I want to congratulate the Minister on taking the important and courageous step of seeing that those whose land is taken from them get a fair and reasonable price for it. The position which obtained up to now was that, if a person had the misfortune to have a vested holding, he got whatever price it suited the Land Commission to pay him and not the market price or market value of his land. That is something which was very wrong, particularly when, in the case of resumed holdings or unvested land, the market value had to be paid.
I should like to congratulate the Minister also on the amount of work done by his Department during the past year. I understand from the Minister's statement that, during the past year, something like 1,300 uneconomic holdings were brought up to what the Minister and the Land Commission regard as an economic level. That was a considerable achievement. I am also glad to note that, during the past year, something like 17,000 holdings were vested, the highest number ever vested and a figure which compares with 10,000 in the previous year. So far as distribution is concerned, there was a considerable increase in the amount of land distributed last year and it is an evidence that the Department are at least active in some respects, even though they are very inactive in others.
One point I want to put to the Minister is that it is a mistake to take over lands which are adequately and properly worked and which are giving decent employment in a particular area and to divide these up and so create in the area a rural slum where previously there were reasonable conditions for both the proprietor and employees on the land. I know in certain areas that land has been taken over and some of the employees given what I regard as uneconomic holdings, with the result that that farm has been turned into a rural slum in which the unfortunate people are unable to eke out an existence on the few acres they have got. They would have been much better off if the estate had been left at the level it was, with these people getting employment at reasonable, decent remuneration.
I should like also to direct the Minister's attention to the expressed views of his colleague, the Minister for Agriculture. The Minister for Agriculture on several occasions has emphasised that mechanisation in agriculture is of vital importance. Tractors are of great importance if we are to have decent production, and milking machines are also necessary, and the Minister has gone so far in emphasising this point as to refer to the stick tied on to the donkey's tail. If we are to have economic holdings which will be suitable for tractor work and for maintaining milking machines, we cannot break up some of these economic holdings which exist at the moment in County Cork and substitute small holdings for them and hope to employ tractors and milking machines on them.
I believe the Department has done a good deal of necessary work. I believe the Department and the Land Commission have made a great number of mistakes, and I believe the Department and the Land Commission are the slowest bodies in the world to move. There is one scheme in my constituency which is affecting a wide area of land. I refer to the Minane Bridge reclamation scheme with which the Department has been fiddling and tinkering for the past 20 years, but in respect of which nothing has been done. We have been told that Nero fiddled while Rome was burning, but the Land Commission is fiddling while acres and acres of land are being inundated and while bridges, churches and houses are being undermined due to the ineffective work of the Land Commission.
On 18th April, 1948, over 24 months ago, I asked the Minister about this problem and the Minister said it was under consideration. On 25th of May, 1948, I asked the Minister again about this scheme and he told me there were technical difficulties. I asked the Minister in June, 1949, and there were still technical difficulties. I asked the Minister yesterday and there were other difficulties. I asked the Minister on another occasion and he told me there were eight graduates of the National University and I think one graduate of Trinity College working on the scheme.
On that occasion I asked the Minister would he ask the Department of Agriculture to give him one efficient, energetic engineer for a week to enable him to get the scheme completed. I do not know what is happening about that, but I know that years ago the county council, because their bridges and roads were in danger, came to the Department of Lands and offered to make a contribution to the cost of the scheme. I know that the Bishop of Cork, because the parish church in Minane was being undermined, came to the Department of Lands and offered to pay part of the cost. I know that all the farmers in the area came to the Department of Lands and offered to pay part of the cost. But the Land Commission, with their eight or nine engineers, are still finding technical difficulties.
This is something that I think the Minister should exert himself about. He should not be satisfied with the tuppeny-ha'penny excuses passed up to him. If he is Minister and head of the Department he should see that something is done about this matter. This has been going on for years and is causing greater damage every day it is allowed to continue. I accuse the Minister for being responsible for having a number of inefficient people in charge of his Department if they have to take years and years to do something which, if it were to be done under the land reclamation scheme, would have been done, without any of the red tape of any of these eight or nine engineers interfering, in about five or six months at the outside.
I do not blame the Minister altogether. His predecessor had this scheme before him for a number of years. Whether it was his predecessor was at fault or the officials of the Land Commission I do not know. But, whoever is at fault, the Minister is the head of the Department and there is a work which requires to be done immediately, requires to be done with much greater speed even than some of the work which is being done under the land reclamation scheme. If the Minister cannot do it, if the Department of Lands find that their engineers and staff are inefficient and futile, will they pass it over to the Department of Agriculture to include it under the land reclamation scheme? It will cost the people whose lands are affected less than under the other scheme; it will not cost the Diocese of Cork anything and it will not cost the county council anything if it is done under the land reclamation scheme.
I do not want to change the system which has been operating for a number of years, but I want to tell the Minister that the people in my constituency are not satisfied with the answers which he has given. I do not blame the Minister altogether for them, because these answers were handed up to him from his Department. The people do not believe there is any sincerity on the part of the Department of Lands in this connection. They feel that they are being fooled, that they have been fooled too long and that they cannot stand it much longer. Therefore, I ask the Minister to try if he possibly can to put some little bit of energy into the officials of his Department. If he feels that it is something which is being held up by finance, let him tell us in this House that it is being held up by finance. If he feels that it is something which is being held up for want of timber or iron or something like that, let him tell us in this House that it is being held up because of that. He should at least take the people of the constituency into his confidence when he is replying to questions on the matter and not tell us one thing one day and something else the next day. I hope that it will not be necessary for me to refer to this matter again when this Estimate comes before the Dáil next year. It is a scheme which has been before the Land Commission for a long time. I hope that the few words which I feel compelled to say will at least have the effect of waking up some of the people in the Land Commission who are asleep. I hope that the eight or nine engineers whom the Minister referred to in his reply to me and who are having a holiday down in Minane Bridge will have got more useful employment by then.
Having made that criticism of the Minister in connection with one particular scheme in my constituency, I want to say that I am in complete agreement with the Minister's general policy in ensuring that the market value is paid for land taken over and to congratulate him on the amount of work that the Land Commission has succeeded in doing in the last 12 months in certain areas.