- MacEoin, Seán.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- McQuillan, John.
- Madden, David J.
- Mongan, Joseph W.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Norton, William.
- O'Donnell, Patrick.
- O'Gorman, Patrick J.
- O'Higgins, Michael J.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F. (Jun.).
- O'Leary, John.
- Sheldon, William A.W.
- Spring, Daniel.
- Sweetman, Gerard.
- Timoney, John J.
- Tully, John.
Níl
- Aiken, Frank.
- Allen, Denis.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Dan.
- Brady, Seán.
- Brennan, Thomas.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Buckley, Seán.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Butler, Bernard.
- Carter, Thomas.
- Childers, Erskine H.
- Collins, James J.
- Corry, Martin J.
- Crowley, Honor Mary.
- Davern, Michael J.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- De Valera, Vivion.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Gilbride, Eugene.
- Gorry, Patrick J.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hilliard, Michael.
- Kennedy, Michael J.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Kilroy, James.
- Kissane, Eamon.
- Kitt, Michael F.
- Little, Patrick J.
- Lydon, Michael F.
- Lynch, John.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Moran, Michael.
- Moylan, Seán.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Ormonde, John.
- O'Rourke, Daniel.
- Rice, Bridget M.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Doyle and Kyne; Níl: Deputies Kissane and Kennedy.
Question declared carried.
Amendments Nos. 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29 and 39 are inter-related. Were they discussed on amendment No. 22?
I do not think so.
That was the agreement reached with the Chair.
With respect, Deputy Derrig dealt with the whole lot of them.
That is not true. I did not. For example, there is Section 11 of the Bill as well as Section 10. Any remarks I had to make were confined to Section 10.
I merely pointed out that the amendments are closely inter-related. The discussion on amendment No. 23, and so on, would probably be a rehash of the discussion on amendment No. 22.
Deputy Moylan put this to the Chair in the middle of one of his speeches. The Ceann Comhairle informed him that that was the case.
I asked the Ceann Comhairle, certainly, but I confined myself to the particular section.
Does the Deputy want to discuss amendments Nos. 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29 and 39 together? The point is that they are all inter-related——
Sure.
——and that they were practically all discussed on amendment No. 22.
That does not preclude me now, does it?
I do not intend to preclude the Deputy. If he wants to discuss it I shall allow him to do so.
I move amendment No. 23:—
In sub-section (2) to delete paragraph (b) and substitute a new paragraph as follows:
(b) any officer of the Land Commission not below the rank of director for the time being authorised in that behalf by the Minister.
This is a most reasonable amendment. If the Minister has hardened his heart in relation to the previous amendment that is not any reason why he should not accept this amendment. His own amendment—No. 30—runs quite in line with this amendment. Therefore I see no difficulty of any kind in regard to his accepting this amendment.
Does the Deputy propose to give the sanctioning of a rearrangement scheme to a director?
There are directors in the Land Commission, are there not?
Yes.
Is there anything wrong with proposing that any officer not below the rank of director should be the man in this case? You have men of the rank of director, which rank, I assume, on the indoor staff corresponds to that of senior inspector on the outdoor staff, or roughly so.
I cannot tell you.
The Minister has an amendment of his own here which talks about an officer of the Land Commission not below the rank of senior inspector. Why not have his opposite number on the indoor staff, if so needed? Why give a clerical officer, a junior executive officer, a higher executive officer, a typist—any officer —the authorisation? The Minister suggested any officer. I am merely asking that he shall put this in the hands of a responsible officer not below the rank of director which, I think, represents the grade of senior inspector on the outdoor staff. Surely the Minister can accept that?
No, I could not accept it. As the Deputy knows very well, the directors in the Land Commission are in charge of particular sections— Acquisition and Resale: Purchase; Collection, and so forth. I think there are five directors in the Land Commission. It is not proposed to give the sanctioning of a rearrangement scheme to these men. They are not on the inspectorial staff. They might not know the first thing about rural conditions or congested conditions.
In this particular case, the Minister's amendment in substitution of my amendment——
Is it in substitution?
It is
It is not in substitution. This amendment is necessary to clarify a certain matter in sub-section (8) of Section 10.
This sub-section too specifically says: "any officer of the Land Commission" does it not?
It does.
Any officer of the Land Commission might be a typist.
Not at all.
Why not?
Suppose it is?
May the Lord protect the country, if the typists are going to settle the land.
Sub-section (2) proposes to give the indoor staff their correct share of the work and to give them a certain part of the responsibilities. Again, amendment No. 30, proposes to give the outdoor staff or a senior officer of that staff, the senior divisional inspector, his responsibility in his own sphere. What is wrong about that? The Deputy has put down an amendment that is neither fish, flesh nor good red herring.
The Minister is quite good on the red herring end of it. In this sub-section you have: "(a) the Minister or (b) any officer of the Minister". If the work is of sufficient importance to be dealt with by the Minister, why should he take work he has arrogated to himself and hand it over to a typist? That is what (b) means. One expects a responsible officer and an experienced officer to deal with certain work. I think the Minister ought to accept the amendment. When he has gone the distance in the other amendment of suggesting that certain outdoor work should not be done by anyone below the rank of chief inspector, what is wrong in my most humble proposal?
Would the Minister's amendment not meet that?
So you will not accept it, or you will not talk?
Does the Deputy want me to repeat what I have said already? I have stated clearly what I am going to do. What the Deputy is trying to suggest is that there is a danger that I am going to authorise some person in the Department who is totally unsuited or inexperienced to do a certain job——
"Any officer". There should be some specific rank.
Not at all.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I move amendment No. 24:—
In sub-section (3) to delete all words after the word "matter" in line 54 to the end of the sub-section.
This is practically the same thing. Here we have a rehash in sub-section (3) of two sub-sections direct from the 1933 Act. There is no difference. The two sections are amalgamated into one section with the significant addition: "by any officer in the exercise or performance by virtue of sub-section (2) of this section, of any power or duty". I wonder if one of the messengers of the Land Commission is an officer of the Land Commission or at what particular grade in the service is the Minister going to draw the line? Will he draw a line of any kind for us? We want to be assured that the Bill gives authority only to responsible and experienced officers, not to "any officer".
Is it not the position that the Minister is proposing to delegate all the powers, which the Oireachtas may entrust to him under this Bill or other Bills, to any officer without any reference to grading or without reference to any experience or qualifications of any kind, except that the Minister may select him? What is the case the Minister makes for having complete and unfettered discretion in this matter? Is the House not entitled to know that, at any rate, there will be some safeguard in the determination of the persons who will exercise these powers?
Would the Deputy give me a precedent in any other statute, where the House set down what particular officers may do, even in the Army or the Civic Guards?
I think that, unconsciously, Deputy Derrig is completely in error. I hope that he does not deliberately put himself in that position. I think the point he is missing is that no matter how the powers of delegation may be worded, and no matter what Department is concerned, there are different grades and types of work to be done. There may be such things as even the taking out of a seal and the actual stamping of that seal on a document. That is hardly work that you would expect some senior officer to do. He may subsequently have to endorse it by way of his initials or by signing it. You do not expect the director to do the job of a typist or the typist to do the job of a director. The Department grades its own different types of responsibility. Even if Deputy Moylan's amendment were carried and certain work was to be confined to the director, I think Deputy Moylan would probably agree that the director himself would have the power of delegation within his own section.
With responsibility.
The responsibility must ultimately rest, as it does in any other Department, with the responsible sectional head of the Department. Take even a Party such as that of which Deputy Moylan is a member. They will grade their responsibilities and they will grade the responsibility to be attached to statements made by members of the Party according to their position and rank within the Party. You will find that in any organisation. I think that the well-intentioned effort of Deputy Moylan to salvage something of the wreck of the decision, as he describes it, on paragraph (b) of sub-section (1) has led him away from an appreciation of what the situation in the ordinary administration of the Department is. In a way, the Minister's amendment, which comes along subsequently, to deal with rearrangement schemes in connection with rundale and intermixed plots, is an assurance to the House that in that limited category where a very difficult and personal problem arises as regards congests, the persons appointed to carry out that work will have sufficient experience and competence to deal with it. That is a specialised task. If the Minister had not the amendment down, I would be opposing the section on the issue.
It is not correct to state that it is not laid down in any statute the class of persons who may exercise certain functions.
Nobody said that.
The Minister challenged a few moments ago that there was no power in any Act specifying the class of persons to perform any function, or people who could not perform certain functions below certain ranks. The first thing that comes to my mind is the case of a shot-gun licence. It is laid down by law that nobody below the rank of superintendent can revoke or withdraw it. In the case of a hackney licence nobody below the rank of a chief superintendent can refuse or withdraw it.
All Deputy Moylan is attempting to do is to specify the class of persons in the Land Commission not below a certain rank who will exercise these powers delegated to them by the Minister. There are many powers taken here by the Minister that were not taken before. The Minister's amendment deals with the question of rearrangement. There might be a good case to be made for a chief inspector of the Land Commission to approve of a rearrangement scheme. There are many other powers being given and the Minister may delegate anybody to exercise them.
This section, without these words, was taken from a previous Act, but these words were not in any of the previous Land Acts and all Deputy Moylan is attempting to do is to adopt the practice of the House and specify certain officers not below a certain rank to exercise certain functions. It would meet the wishes of Deputies if the Minister agrees to accept the amendment or to submit a similar one.
Question put: "That the words proposed to be deleted, stand."
The Committee divided: Tá, 65; Níl, 50.
Tá
- Beirne, John.
- Belton, John.
- Blowick, Joseph.
- Browne, Noel C.
- Browne, Patrick.
- Byrne, Alfred.
- Byrne, Alfred Patrick.
- Coburn, James.
- Collins, Seán.
- Commons, Bernard.
- Connolly, Roderick J.
- Corish, Brendan.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Costello, John A.
- Cowan, Peadar.
- Crotty, Patrick J.
- Davin, William.
- Desmond, Daniel.
- Dillon, James M.
- McAuliffe, Patrick.
- MacEoin, Seán.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- McQuillan, John.
- Madden, David J.
- Mongan, Joseph W.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Norton, William.
- O'Donnell, Patrick.
- O'Gorman, Patrick J.
- O'Higgins, Michael J.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F.
- Dockrell, Maurice E.
- Donnellan, Michael.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Dunne, Seán.
- Esmonde, Sir John L.
- Everett, James.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Finucane, Patrick.
- Fitzpatrick, Michael.
- Flanagan, Oliver J.
- Flynn, John.
- Giles, Patrick.
- Hallidan, Patrick J.
- Hickey, James.
- Hughes, Joseph.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Kyne, Thomas A.
- Larkin, James.
- Lehane, Con.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F. (Jun.).
- O'Leary, John.
- O'Reilly, Patrick.
- Palmer, Patrick W.
- Reidy, James.
- Reynolds, Mary.
- Rooney, Eamonn.
- Sheehan, Michael.
- Sheldon, William A.W.
- Spring, Daniel.
- Sweetman, Gerard.
- Timoney, John J.
- Tully, John.
Níl
- Aiken, Frank.
- Allen, Denis.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Dan.
- Brady, Seán.
- Brennan, Thomas.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Buckley, Seán.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Butler, Bernard.
- Carter, Thomas.
- Childers, Erskine H.
- Colley, Harry.
- Collins, James J.
- Corry, Martin J.
- Crowley, Honor Mary.
- Davern, Michael J.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera Eamon.
- De Valera, Vivion.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Gilbride, Eugene.
- Gorry, Patrick J.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hilliard, Michael.
- Kennedy, Michael J.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Kilroy, James.
- Kissane, Eamon.
- Kitt, Michael F.
- Little, Patrick J.
- Lydon, Michael F.
- Lynch, John.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Moran, Michael.
- Moylan, Seán.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Ormonde, John.
- O'Rourke, Daniel.
- Rice, Bridget M.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies P.S. Doyle and Kyne; Níl: Deputies Kissane and Kennedy.
Question declared carried.
I move amendment No. 25:—
In sub-section (4), page 6, line 13, to delete "commissioner" and substitute "commissioners".
This is a drafting amendment.
What is the idea of making it plural?
It is proposed that there should be two commissioners, instead of one, to decide certain things.
Is the Minister saying that for the carrying out of certain functions two commissioners will have to sit together? Are there other functions which one commissioner can deal with?
All excepted matters must be carried out by not less than two commissioners.
Amendment agreed to.
I move amendment No. 26:—
To delete sub-section (5).
There seems to be something objectionable in this sub-section. If an officer authorised by the Minister carries out any particular duty, I think it is only reasonable to expect that it should be done in the name of the Minister and not in the name of the Land Commission. I think people are entitled to be very clear on that. If the Land Commission does any particular thing, let it accept responsibility for it. If the Minister, or his agent, does it let him accept responsibility. There is nothing else to it. Why should he not do that?
I am sure the Deputy knows——
The Deputy does not know anything about this.
Perhaps he may not wish to know anything.
Tell us about it.
No, you may not wish to know it.
I do not know anything about it.
I think the Minister should inform the House and give it the information. It should not be confined to the Minister and the Deputy. They might decide to get it in a quiet corner outside.
The Minister must keep his temper. I say I do not know what he wants this for.
This particular sub-section is necessary. It may seem strange that, when an officer of the Department of Lands does something, say, in the case of sanctioning a rearrangement scheme, he is dealing with property that is not the Minister's. It is the Land Commissioners' property. That is what I was about to explain when the Deputy took me short.
Would the Minister tell us if that is the sole idea behind this sub-section? It says that where the Minister or an officer exercises or performs any power or duty he may do so "(a) in his own name or, (b) in the name of the Land Commission or the lay commissioners." What material difference would it make if paragraph (a) were left out? Would its omission create any difficulties? Is there any other purpose behind the sub-section than that given by the Minister?
That is the purpose.
I must confess that I do not quite understand why this sub-section is in this particular form if that is the only purpose behind it. What would be wrong with it if paragraph (a) were omitted? Why is it necessary to include the Minister and also to bring in "the name of the Land Commission or the lay commissioners"? Even though the Land Commissioners are in many cases dealing with land which they have acquired and paid for, I still do not see why it should be necessary to have this sub-section in this particular way.
It is necessary to have it in that particular way because otherwise many legal difficulties would arise. In other words, many things which the senior inspector would do could be challenged as being of doubtful legality.
I think the Minister should agree to this amendment. If the Minister thinks it right to take powers over land which he says belongs to the Land Commissioners and to decide directly himself, or through his officer, as to the allocation of that land or the price to be paid for it, then he should take public responsibility for it. It is bad enough to decide, as the Dáil has decided, to give the Minister these powers to deal with land which he says belongs to the Land Commission, but it is worse that he should be given power to deal with them and to disguise the fact that it is he who is dealing with them, to pretend that it is the lay commissioners or the Land Commission.
How can it be disguised when it is stated here definitely, or will be in the Statute which I hope will pass, that, let us say, a senior inspector will sanction a rearrangement scheme? That, I hope, will be established by this Bill and the official seal of the Land Commission goes on that. What is concealed there?
We know where we are with regard to the rearrangement of holdings, that it is the Minister's responsibility. That is quite definite. With regard to sub-division, we will not know whether the Minister, in fact, was exercising the powers which he has to allocate some smaller or larger amounts for improvements or whether he himself, through his officer, has decided to allow a sub-division. It has been said that power without responsibility is tyrannical. This particular Bill, so far as we have gone, is giving the Minister certain powers and this section proposes to give him powers without imposing upon him the onus of taking responsibility for the exercise of those powers. People affected by the operations of the Land Commission should know whether it is the Minister or whether it is the lay commissioners.
Does not the sub-section say that?
It does not.
It does. It says that he may exercise or perform the power or duty in his own name or in the name of the Land Commission or the lay commissioners.
If he exercises the power in his own name, the people know that he has the responsibility for it. If he makes the pretence, and that is what it would be, that it is the lay commissioners that are doing it, the people will not know who is responsible for it.
The people will not know what?
Who is responsible for the actual deed which is done in the name of the lay commissioners.
That is trash.
This sub-section relates to another sub-section, not to the rearrangement of holdings, but to any matter not being an excepted matter, even though it has heretofore been vested, by law, in the Land Commission, and the Minister under sub-section (2), which we have passed, has power to authorise an officer to act on his behalf. This sub-section which we propose to amend gives the Minister power to carry out any of these functions and then pretend that it was the Land Commission did it.
Yes, or himself did it.
Or the Land Commission.
All right. That is exactly what the section states and what is necessary.
It is power without responsibility.
It is not.
Then do it in your own name.
I will do certain things in my own name and certain other things will be done in the name of the Land Commission or the lay commissioners.
Anything done by your authority should be done in your name.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I move amendment No. 27:—
To delete sub-section (1).
This, again, is an attempt to salvage something from the wreckage. I must be awfully mild in my language. The Minister looks so benign that one might think you could say anything to him. But, because I made a simple interjection some time ago asking for information, he lost his temper. Therefore I suppose I ought to be careful.
Stop being childish.
If the Minister does accept responsibility for taking a certain action, he should certainly do that over his own name and not in the name of the Land Commission. But, above all, he should not introduce as those responsible for any action he takes, the names of the lay commissioners. The whole object of Fianna Fáil Deputies is to try to preserve the confidence of the people in the judicial authority. I pointed out a while ago, and I must point it out again, that politicians in a democratic country must be subject to influence. The Minister is a politician.
Has he not the intention of trying to speed up the relief of congestion, apart from anything else?
I take the view that this Bill will not speed up the relief of congestion. I think it will delay it.
When you are finished with it.
When the people affected know that pressure can be brought on a Minister that cannot be brought on a judicial authority, I think there will be definite delay. I want to preserve, clear of political action or influence, the judicial authority such as is composed of the lay commissioners and I object to the Minister's taking an action and appending the names of the lay commissioners as those who have done it. That is deceit.
Deputy Moylan talks about delay. Anybody who ever mentions the Land Commission should not talk about anything else but delay and delaying tactics. When a decision cannot be given for two or three years, is it not time that somebody else should be given an opportunity of going ahead? As Deputy McQuillan says, there is a lot of talk about politics but no talk about the relief of congestion, and that is what the Bill sets out to do. We should agree to let the Bill go through and give the Minister a chance to do something. I do not believe we will work miracles, but it is worth a trial to see what can be done. It cannot be any worse than what was there before.
The danger in this section is that it will not meet the wishes expressed by Deputy Commons or Deputy McQuillan. Some of these sections, in our view, simply tend to make confusion worse confounded and it is with the idea of trying to clarify the position that these amendments have been put down. What I should like to know from the Minister is what particular functions the lay commissioners are intended to carry out under sub-section (2) because this refers back to sub-section (2) which is the delegating section. In that sub-section, the Minister takes power to delegate certain powers. Presumably, the intention is, from reading sub-section (5), that he may delegate some of these powers to the lay commissioners. What are the particular functions he has in mind which will be performed in the names of the lay commissioners which were not formerly performed in their names and what will be done in the name of the Land Commission which was not formerly done in the name of the Land Commission? What Deputy Moylan is endeavouring to do is to put the particular duties of the Land Commission under their proper label. If the Minister is taking power, well and good, but in sub-section (2) to which this relates back he takes power to delegate functions to different officers of the Land Commission. What is going to be delegated to the lay commissioners? I cannot see why the lay commissioners should be brought in under this sub-section at all.
Is the Minister not going to make any reply? Is the measure so perfect that the Minister need not give any explanation whatever of the clauses he wants the House to pass?
I think I have explained it fully. The Minister in sub-section (2) may delegate certain matters or may not delegate them. Does that clear the air for you?
It does not clear the air for me. Is it intended to delegate certain powers to the lay commissioners under sub-section (5)——
No.
——and, if so, what powers are they?
It is a case of perhaps not delegating away from them certain functions which they have been accustomed to perform up to this. Does the Deputy grasp that angle?
Do I understand that under sub-section (2) it is proposed to leave to the lay commissioners the powers they already have?
That might happen.
Is it going to happen?
In certain matters, it will, and in certain other matters it may not. In other words, the Minister under sub-section (2) may delegate certain functions which they have at the moment away from the commissioners and he may not delegate them away.
We have the Minister telling us now that he does not know what powers are going to be delegated and what powers are going to be exercised under his own name, under the name of the Land Commission or the names of the lay commissioners. Surely we should get some lucidity on this matter from the Minister and surely he should be in a position to tell us what is the intention behind the section.
It seems quite obvious that the Minister does not know for what particular purpose inside the Land Commission he wants these powers. Outside the organisation of the Land Commission, he is setting down a lot of words so that they can go around claiming all they intend to do for the relief of congestion in the next couple of years. It fits in with the allegation made several times that Fianna Fáil never did anything for congestion, although we divided 647,000 acres.
You did, but you did not give much to the congests.
To whom did we give it? Is the Minister alleging that the Land Commissioners, who had, as he says, the sole discretion in the matter of dividing land, did not divide these 647,000 acres among congests?
They divided them according to the way they were directed by the then Government and the directions they got were all wrong.
They divided them according to the general policy laid down by the Government and published by the Government.
That is what they had to do.
The Minister is leaving them, in regard to most of the affairs of the Land Commission, in the same position to decide as between one person and another, with the exception of these rearranged holdings. It should be possible for the Minister to answer not only for the satisfaction of Deputies but for the satisfaction of the people in the country, who will be affected, even if we were all gone to-morrow.
They are all perfectly happy.
We will see whether they are perfectly happy after they have seen this in operation.
I am perfectly happy, but there are a lot of Fine Gael people in County Meath who hold land who are not so happy and who are sending in deputations to the Minister.
If the Deputy wants to intervene in the debate, he may do so, but he must not intervene by way of disorderly interruption.
The Minister should be able to tell the Dáil and the country the functions at present exercised by the Land Commission or vested in the lay commissioners which he proposes should hereafter be performed by his nominee. That is a simple question. He should give some indication of what these functions are. The Dáil has given him the right to stamp the name of the Land Commissioners on it and say that it was they did the work, but it is not right that the matter should be left there. He should give an outline of what he wants this nominee to do in the name of the lay commissioners.
A rearrangement scheme particularly, the trouble being that the land is the property of the Land Commissioners and the Minister cannot give out property that does not belong to him. It is merely to legalise what the senior inspector will approve. That is surely simple to even the slowest intelligence.
Why not do it under his own name?
Under the Minister's name? If he did, would it be legal? What would Deputy Moran say about it?
Then why have the Minister's name in it at all?
Because there will be other functions within the Land Commission. There will be small things that may be exercised in the Minister's name, things which the commissioners were burdened with up to this, that will be done by the staff in the ordinary way. I think the Deputy knows that quite well, but is just talking to make time.
They cannot be very small things, as the Minister has several sections and sub-sections to take power to ensure that the court cannot hold an act of himself or his officer to be invalid when the work is carried out by the Minister's nominee. There is in sub-section (6)——
We are at amendment No. 27, to sub-section (5).
This question of the Minister using the name of the lay commissioners instead of his own comes in here. He proposes that where his nominee, who may act in the name of the lay commissioners, does act it "shall not be open to challenge or question by objection, appeal or otherwise on the ground of absence of concurrence in, consent to or cognisance of the exercise or performance of the power or duty, or the doing of the thing, whether on the part of the Land Commission, the lay commissioners or any of them, or of any other person."
Are we to take it that amendment No. 28 is disposed of as well?
No.
Then it should not be discussed.
The thing which the Minister is proposing to do in sub-section (5) in the name of the lay commissioners cannot be challenged in the court according to sub-section (6), although he may do the thing through his nominee in the name of the lay commissioners, who may have no cognisance of what he proposes to do. Surely, if they do not know, have not concurred in it, have not given consent to it, it should not be done in their name.
I cannot agree.
Well, if the Minister acted in that way in his private capacity, he would be in jail for false pretences.
I might find myself there yet.
If the Minister signed a cheque for somebody else, he would be in for fraud. This sub-section seems to be nothing but fraud. The Minister may nominate a person to do something and then pretend that it is being done by the lay commissioners, although they do not know anything about it and have not given their consent to it or concurred in it.
That is right. If the Deputy brings in an amendment on the Report Stage, turning over all the land that will be dealt with in a particular rearrangement scheme to the Minister, then there will be no need for this; but, outside of that, I do not see what is wrong in safeguarding ourselves, as the commissioners are safeguarded in a similar way word for word. Where a senior inspector sanctions or improves a rearrangement scheme, he is sanctioning the disposal or the dispersal of land that does not belong to him or to the Minister but belongs to the Land Commissioners. Every unvested holding in the country legally belongs to the commissioners. It is absolutely necessary to make that legally watertight and for that reason we are proposing this particular safeguard in sub-section (5). If it is a crime to safeguard ourselves and make it legally watertight for the security of the tenants, it is the tenants who would really be the sufferers and not the Minister if anything went wrong. I do not think that is a great crime.
If that is all that the Minister has in view, why did he not bring in this section in another way, saying that where he proposes to vest land in new allottees in a rundale holding, first of all the Land Commission shall vest it in the Minister?
No. That is what the Deputy would like to see me doing, but that is what I will not do.
What we would like to see, in this regard, is that when he is taking over judicial functions the people affected should clearly recognise that it is he who is doing it.
The Minister is not taking over judicial functions and no amount of repetition in saying that will make it so.
The Minister says he proposes to take possession of land vested in the Land Commission. The Minister has said that he proposed to take land, to distribute land, of which the Land Commission are the owners.
No, I did not say any such thing. What I said was that if the Deputy brought in an amendment which would do that, there would be no need then for the Minister to safeguard himself in this way.
The Minister has spoken more than once on this amendment and he did say, to the knowledge of all listening to him, that he wanted these powers because he was going to operate to distribute land which belonged to the Land Commission. He said that.
When?
To-night.
The Deputy's hearing must be defective.
Upon my soul, my hearing is not the slightest bit defective. There were several Deputies here who heard the Minister say that. That was the one excuse he made. Again I say that we object to the procedure.
Question put: "That the words proposed to be deleted stand," and declared carried.
I move amendment No. 28:—
To delete sub-section (6).
This involved sub-section is worth reading. Let us see what can be got out of it. (Sub-section read). I would like to comment on that, but would rather if the Minister would explain exactly the purport of the section. Then there might be no need for me to say anything.
The wording is very plain and clear. The purport is to make legal any of the things that are done or accomplished by the Minister or the commissioners. The commissioners themselves are safeguarded in a similar way. Why should not the Minister be safeguarded?
This is a section that safeguards everybody, holus-bolus, referring back to sub-section (2). If I understand the section correctly, a power or duty exercised or performed by virtue of Section 2 is any power or duty for the time being vested by law (including this Act) in the Land Commission or the lay commissioners. This means, in effect, that in respect of anything at all the Land Commission may do, or the Minister in the Land Commission's name, or the lay commissioners in the name of the Minister, whether it be in accordance with procedure, legal or otherwise, they are safeguarded under this particular section. Does the Minister not see the implications of this sub-section?
Fully.
I will give the Minister an example. Take, for instance, that certain lands have to be acquired in a certain way and that they are being acquired under some of these powers already vested in the Land Commission or that certain acts of the Land Commission are to be done in a certain judicial way that is already laid down. No matter how the Land Commission do it or no matter how they purport to do it under this particular section, whoever is the victim would have no redress whatever. This is the effect of sub-section (6) of this section. Surely the Minister does not ask the House to swallow this section hook, line and sinker, to protect completely every single minion of the Land Commission from top to bottom irrespective of whether they act illegally or otherwise. This section, if it goes through in its present form, is, in my view at all events, unconstitutional. I would ask the Minister to re-examine the position from that point of view.
Unconstitutional?
The Minister knows quite well that there are a number of powers vested in the Land Commission and in the lay commissioners and in the Judicial Commissioners that have to be carried out in a certain manner prescribed by law.
All right, yes.
The Minister is taking power under this particular section, where any power or duty is exercised or performed under sub-section (2) of this section—which also refers to powers already vested in the Land Commission—that, no matter how they are exercised, the Land Commission are absolutely protected. Does the Minister ask the House to swallow this the way it is?
Does the Deputy know that Section 14 of the 1939 Act protects the Land Commission similarly?
Not in this reference.
Yes.
I asked the Minister a few moments ago in connection with the powers that were going to be taken under sub-section (2) if he would state what powers were going to be exercised by the lay commissioners, what powers were going to be exercised by himself and what powers were going to be exercised by the Land Commission. The Minister would not tell the House. He told us there was some particular reason behind that sub-section, dealing with certain lands that may be in the hands of the Land Commission. I want to point out that sub-section (2) deals with many other matters outside the simple question of rearrangement schemes. It deals with various powers of the Land Commission and this sub-section, if we let it through, gives complete protection to the Land Commission in connection with every matter that could arise under sub-section (2), whether it was something that was done by the lay commissioners, by the Minister or by the Land Commission. It rides roughshod over all the laws already passed in connection with the Land Commission.
Not at all.
It gives complete and absolute protection to the Land Commission, to the Minister, to the lay commissioners, irrespective of how they do the job, whether they do it legally or not. That is what the Minister is inviting the House to do by sub-section (6).
The Deputy has completely misstated the case.
Is not sub-section (10) the solution to the present debate?
"Without prejudice to paragraph (a) of sub-section (4) of this section, nothing in the foregoing sub-sections of this section shall apply to the Judicial Commissioners or to the Appeal Tribunal or give the Minister any power or control of any kind over or in relation to the exercise of the functions of the Judicial Commissioner or of the Appeal Tribunal."
Does not that relieve the Deputy of the worry he has?
The trouble with Deputy Hickey is that he does not realise the difference between the Judicial Commissioners, the lay commissioners and the Appeal Tribunal. They perform different functions altogether from the functions we are talking about and from the powers that have been taken under sub-section (2) of this Bill.
As long as the Minister is responsible, I have no uneasiness of mind about giving them to him.
Is the House prepared to allow this?
If we were to agree with Deputy Hickey, I think the wise thing would be to abolish the Land Commission and make it an ordinary Department of State. That is the logical conclusion from Deputy Hickey's words. I think that would be fatal. What is contained in this section, in so far as it relates to the judicial authority of the commissioners, is perfectly right. People acting in a judicial capacity need the widest type of protection but, in this case, the Minister is taking authority unto himself to do certain things personally or by his agent. The Minister said this was a very simple sub-section. I have ordinary intelligence and it is not by any means so simple to me. It is rather an involved section but what makes it appear sinister to me is the care that is taken to protect the Minister or his agent:—
"...in particular, shall not be open to challenge or question by objection, appeal or otherwise on the ground of absence of concurrence in, consent to or cognisance of the exercise or performance of the power or duty, or the doing of the thing, whether on the part of the Land Commission, the lay commissioners or any of them, or of any other person."
Concurrence by whom? Consent by whom? Cognisance by whom?
Yes. Is not that the kernel of the whole thing?
It seems to me to cover up a private individual completely from all appeal, any objection, any demand for concurrence or consent by judicial authority. The whole point we are making is trying to preserve the power of judicial authority in order to preserve the confidence of the people in it.
Not at all. First, neither the commissioners nor the Minister is a private individual. They are very far from it.
The Minister is a person by law, and only that, then?
No.
Would the Minister be a corporation?
Question—"That the words proposed to be deleted stand"—put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 65; Níl, 53.
Tá
- Beirne, John.
- Belton, John.
- Blowick, Joseph.
- Browne, Noel C.
- Browne, Patrick.
- Byrne, Alfred.
- Byrne, Alfred Patrick.
- Coburn, James.
- Collins, Seán.
- Commons, Bernard.
- Connolly, Roderick J.
- Corish, Brendan.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Costello, John A.
- Cowan, Peadar.
- Crotty, Patrick J.
- Davin, William.
- Desmond, Daniel.
- Dillon, James M.
- Dockrell, Maurice E.
- Donnellan, Michael.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Esmonde, Sir John L.
- Everett, James.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Finucane, Patrick.
- Fitzpatrick, Michael.
- Flanagan, Oliver J.
- Flynn, John.
- Giles, Patrick.
- Halliden, Patrick J.
- Hickey, James.
- Hogan, Patrick.
- Hughes, Joseph.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Kyne, Thomas A.
- Larkin, James.
- Lehane, Con.
- McAuliffe, Patrick.
- MacEoin, Seán.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- McQuillan, John.
- Madden, David J.
- Mongan, Joseph W.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Norton, William.
- O'Donnell, Patrick.
- O'Gorman, Patrick J.
- O'Higgins, Michael J.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F. (Jun.).
- O'Leary, John.
- O'Reilly, Patrick.
- Palmer, Patrick W.
- Reidy, James.
- Reynolds, Mary.
- Rooney, Eamonn.
- Sheehan, Michael.
- Sheldon, William A.W.
- Spring, Daniel.
- Sweetman, Gerard.
- Timoney, John J.
- Tully, John.
Níl
- Aiken, Frank.
- Allen, Denis.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Blaney, Neal T.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Buckley, Seán.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Butler, Bernard.
- Carter, Thomas.
- Childers, Erskine H.
- Colley, Harry.
- Collins, James J.
- Corry, Martin J.
- Crowley, Honor Mary.
- Davern, Michael J.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- De Valera, Vivion.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Gilbride, Eugene.
- Gorry, Patrick J.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hilliard, Michael.
- Kennedy, Michael J.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Kilroy, James.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Dan.
- Brady, Seán.
- Brennan, Thomas.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Kissane, Eamon.
- Kitt, Michael F.
- Little, Patrick J.
- Lydon, Michael F.
- Lynch, John.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Moran, Michael.
- Moylan, Seán.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Ormonde, John.
- O'Rourke, Daniel.
- Rice, Bridget M.
- Ruttledge, Patrick J.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Doyle and Kyne; Níl: Deputies Kissane and Kennedy.
Question declared carried.
I move amendment No. 29:—
To delete sub-section (7).
It seems to me that this is a repetition of what we object to in relation to the action of the Minister in the other section.
"A certificate, sealed with the seal of the Minister, certifying that a power or duty for the time being vested by law (including this Act) in the Land Commission or the lay commissioners was exercised or performed by the Minister or by an officer authorised pursuant to this section by the Minister, or that a thing was done in such exercise or performance, shall be prima facie evidence of the matters certified thereby.”
If the Minister wishes to authorise something, why will he not seal that with the seal of the Minister and not expect either the Land Commission or the lay commissioners to stand over it?
This is a certificate sealed with the seal of the Minister. It is my own seal I am putting on it, and not the commissioners' seal.
But involving the Land Commission and the lay commissioners.
Yes.
Why must the Minister do that? Why not stand over what he does himself?
That is what I am doing. I think you are on the wrong track.
Taking over the powers of the Land Commission and the lay commissioners and sealing with his own seal. Why take over the powers of the Land Commission or the lay commissioners?
I am not taking over the powers. Are not the powers of the Land Commissioners a judicial matter and are not the excepted matters set out in sub-section (1)?
Any officer of the Land Commission who does anything, no matter what it is, can have that action authorised with the seal of the Minister and the Land Commission and the lay commissioners must stand over it.
That is so. The section is clear and the sub-section is necessary. The sub-section which it is proposed should be deleted is necessary. There is nothing concealed in it. There is nothing deceitful about it. It is set out very, very clearly and it is in line with the preceding sub-section.
Amendment declared negatived.
I move amendment No. 30:—
To delete sub-section (8), page 6, and substitute the following sub-section:—
(8) The Minister shall not authorise pursuant to this section an officer to approve any scheme for the rearrangement of lands held in rundale or intermixed plots whether with or without the distribution of other lands to facilitate the said rearrangement unless such officer is an officer of the Land Commission and not below the rank of senior inspector.
The purpose of this amendment is to ensure that no official below the rank of senior or divisional inspector shall approve of a rearrangement scheme. I am sure that this amendment will meet with the approval of the House.
A qualified approval. The fact that the Minister has decided that he shall have an officer of the rank of senior or divisional inspector to deal with this matter is certainly an improvement on his original proposal that any officer of the Land Commission would be authorised to do certain things with the Minister's consent and authority. Any officer could apply equally well to a typist, or any rank below that. Again, I wish to register objection, not for the purpose of obstructing but because I feel so strongly on the matter that at every opportunity I feel it incumbent on me to register my protest against the unsurping by the personal authority of the Minister and his agent of the judicial authority of the Land Commission.
Once again, let me repeat that it is not a judicial authority.
Would the Minister say whether he proposes to amend this amendment on the Report Stage? I understand that under sub-section (1) the Minister is dropping the words "whether with or without the distribution of other lands to facilitate the said rearrangement."
I did not say that. In the case of allotting new holdings on a particular farm, on which holdings new houses and out-offices have been built, it would be most undesirable to have the allotting of these holdings in the hands of the Minister or the officials. In order to clear up any doubt in paragraph (f) of sub-section (1) I propose to make it quite watertight now. It was suggested that the Minister could allot holdings in the eastern counties to migrants from the north or south or west for the purpose of rearrangement. It was possible to read that meaning into the sub-section as it stood. In case an attempt might ever be made to do that, I introduce an amendment now to make it as watertight as possible. I do not know exactly where the amendment will fit in. That is a matter for the draftsman. I hope that it is now clear to the House what the intention is.
Amendment agreed to.
Amendment No. 31 not moved.
Amendments Nos. 32 and 34 might be discussed together.
I had not the advantage of hearing the Minister's explanation as I had to leave the House.
Very well, amendment No. 32.
I move amendment No. 32:—
Before sub-section (9) to insert a new sub-section as follows:—
(9) Where the Minister approves any scheme for the rearrangement of lands held in rundale or intermixed plots he shall publish notice of his approval of such scheme in Iris Oifigiúil within a month after approval is given.
I do not know whether the Minister referred to the method by which it would be brought under notice that these rearrangements had in fact been approved and I put down this amendment to give the Minister an opportunity of stating how, in fact, the approval will be made known. I take it that he appreciates that, in the new arrangements that he has made under Section 10, it would be advisable that all rearrangement schemes should be officially published. I think that is a very modest request and that they should be so announced in Iris Oifigiúil within a month after approval is given. That refers to amendment No. 32.
Amendment No. 34 reads as follows:—
"Before sub-section (10) to insert a new sub-section as follows:—
(10) Where under sub-section (9) of this section a document is sealed by the Minister or his officer and such document has reference to the framing or approval by the Minister or his officer of any scheme for the rearrangement of lands held in rundale or intermixed plots, a notice that such document has been so sealed (and giving the name and description of the scheme) shall be published by the Minister in Iris Oifigiúil within one month.”
That refers to the sealing of the document with the common seal of the Land Commission. Where that was done, I suggest also that it should be published in Iris Oifigiúil within one month.
I want to assure the Deputy that no useful purpose would be served by these two amendments. Take, say, the case of any particular rearrangement scheme in any county of the Twenty-Six Counties. I do not see what useful purpose can be served. As a matter of fact, Iris Oifigiúil is practically given over completely and entirely to the Land Commission in vesting notices, notices of resumption, acquisition, certificates and so forth. The Deputy has not pointed out in any clear fashion what useful purpose it would serve. I have no objection to it but it will make no difference. The Minister will always be answerable to this House for anything that takes place. In connection with a rearrangement scheme on the one hand, and under amendment No. 34 which refers to any document, I want to assure the Deputy that I cannot see any useful purpose served by them. I am afraid it would be merely so much work or so much of a formula that would have to be gone through in each case that it would only mean cluttering up Iris Oifigiúil with a flood of rearrangement schemes in the springtime and then with smaller ones in the summertime when the crops would be on the land and no schemes would be going through. I ask the Deputy to withdraw both amendments. I take it that the House will be sitting all the year round and, as I have said, the Minister is answerable to the House. Any information of that kind can always be elicited by way of parliamentary question.
I do not know how the information can be elicited by a parliamentary question. If Ministers get special powers, as the Minister is getting in this case, to deal with rearrangement, there ought to be, surely, some other way of dealing with the matter. If my proposal is not feasible or, perhaps, not sufficiently practical, more space ought to be given to the matter in the annual report of the Land Commission. If the only way in which what the Minister does in connection with these schemes is brought under official notice is by putting down questions, I should think that that is one of the most troublesome and expensive ways of dealing with the matter. I do not mind, but I thought the Minister had rather an objection to so much time being taken up by parliamentary questions dealing with the Land Commission. Those of us who do not represent congested areas may not have the information readily at our disposal. I think that, on general grounds, we would be entitled to know how this matter is proceeding. However, I dare say that we can rely on those of our colleagues who represent the congested areas to have the matter elicited so I do not wish to proceed further with the amendment.
The Deputy can always rely on that.
Is amendment No. 32 withdrawn?
Is amendment No. 34 being taken with amendment No. 32?
They are being discussed together.
They are related to the same thing.
It is quite obvious what these two amendments mean. They are inter-related, that is, a formal type of safeguard of whatever particular Minister may be exercising these powers which the Minister is taking in connection with rearrangement schemes. Take, for instance, a particular rearrangement scheme carried out in a particular area. If rearrangement has been carried out and land allotted to the allottees under that rearrangement, there may be very definite objections to it. The only method that would be left to Deputies would be to try and put down a series of questions. For instance, if you were dealing with an estate where 25 or 30 people would be included in a rearrangement scheme, the position would be impossible. That is the reason why I think the most sensible part of this amendment is from the point of view of a check. Under the first amendment, where a rearrangement scheme has been completed, notice of the scheme would be published in Iris Oifigiúil and, for instance, a copy of the completed scheme at a prescribed fee would be available.
That would not work.
Otherwise there is no way. The Minister and the House must realise that under this Bill the Minister, under sub-section (2) to which we are referring, is taking certain powers and will, presumably, exercise certain powers particularly in relation to rearrangement matters. The House will not be in a position to know what type of rearrangement is gone through in any particular area and will have no way of finding out— that I know of—except to ask in this House. I would point out that in connection with one scheme alone, it would be necessary to ask about each allottee, how much he got, how he got it, how much land was rearranged and what portion of the Land Commission land was given to him in order to get him into the scheme.
I understand that no Land Commission inspector in charge in an area will deny any Deputy or any interested person full details of a rearrangement scheme. If the tenants themselves are satisfied there is generally nobody else to be taken into account. All the whole area, before the rearrangement can go through, becomes the property of the commissioners. The tenants are on it. The rearrangement takes place with their consent. Actually, in 99 cases out of 100, until they are all agreed, the scheme cannot go through. I could not imagine any reason why in Galway, Castlerea, Castlebar, Ballina, Letterkenny, Sligo, Manorhamilton or any place where there is a Land Commission office, the whole public should not see a rearrangement map. I intend to hang one, with which the Deputy is familiar, in the hall of Leinster House to show what can be done and the crying need there is for rearrangement. No information will be denied. We will be only too proud of every rearrangement scheme that goes through. We will give it to the whole wide world.
If the Minister would care to give an assurance to the House that that procedure will be followed, well and good. Some of us have had the experience with the Land Commission that they are not prepared, even where a scheme has been sanctioned, to give details of it. There are matters that arise, as the Minister well knows, on rearrangement schemes that may be——
Might I interrupt the Deputy to say that the commissioners are not obliged to give reasons for what they do? However, in the case of a rearrangement scheme, the Minister is responsible to this House for his actions. The commissioners, if they wish to be rude enough, could tell the Minister, when he is seeking information for a parliamentary reply, that it is none of the Minister's business or of anybody else's business, because of the peculiar way they are set up.
It is a damn good system in a democracy.
The Minister is taking power himself for rearrangement under this particular Bill.
Yes.
That is why I suggest that it is doubly necessary to have some check. It is all right for the Minister to say that on a rearrangement scheme everybody must agree. He knows, as well as I do, that in many cases a rearrangement scheme can be forced by the gentleman dealing with it. It has often been done. In some cases, people have been left out altogether. They have been told: "If you do not want to accept what you are getting, you will never get anything again from the Land Commission. We will go ahead with the rest of the scheme and refuse to do anything for you." I am sure that the Minister has had as much experience of that as I have had. What I am suggesting to the Minister, as a safeguard in this matter, is that we should accept the first amendment. If, on the other hand, the Minister is prepared to say that immediately a scheme is executed or signed, Deputies will be entitled to get a copy of it, I am prepared to accept that.
I would be inclined to agree with the amendment, because naturally every Deputy would like to find out what the final solution of any scheme would be. I think, however, it would be pretty difficult to have the detailed explanation of the actual layout.
That could not be done.
It would be practically impossible. We know that if a question is put down asking about a certain rearrangement scheme, the Minister must have at his disposal a certain amount of supplementary information which, if he is pressed, he would have to give to the House. He will have to give at least enough to satisfy the Deputy concerned, otherwise the matter can be thrashed out in the adjournment and in that way a great waste of time would be caused. I think if there was some arrangement by which the details could be published in Iris Oifigiúil, it would be a way out. On the other hand, this method has its draw-backs. As the Minister has now said that he is assuming for himself and his officials a certain amount of responsibility in regard to rearrangement schemes, if he could devise some scheme whereby the information would be made available to the Deputies concerned on visiting the offices of the Land Commission where they could have a look at a map or find out the details of the scheme, I think that would satisfy them.
That could be met by a simple direction to the inspectors in charge to make available to Deputies, Senators and county councillors a plan of the rearrangement scheme.
I am inclined to agree with Deputy Moylan as to the nature of the people we are dealing with and I would not be in favour of making everything known to Deputies about what was going on, on the spot. I would be inclined to wait until it was over and signed for.
Within a month or so after the scheme had been arranged.
I would let it go even longer than that because no matter what a Land Commission official does in an area, he will not satisfy everybody. There is an old saying that the only place where you will get a body of Irish people to agree is in the graveyard.
Have you read Cré na Cille?
The tenants have been passing through a very difficult time and it is only natural that they would try to get the best settlement they can. I would suggest to the Minister that it should be a month or even two months after official sanction had been given to the settlement that details of it should be known.
I understood the Minister to say that the Land Commission may not be questioned with regard to the rearrangement of land.
In the case of any judicial decision they arrive at in any of the excepted matters, they are not obliged to give reasons for their decision.
But the Minister may be questioned?
Yes.
Will the Minister agree that it is wholly undesirable that private individuals, who have had transactions with the State, should be the subject of discussions in this House? I think it is wholly undesirable.
I think it is rotten.
I hope the Minister will consider some method by which the fact that a rearrangement or an estate had been dealt with will be brought under public notice. A very large number of holdings throughout the country were vested under the 1929 Act and thousands of them were published for a long period in Iris Oifigiúil. In spite of the difficulty which Deputy Commons mentioned, and which I fully appreciate, that in fact we could not give information without a map, I do not see why a notice could not be published stating that a particular estate or portion of a particular estate had been dealt with and comprised a certain number of tenants. I do not know that we would look for the names of the tenants but I presume that that would be necessary.
May I suggest to the Minister that anything that could be done to prevent an addition to the large number of questions on Land Commission matters that appear already, would be a service to the House and to Dáil Éireann?
The Deputy is treading on dangerous ground there.
The method suggested by Deputy Derrig would be preferable. If all western Deputies, or Deputies from other parts of the country, were to put down a series of questions in regard to land in which they were interested, I think it would be very undesirable.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
That also excludes amendment No. 34.
I move amendment No. 33:—
In sub-section (9), page 6, line 53, to insert "or performing" before "the power or duty".
This is merely a drafting amendment.
After all the promises, it will be a good thing to have some performances. We have the same objection to this particular sub-section as I have iterated and reiterated in regard to the other sub-sections. The very same proposal is inherent in this sub-section but, having appealed in vain to the Minister on the other sub-sections, there seems to be no use in talking further on this amendment.
Amendment put and agreed to.
Amendment No. 34 not moved.
I move amendment No. 35:—
To add a new sub-section as follows:—
(12) The Land Commission shall not be required to inform the Minister in relation to matters excepted under this section.
The point I am seeking to achieve by this amendment is somewhat similar to that mentioned by other Deputies here to-night. We all know that the unfortunate Minister has been inundated with questions in regard to such matters as land acquisition and distribution. I do not think that is desirable for a variety of reasons. In the first place, in this particular section we have excepted a certain number of matters from the Minister's control. Notwithstanding whatever whittling down there may have been in this section so far, there will still remain quite a number of very important functions reserved to the Land Commission. Those functions are reserved to the Land Commission for very definite reasons, namely, that if there was power to vest in the Minister, all security of ownership of land would in a short time disappear.
Having put those matters outside the Minister's control, the question arises as to why the Minister should be questioned in regard to the operations of the Land Commission. I do not see why the Minister should be questioned in regard to decisions of the Land Commission any more than the Minister for Justice should be questioned about decisions of the Supreme Court. I am asking, therefore, that this inquisition into the actions of the Land Commission, which is a daily feature of this House, should be discontinued. I cannot see any useful purpose being served. If the Land Commission is to be an independent body, immune from ministerial pressure, there is no reason why the Land Commission and its officials should, day after day, be called upon to dig up information in regard to their activities. I think the problem of supervision of the Land Commission, in so far as it is required, could be carried out by other means.
In addition to that, there is another principle involved, and that is that whenever a question is asked with regard to the acquisition of a particular holding, particularly in a case where the owner of the holding is an ordinary farmer—perhaps a small farmer, not a very large farmer, anyhow—there is a certain slur cast on that man by reason of the publicity given to that matter in the Dáil. It is not just or right that a slur should be cast upon a particular citizen who has done no wrong. If a Deputy bears ill-will towards a certain farmer who, possibly, has canvassed or worked or voted against him, he can put down a question asking if it is the intention of the Land Commission to acquire that farmer's holding. The Minister may reply that the Land Commission have no proceedings for its acquisition but, nevertheless, that man's neighbours will begin to talk. They will say that they have read in the papers where so-and-so's farm has been discussed in the Dáil and the Land Commission were thinking of acquiring it. If there could be some means found to protect citizens from that type of injustice it would be very well worth while. I am not sure whether my amendment covers the point, but I trust the Minister will give it consideration.
If these two amendments were passed into law it would mean placing the Land Commission in a position superior to this House, and I am sure no Deputy would stand for that. The commissioners are there to implement legislation in their particular department—that is, in relation to the whole land resettlement question. I think I know what the Deputy has in mind. He takes exception to a particular type of question here. What I have gathered from his statement is that he does not want a question put down about a particular farmer who is living in peace and amity with his neighbours. He says that when publication is given to that question it creates a chilly atmosphere between that farmer and his neighbours, people who were formerly good friends, and the next thing is a movement to acquire his land. That is not a desirable thing to happen, but, if the Deputy wants to achieve what he has in view, I think the Committee on Procedure and Privileges would be the proper place to take that up.
I am sure the Deputy will not press the amendment. If it were passed it would be a very dangerous precedent to establish—where the Minister in charge of a Department could not question his commissioners to see what is going on. The Deputy has drawn a parallel between this Department and the Department of the Minister for Justice. The Minister for Justice is quite well aware of how the judges, even the Supreme Court judges, administer the laws, and he would not be worthy of the post of Minister for Justice if he did not take an active and a keen interest in it. There is a provision so that the Minister for Justice is informed constantly—and they keep his information up to date—as regards this question; otherwise justice would go to pieces, or there is a possibility that it would in a short space of time. I assure the Deputy that the way the amendments are worded would not achieve the object he has in mind and would be nothing short of disastrous from the point of view of administration if they were passed into law.
I do not know what type of farmer Deputy Cogan is interested in, but I think I have put down more questions about the acquisition and resumption of land than any other Deputy in the House and I can assure Deputy Cogan that no question ever went down about acquiring or resuming land from an individual who was residing on his holding and working it. I have no intention of stopping, and will not be stopped by anybody, when it comes to the question of acquiring land from some man who is not living on it, who is letting it go to waste while there is land hunger and poverty all around it. On the other hand, I would be glad not to have to put down these questions, because they usually cause a hubbub in the locality. Everyone there sets out to read his own meaning into what the question is about and there is a buzz of excitement in that locality. All the people who imagine they would benefit by this land are up on their heels, tearing and chasing here and there, annoying somebody in order to see what they are going to get.
It should not be the duty of a Deputy to raise land questions here at all. If the Land Commission was doing its duty it should put its officials working so as to put themselves in the possession of knowledge immediately after a farm would become available for acquisition. The Land Commission inspector should be in a position to inform his chief inspector about such and such a piece of land where it was available and could be taken over for the relief of congestion. We should not be errand boys for the officials of the Land Commission—and that is what we are. Deputies are raising questions to bring to the Minister's notice certain lands which should be taken over. That is not our duty, but the officials of the Land Commission are not doing it, or will not do it; they are sitting down on their job so far as that is concerned.
What should be done annually is there should be a survey of all the land in a county suitable for the relief of congestion.
This is what the amendment says: "The Land Commission shall not be required to inform the Minister..."
So far as the Minister is concerned, he has to answer in this House. We cannot address our questions to the Land Commission; we have to ask them of the Minister. If the Minister's officials would only go about and carry out this survey each year there would be no need to raise questions here about anybody's land.
If the Deputy continues on that line we may drift into the administration of the Land Commission, which is undesirable on this amendment.
I will say this much with regard to the amendments. I will oppose them because they are absolutely unnecessary. There is no use in putting a Government Department, whether it has judicial power or not, into the position that what it has done or has not done cannot be questioned here. Our first responsibility is to the people who sent us here, and if some things are not done which the people are anxious to see done, surely it is our duty to make inquiries about them. I do not see how we can support these amendments. I am in agreement with Deputy Cogan to the extent that many of the questions that have to be raised here could be got over if there was an alternative system in the working of the Land Commission.
It is not my intention to press the amendment if it would seriously hamper the work of the Land Commission or of the Minister. I do think, however, that there is a problem here which the Minister might give his attention to between this and the Report Stage. He made a comparison between the Land Commission and the judiciary, and said that the Minister for Justice is kept informed of the actions of the courts. Well, I have never known a Deputy to put down a question asking why a judge had convicted a certain person of a certain offence, or why judges had given any particular decisions in the courts; but we have questions raised here from day to day as to why the Land Commission gives certain decisions or asking what decisions it is likely to give. That seems to me to be an anomaly which ought to be removed. If the Land Commission is to be regarded as having judicial powers, then it ought not to be interfered with in the exercise of them. If we find that the Land Commission is not capable of doing the work it is supposed to do under the law, then I suppose it would be better to dissolve it; but as long as it is there and has certain matters reserved to it which have been taken out of the hands of the Minister, it ought not, I think, to be questioned in the way that it is questioned in this House.
The Minister did suggest that this matter could be referred to the Committee on Procedure and Privileges. As a matter of fact, I think it was, but as well as I recollect the committe did not take any action in the matter. I was anxious to see if it could be adjusted some way by legislation. Perhaps, before the Report Stage of the Bill is taken, the Minister might avail of the opportunity of trying to find some means of protecting people who, as he has rightly stated, do suffer from an injustice by reason of the publicity that is given in connection with the acquisition of their holdings, particularly in cases where there is no intention on the part of the Land Commission to acquire the holdings. As Deputy Commons has pointed out, most holdings are acquired because of some default on the part of the owner, either because he is not residing on it or is not working it. Therefore, when a question is asked in regard to a holding there is the inference that the owner is not working the land or has defaulted in some way in his duty as a citizen. In view of that, I suggest to the Minister that he should be able to find some words which would protect citizens from this form of injustice.
I do not see that there is any necessity for these amendments now any more than there was at any other time. Over a considerable time it has been the practice to put down questions. I do not see why the Minister for Lands, any more than any other Minister, should be rendered immune from answering questions regarding the activities of the Land Commission. Deputy Cogan has said that the fact that publicity is given here in connection with a person's land by way of question, even though it is not the intention of the Land Commission immediately to acquire it, immediately directs the attention of the Land Commission to it. He has also stated that the Land Commission is an independent body. If it is, and if it acts independently, it does not matter what questions are put down here. A question is not going to alter its views on any particular matter. It very often happens, too, that a question may be put down—Deputy Cogan himself may do it—in the interests of the owner concerned. The Land Commission starts off by publishing what is known as a provisional list. A couple of other lists are published subsequently, and a long period may elapse before the final list is published. Even when the final list is published, and when the price is stated, in default of agreement, a considerable time may elapse before steps are taken by the Land Commission for acquisition. I think that, when the Land Commission publishes the provisional list, the owner of land is in a greater state of suspense even than the people who require the land. It is only fair, I think—it is as much in the interests of the individual owner as of the local congests, especially where a lengthy period elapses before the land is acquired—that a question should be put down for answer about it.
We have heard a good deal about the undue delay of the Land Commission in coming to decisions. Well, if there is undue delay after the provisional list is published and if, as sometimes happens, an owner is finally left with the land by the Land Commission, he might get pretty careless in the working of it. Deputy Cogan has stated that the Land Commission is an independent body. I do not believe it will be so independent now in view of certain things which are in this Bill.
I do not see that there is any greater injustice in putting down a question to the Land Commission than there is in putting down a question about an old age pension or a national health insurance benefit, not to speak at all of questions concerning the courts which deal with criminal and civil actions. If questions are put down about land, it is true to say that in almost every case the question relates to some individual who holds a considerable amount of land. We should all like to see this land question settled as speedily as possible. It is a national question. I would not agree at all that Deputies should have their rights and privileges curtailed in regard to putting down questions about the acquisition of land.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment No. 36 not moved.
Section 10, as amended, agreed to.
SECTION 11.
I move amendment No. 37:—
To delete sub-section (4).
This is a rather peculiar sub-section. It provides that:—
"where a decision is made or given by a majority of the lay commissioners concerned therein, the dissenting minority of such lay commissioners shall be deemed, for the purposes of the foregoing sub-sections of this section to concur in such decision, and the words ‘concur' and ‘concurrence' shall in those sub-sections of this section be construed accordingly."
Of course, there may be a precedent for this power, but it seems to me that it is imposing very much upon the lay commissioners. The position would appear to be that the minority having failed and resigned themselves to that fact, it is the majority decision that will hold. I move to report progress.
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 29th March, 1950.