Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 15 Jun 1954

Vol. 149 No. 1

Committee on Finance. - Vote 47—Lands.

Minister for Lands (Mr. Blowick)

I move:—

That a sum not exceeding £1,124,260 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1955, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Offices of the Minister for Lands and of the Irish Land Commission (etc.).

The net Estimate of £1,956,700 for Lands for the current year shows a very slight decrease (£4,250) over the total amount voted last year—including the sum transferred to the Lands Vote from the Vote for Increases in Remuneration.

Under sub-head A, for salaries, wages and allowances, there is an apparent increase of £39,368, but when account is taken of the additional amount provided last year to meet increases under the Civil Service Arbitration Award, the net result is a saving of £2,652. The progress achieved in the vesting of holdings and allotments—to which I shall refer later—has made possible a reduction of 44 in the indoor staffing, which more than offsets the cost of incremental increases in salaries.

A considerable proportion of the net Estimate is allocated to sub-heads H (1), H (2) and H (3) for making good certain deficiencies in the Land Bond Fund arising from the statutory halving of annuities—which alone accounts for £675,000—and other aids to land purchase. As the land settlement programme proceeds, new annuities are set up which call for additional provision under sub-heads H (1) for costs fund and H (3) for halving of annuities. This year, it is expected that the halving of annuities will result in an increase of £7,600 under sub-head H (3), which, together with an estimated increase of £200 under sub-head H (1), gives a total increase of £7,800 under this group of sub-heads.

Under sub-head I, funds are provided for the improvement of estates including the erection and repair of buildings, the construction of roads, fences, and drains and other works. The expenditure under this sub-head last year amounted to £551,170 and was about 10 per cent. short of the original estimate of £615,000. In the early part of the year 1953/54 the acquisition of land was held up awaiting legislation enabling the issue of a new series of land bonds at a higher rate of interest —rendered necessary by the general advance in interest rates. This legislation was eventually enacted in July, 1953, but the hold-up prior to that operated to delay the possession of land and the commencement of new improvement works, with a consequent falling off in expenditure. With the difficulty in regard to land bonds removed, a full programme of work is planned for the current year. In addition, the scale of housing assistance for tenants of rearranged holdings has had to be revised in order to facilitate schemes for the improvement and rearrangement of non-vested estates; it is therefore expected that expenditure on this branch of the housing programme will reach a higher figure than last year. For this reason, and because of some wage increases, the Estimate has been raised by £10,105.

Where the Land Commission find it necessary to set up special funds under the control of trustees to provide incomes from which major works such as embankments, watercourses and pipelines may be suitably maintained, the capital is supplied by way of advances under sub-head N. In the past year, such trusts were set up in relation to a watercourse in County Tipperary and an embankment protecting a number of allotments adjoining the Fergus estuary. These cases being disposed of, there is no immediate prospect of large issues of this nature and it has been found possible to make a saving of £5,640 under this sub-head.

As regards sub-head R, which relates to the purchase of land for cash, the sum expended last year was £1,325 towards the purchase of five holdings. During that year, one holding was purchased at a public auction and four by private treaty. Altogether, since June 1950, when such purchases were first authorised, 19 holdings have been purchased by private treaty and three at auctions. The sum of £20,000 included in this year's Estimates for sub-head R is the same amount as was voted last year.

Appropriations-in-Aid have shown an upward trend in recent years, which was to be expected, having regard to general variations in money value. An increase of £15,020 is estimated for Appropriations-in-Aid for 1954-55 as compared with last year. This increase is accounted for mainly by increased revenue from annuities in repayment of improvement advances and the lettings of land and bog.

I do not think that detailed comments on the other sub-heads of the Vote are necessary at this stage, as they show little variations from previous Estimates.

As regards the general work of the Land Commission, it is gratifying to note that the drive which I intensified in 1948 for the completion of tenanted land purchase has met with great success. Of approximately 111,000 tenanted holdings which vested in the Land Commission under the Land Acts, 1923-31, there are now only 19,000 holdings outstanding for revesting in tenants. The fact that so many holdings have been finally resold is obviously of benefit to the tenants concerned, but it is also an advantage to the Land Commission since it relieves them of much routine work and responsibility which was unavoidable while the holdings remained unvested but which, at the same time, was of little positive value towards the solution of our major problems. The stage has now been reached at which we can say that in many counties the task of revesting tenanted land is drawing to a close. In fact in one County— Longford—all tenanted land has been revested.

But I do not want to mislead the House because the great bulk of the 19,000 outstanding holdings to which I just referred together with 7,500 unvested holdings on the estates of the former Congested Districts Board, lie in the western counties and constitute the really hard core of congestion which must still be relieved before we can be satisfied. In spite of all that has been done to date—and a great deal has been done—there still remain considerable areas in which very bad conditions obtain and in which a great deal of enlargement, rearrangement and rehousing must be effected as speedily as possible.

I think it is generally agreed that the Land Commission can relieve conditions in the badly congested areas only by effecting migration on a substantial scale. Unfortunately, this process, from beginning to end, takes several years to complete. It involves the gradual acquisition of an adequate area of untenanted land; the erection of new homesteads; the selection and movement of suitable migrants from the most congested estates and, finally, the hammering out of a scheme of rearrangement and enlargement in which all the remaining tenants will co-operate. It is no easy matter to organise such work on a large scale but I have been pleased to find that as a result of the Land Act 1950 the Land Commission has succeeded in making great progress recently at migrations and rearrangements. Almost all of the migrants in recent years came from severely congested areas.

Largely as a result of these migrations it was found possible to rearrange and improve 544 holdings in the congested areas from which the migrants came. This is the most important and difficult work now confronting the Land Commission; it is a challenge to us to remove the bad legacy of former days and it is a challenge that I, as Minister, am determined to answer. It will be my future policy to press on as fast as possible and expand this programme of migration coupled with the rearrangement and enlargement of congested and intermixed holdings. I would appeal to Deputies to do nothing to impede the progress of this important national work—which depends so much on good will—and to encourage the tenants to join in rearrangement schemes which can be of such lasting benefit to themselves and their neighbours. The Land Commission inspectors can be relied on to do their part in preparing and implementing such schemes with the utmost fairness to all concerned.

While great emphasis is placed on the needs of the most congested western areas, it must not be thought that other districts are neglected. It is the policy of the Land Commission to relieve congestion wherever it exists, and the isolated groups of uneconomic holdings which still remain in other counties will continue to be dealt with when suitable lands become available in their vicinity. Provisional totals for the Twenty-Six Counties under the main headings of the land purchase and resettlement programme show that last year 32,524 acres were divided among 2,111 allottees; 26,457 acres were acquired, resumed or taken over in exchange and 12,356 holdings, parcels and rights of turbary were revested in tenants or allottees.

The immediate prospects for the acquisition and division of further areas are not without difficulty. The procedure for dealing with objections to acquisition and resumption has, I gather, been questioned and a court decision is awaited. As land settlement progresses it naturally becomes less easy to procure further land for division but we cannot, and shall not, relax our efforts until at least some measure of relief has been brought throughout the entire congested areas.

In conclusion, I am pleased to be able to report that the collection of annuities is proceeding most satisfactorily. The amount outstanding at the 31st March, 1954, was £140,000—or £12,000 less than at the same time last year—and it represented only 0.3 per cent. of the total amount collectable since 1933.

Tomás Ó Deirg

Ós rud é gur hullmhaíodh na Meastacháin seo nuair a bhí an Rialtas Fianna Fáil i réim, ní doigh liom gur féidir liom locht a fháil ar an Meastachán seo—go mór mhór ós rud é nar chuala mé go bhfuil aon athrú ar an pholasaí atá mar aidhm ag an Aire nua.

As these Estimates were prepared by the former Administration—I, as Minister at the time, having had a considerable share of responsibility for the present Estimate—I suppose it would be rather inappropriate if I were at this stage to find fault with them. Moreover, the Minister has not indicated any change in policy or indicated that there is any special new departure in contemplation which might seem to deserve consideration.

Most of what has been referred to by the Minister in his statement is well known to me and, in that respect, I am probably in an advantageous position as compared with other Deputies. Although the work of the Land Commission receives a good deal of attention in Dáil Éireann by way of parliamentary question, I think it is not generally known in the country, apart from the specially intensive work which the staff of the commission are carrying out in the congested areas. As has been pointed out, there are still some 19,000 holdings unvested, of which 7,500 are on the estates of the former Congested Districts Board. These, of course, are very small holdings which would require rearrangement and, if possible, enlargement.

I should think that the total number of such holdings in the western counties is greater than 7,500, which refers to those on the estates of the former Congested Districts Board. I should expect that the total number of small holdings in the West of Ireland would run closer to a figure of 12,000 holdings.

The position, as has been indicated in the Minister's statement, is that to secure substantial relief for these holdings it is necessary that tenants should be migrated to other counties —generally to the Midlands or eastern counties. As the statement points out, the acquisition of land, the determination of price and the hearing of appeals follow a well-recognised procedure. When the legal proceedings are completed, arrangements have to be made for the scheming of the lands, the division of the acquired lands into holdings, the building of houses, the provision of outhouses, the provision of roads and the settlement of fences and access. It is obvious, as the statement points out, that it takes a considerable period, probably running into some years, between the time when it is decided that a particular area in the West of Ireland shall have small holders migrated from it and the time when, finally, they are put into occupation—the small percentage of them, having regard to their total numbers, that can be migrated to eastern areas. A very considerable time elapses and, perhaps, due allowance is not made for that by those who contend that the proceedings of the Land Commission in regard to the acquisition of land and the migration of such tenants are unduly laborious and tedious. Certain procedures have been followed in the past and if they are departed from the law is violated and I think, even if short cuts can be shown, that the results from such short cuts would not be very happy.

When Land Commission schemes are carried into operation, apart from the disappointment of those applicants who are not successful in securing allotments, we know that, generally speaking, as far as the schemes are concerned they are fairly permanent and entirely satisfactory from the point of view that when the inspectors and the commissioners have completed schemes and put them into operation we know that everything is going to be in fairly good order. Those who have received allotments or enlargements or new holdings are not going to have any trouble afterwards. Everything is settled for them when they are put into occupation of the land.

The Land Commission also give a good deal of employment. I should say that up to 1,500 men are employed in a particular year on Land Commission work and this work is entirely in connection with the rearrangement of small holdings in counties like Mayo and with the migration of congests to the eastern or midland counties, so that they benefit to a considerable extent from the expenditure on improvements.

In the Land Commission Estimate the only sub-head which the Minister can effectively alter is the sub-head dealing with expenditure on improvements. The other sub-heads deal with salaries, wages and allowances to the staff of the Land Commission or with statutory payments such as the remission of 50 per cent. of the land annuities to the annuitants, and the effective expenditure, therefore, is the amount spent every year on what is called the improvement of estates, which means in fact doing the work to which I have referred in connection with resettlement in non-congested areas and the rearrangement of schemes within them.

So long as the aim of the policy continues, as in the past, to be to relieve congestion in those areas where it exists and where it is a very serious problem, socially and economically, any steps the Minister takes towards improving the position in those areas or speeding up migration or the acquisition of land for that purpose will have our support and co-operation from this side of the House. It is a problem which has to be alleviated. It is not possible of a completely satisfactory solution as long as we are not in a position to provide all these congests with proper holdings, judging them by the standards as they obtain in other parts of the country. But we know that in the past the aim of the old Congested Districts Board was to try to achieve the more moderate purpose and goal of bringing tenants west of the Shannon up to a valuation of, say, £10 and if that can be done in those very bad areas of congestion which still exist there is no doubt but that it would mean a very substantial improvement in conditions.

Unfortunately, it is doubtful, as I have implied in my statement from my experience and my knowledge, that we can relieve as we would like to relieve, by giving them new holdings, more than a percentage of all those thousands in the remoter areas of the congested districts. But we must continue and, as I have said, there is an obligation upon the State and upon a native Irish Government to endeavour to provide those people with better conditions, to try and enlarge their holdings, to provide them with better housing conditions and better amenities generally.

That is what the Land Commission are doing and their work it not very often appreciated or understood because it is not brought before the public. It is regarded as routine when hundreds of acres of land are taken over and distributed among a number of smallholders ranging from six to 20 in a number of townlands and when the whole economy and future of these people who have benefited has been enormously improved. It is a rather routine kind of uninteresting work for those who have no knowledge of the conditions in those areas; but those who have appreciate the great work that has been done by the Land Commission over so many years.

When I was in the Land Commission in 1952, I remember being told that over 1,000,000 acres had been allotted and I should say that since that time there has probably been in one way or another the greater part of another 100,000 acres allotted. So that we can say that since the beginning when the Irish Government took over probably 1,100,000 acres at least have been allotted by the Land Commission and it has been estimated that over 15,000 new farms have been established. It is only when one goes into those areas and if one has had knowledge of and acquaintance with the conditions as they obtained in those areas 20 or 30 years ago that one realises, as those who come back to these districts from foreign parts see and admire, the enormous improvements which have been made.

The expenditure on the Land Commission is heavy because the cost of acquiring land is very substantial, very heavy. It is the greatest national asset and the most valuable property that one can have, and when the Land Commission take over land they have to pay a fair market price, although the tenant does not repay in full through his annuity the cost of the land. The State has shouldered the obligation and will, I presume, for some years to come shoulder the obligation of bearing the heavier portion of the cost. In fact, the greater portion of the cost of an estate, the cost of the purchase of land and the cost of the provision of buildings and the amenities to which I have referred has increased enormously. Besides, as the pool of land for acquisition becomes smaller, although the personnel of the inspectorate is sufficient to carry out the work efficiently and adequately, the position becomes more difficult, as, for example, in the case of the unvested holdings to which the Minister referred. The cases that are left over are the most difficult and intractable, and the ones in respect of which the Land Commission over the years have very often found it impossible to do very much to relieve the situation of the tenants.

Expenditure, as I say, has been fairly heavy during the past three years. It has reached a figure of about £1,500,000 on improvements and on land upon which the Land Commission are erecting buildings or providing roads or other facilities for tenants, it has reached over the £500,000 figure, apart from the other expenditure of a statutory nature to which I have referred. The best course in connection with Land Commission activities in general and one to which I think we can all subscribe is to wish and hope that the work will go ahead even more successfully, if that be possible, than in the past. We are fortunate in having a staff of experienced officers, both indoor and outdoor, who are thoroughly acquainted in their respective spheres with all the difficulties and awkwardnesses of the problem of land resettlement. Large numbers of younger men have come into the inspectorate, and I have no doubt whatever that their quality is such that, after gaining experience of this problem of rearrangement in the western areas, the very big and formidable problem to which their efforts must be mainly directed, these younger inspectors will do as well as, and perhaps it is not too much to expect that they may do better than, their predecessors, some of whom have done very excellent work indeed.

Mr. Maguire

I was interested to hear the Minister's statement on the work of the Land Commission and the prospects of improvement in the future. The Minister gave figures of the area of the land dealt with and I feel that this could be very much greater. Quite a lot of the acreage he mentioned must have included areas of bogland, waste land and mountain which are not suitable for cultivation as agricultural land and are only of mediocre importance for grazing purposes. Therefore the Minister's statement in general could be, and in fact is, very misleading.

So far as the division of land of practical value for those engaged in the agricultural industry is concerned, I assume that it applies mainly to the poorer counties in the West of Ireland and possibly elsewhere. It is difficult for the Land Commission to make out of bad and inferior land—and even middling quality land—land which will be useful for agricultural purposes, and the only solution for these areas is, as the Minister indicated, a system of planned migration; but it is enough to wear out the patience of any person who is really interested in this problem to hear Minister after Minister in one Government after another speaking of a plan for migration to deal with congestion. I should like the Minister to go over the work of the Land Commission during the past five years and see if he can justify the amount of effort and the number of migrants moved from different counties in the western area. Is he satisfied that any serious effort has at any period been made to deal with the situation?

I know that quite a lot of criticism was directed—whether justly or unjustly, I will not say, because I do not know—against the present Minister when he was previously in office, on the ground that more migrants came from County Mayo during his period than from any other two or three counties in the West.

I hope that is not so, because, if it were, it would have a very serious effect, and I mention it in order to enable the Minister to give us figures in this connection when he is replying. Migration in County Leitrim had some force 12 or 14 years ago when Deputy Derrig, who was then Minister, told me, in the course of a conversation, that he had determined to devote all the land which came into the hands of the Land Commission for some years entirely to the relief of congests in the West. Changes came along, and, although I am sure the Minister meant what he said, it did not occur, and any alteration made in the form of migration since immediately before the war has been so negligible as to compel us to regard the whole problem as being closed and finished with. As a result, we find the people there despairing of any improvement in conditions and without hope of ever having a decent home or holding on which to rear families and turning their backs on the Land Commission and Governments in this country and removing themselves from the necessity of having to make any demand for land or anything else.

I think that Governments here are culpable in a serious way and have earned the greatest condemnation from the people in the West who are now scattered in every town and city in England—some of them unemployed —and in other countries. These people should seriously set about finding some way of expressing their indignation with the neglect of these Governments who did not handle the problem as it should have been handled years ago. Words fail me, knowing the circumstances as I know them, in condemning strongly enough the failure of native Governments to undo the work of the conquest, the "to Hell or Connacht" scheme. They have left the hell there and many people have now left that area believing that there is no longer any hope of getting relief from any Government.

The congests who remain in the West of Ireland are more demoralised, more hopeless and more helpless than the people in the slums of Dublin were 20 years ago. Millions were spent in improving housing conditions there and in relieving the tenement conditions, but how much has been spent and how little has been done to remedy the situation in connection with a far more important line? These men in the West of Ireland have to try to live by wringing a living from an infertile, sour soil.

Their forefathers were forced at the point of the bayonet to bring that land into cultivation and rear family after family in semi-decency through nothing but hard labour and ingenuity. After all that, should that race of people be destroyed and should a Government watch the decay of that noble, strenuous and energetic race of people who have struggled against impossible hardships and suffer them leave the country? Should a Government think only in terms of money and what is economic for the State to do? If you reduce that community, you will lose the best people that Ireland ever possessed and you will lose an asset which you cannot replace at a later stage by all the millions of money you may think fit to spend.

Nothing has been done to save them except in a very mediocre way and, having regard to all that is happening now, a national emergency should be declared to see what effort is needed —not what it would cost—to keep those people interested in the land. They are interested. Give them a chance. Some migration did take place from my county and, as I stated already, it was planned to take place on a fairly large scale prior to the last war. These people proved to the satisfaction of the Land Commission that they were the best farmers that were ever brought to the Midlands.

When you are dividing land at least this standard should be reached that the land will only be given to the people most capable of using it and not because they belong to a political Party or have any political pull. Will even a small businessman in a town seek to employ somebody to run his grocery, bar or shop who has not some previous experience or some reference as to his capacity in that field? Yet, in the division of land and without regard for the capacity of the person farms have been divided up and the result is shown and known. Many have been failures. In many cases farms which were divided and handed over by the Land Commission have had to be resumed. I do not say that it is the Land Commission or the officials of the Land Commission who are entirely responsible.

Gross mishandling has taken place. It seems to be an opportunity for all chancers who see the possibility of acquiring land without paying anything for it at the expense of the State and then offering it for sale, perhaps after receiving some money as compensation or even letting it out for grass to someone who finds a use for it. That is a public scandal. I would ask the Minister, when he is replying, to state the number of such cases that have arisen in the last five or ten years and what steps he proposes to take in future. Will they be more selective in appointing new tenants than they have been in the past? There is a wide field of investigation open there, and at some stage I propose to examine it, but in the meantime it is only fair that the present Minister should have the chance of making new regulations to ensure that abuses so serious and grave in the past should be checked and will not occur again.

There is another matter I might refer to in that respect. In the division of land by the Land Commission for some years back a stereotyped form of fence was built by taking up the first sod or two from the grass surrounding each side of the fence and building it up sod by sod. That is entirely wrong. Week by week as I travel to the West I see many of these fences crumbling away. There is no plantation there. Cattle move down and after a short period of five or ten years there is no longer any fence. In the first instance by removing these sods you are removing the most valuable and fertile soil. In the sour soil in the wet land the same thing prevails only with worse conditions because you have a wider field. The ordinary ditch not only makes a permanent fence but it also drains the soil. Why this stereotyped, stupid, out of date and wasteful process is allowed to continue beats me. I hope those few remarks of mine may draw the attention of the Land Commission in the future to adopt fencing methods suitable to the soil and the land.

Another thing, I feel that there should be facilities made available from the Land Commission, particularly where lands are registered, to enable farmers to borrow money for the improvement of their properties, the buying of extra cattle and the building of houses. I know the Land Commission have done something in that respect over a number of years but not nearly sufficient. As everybody knows, farms in this country are becoming more and more valuable every year. As the land annuities are paid there is a greater personal interest created on the part of owners of farms. To encourage a man to remain on his land, and improve it, larger grants should be made available. The local inspector could visit the farm and make the necessary adjustments. The Land Commission could be of great assistance by assisting farmers financially to improve their places. I look forward to seeing something serious done by the Land Commission.

Deputy Derrig has already paid a tribute to the Land Commission and I also can do that. The Land Commission has a trained staff and men of wide experience. But what is the use of a trained staff and wide experience unless they are given the material upon which to work? They should not be hindered. As things are going, the day is not far off when you will have land with nobody to occupy it. When that occurs, we will have to send abroad for people to occupy it because land without workers is not valuable no matter how good it is.

A shilling spent to-day may be the saving of £1 in another few years. We have excellent land, the best land, I am told, in the world. It is lying practically waste, or at least with very few people per acre living on it, while you have, at the same time, people down in the congested areas needy, hungry, under-nourished and with disappointment in their eyes. They are fleeing from the country so that the countryside is fast becoming a wilderness. This is a national problem. If the land were used to the best advantage we would be in a position not only to supply our own needs but also to develop an export market, and thus have the means of purchasing in outside markets essential commodities which we cannot produce at home. There is no point in our trying to become highly industrialised and hoping that somewhere from the skies will fall the mineral deposits necessary for such a purpose. But we have at our hands the greatest asset in the world, the most valuable of all the assets, land, which is being allowed to go to waste while those who are capable of working it are flying from the country. It is ridiculous for the Government to sit back quoting statistics without producing any effective remedy for the situation. If proper steps were taken the land in the West could, within a reasonable period of time, be as densely populated as the land in the Midlands.

I will watch with anxiety to see how far the present Minister will succeed in solving this problem. If serious measures are not taken in the near future in regard to the West of Ireland, there will be no problem at all in relation to these people in about another 15 years because they will all have vanished from that part of the country. Many of them have gone already with disappointment in their hearts because they were unable to obtain a living in their own country. Let us hope those who have had to take to the emigrant ship will not harbour bitter memories because of the circumstances which forced them to leave their native land.

Captain Giles

This is an Estimate which comes in for a fair amount of criticism every year, and rightly so. I hope that he will reverse many of the decisions that the Land Commission and himself made from 1948 onwards, because when he was in office before he set a headline which eastern Deputies will long remember. The problems which concern this Department relate to different areas. Western Deputies and eastern Deputies have different problems. We Deputies in the eastern areas have our problems also. We must look after the interests of the people who live there and I feel their rights are being taken away and justice has not been done over the past seven or eight years either by the present Minister, when he was in office before, or by the last Minister.

Land division is a very complex problem and it should be dealt with on a national basis. A complete review is immediately necessary instead of carrying on with the present haphazard method of dividing land which has been adopted over the last 100 years. If we continue in this fashion we will need the Land Commission for ever. I saw ranches divided under the British régime 30 and 35 years ago, and I see some of the landholders from whom this land had been taken buying back land around those estates. Unless something is done about that we will see after the next five or six years, these big estates as they were 30 or 35 years ago, and the people who got these small holdings will be selling out and leaving the country.

I am not one of those who will pull back my punches where my punches are needed. I am not against migration from the West or the North if it is reasonable, but I do not want a flood of migrants to the eastern counties to destroy the economy of the whole country. There is, I admit, a vast amount of land in Westmeath, Meath and Dublin that could be divided in the national interest, but this must be done prudently and on a national scale. We have in the eastern area, which was the area of the planters long ago—and certainly they were very securely planted there—very large holdings up to 2,000 and 3,000 acres, and the owners are lords of all they survey. There is no effort being made to whittle down some of these vast estates. I cannot see what legal terms should prevent us from doing our duty towards the people. These owners should be quite satisfied to be left with 300 acres of this land and to allow 1,000, 2,000 or 3,000 acres to be divided amongst the people. Instead of concentrating on these huge estates we find the touts of the Land Commission day in, day out, interfering with the middling farmers who are hard-working people owning a mere 40, 50 or 60-acre farm. That is victimisation of a bitter type, and I hope it will stop. There are scores of big farms worthy of the attention of the Land Commission. I want to know why, after all the Acts we passed five or six years ago, they will not take over these ranches and divide them, instead of having hugger-mugger and back-hand methods and people buying many of these large estates by telephone and working them as cattle ranches.

The Land Commission are not doing their duty. Any holding of 300, 400 or 500 acres of land that comes on the market should be taken over by the Irish Government in the interests of the nation and divided amongst the people. I am asking the present Minister to be realistic and to face up to the problems as a responsible Minister. He can do an immense amount of good to the Irish economy or an immense amount of harm according to the policy he adopts.

I am not one of those who are too well satisfied with this removal en masse of congests from the West of Ireland. Hundreds and hundreds of those people are coming up, particularly from Mayo, and no blame to them.

More power to them for coming up! But what good is it from the point of view of the national economy? What problem are you solving by bringing up tens of thousands and planting them in the eastern counties? These men are being planted on small holdings of 22 to 28 acres, holdings upon which they cannot make a living. What is the result? They are not a fortnight in the eastern counties before 80 per cent. of the family emigrates to England or Scotland, or elsewhere; it is they who send the money home to keep the home going. No one is left except the parents and possibly one son to work the holding.

We are tired of appealing to successive Governments and Ministers to remedy that situation. An area of 22 or 28 statute acres is no use in the eastern counties. In the West of Ireland 25 acres would rank as a ranch. But in the West of Ireland one does not live on the land. One lives by fishing and making poteen and on the money that is sent home from relatives in Great Britain and America. The land there is only barren rock.

If something is not done to rectify the position in the eastern counties we will find ourselves one day with as acute a congestion problem as exists in the West. Many of these holdings are being offered for sale and the strongest man in the area is buying them up. If that continues there will be a reversion to the ranching system in the Midlands. We will have travelled the vicious circle and the Land Commission will be back where it started.

It is time we woke up to the fact that a man must have an economic holding on which to live and rear his family. Nothing less than 35 or 40 Irish acres constitutes an economic holding in the Midlands or eastern counties. These holdings should be capable of giving employment to at least one man. The situation to-day is that the owners of these uneconomic holdings are seeking work on the roads, in the pits and on afforestation, thereby depriving others of employment. Thirty years ago emigration was unheard of in the eastern counties. Now emigration is as rife there as it is in the West.

Lands offered for sale should be taken by the Minister and divided amongst applicants who will work them and make a living on them Deputy Flynn has said that many of these men who got land in the past did not work the land. I know men who have sold land over the last eight years; these were men handpicked by Fianna Fáil through the medium of their cumanns. Some of them had never looked for land. In my own area I saw a man taken up by an inspector, a bogus I.R.A. captain, and brought around in a Land Commission car. Every Fianna Fáil supporter got land although some of them had not tuppence to their name. Many of them were living on home assistance. Many of them would not work in a fit. More shame to Fianna Fáil for destroying our Irish economy! These are the men who are selling out. These men were never land-minded. All they wanted was money and a good time. They are having a good time on the £1,600 or the £1,800 they got for their farms. They are having a royal time in the public-houses, on the racecourse and on the dog tracks. That will continue as long as the money lasts and, when it is gone, they will go back to the labour exchange. I must condemn Fianna Fáil for what they did in that respect. We are paying for it to-day.

Many have sold out and many have succeeded. Those who have succeeded are a credit to the country. The claim of the Meath men to land in their own county is the paramount claim. There are very fine men living on the edges of estates in County Meath. They are not asked if they want land when land is being divided. An Order has been made excluding the cottage tenants. Whether a cottage is vested or not, the owner is excluded; I say he is deliberately excluded by the Land Commission. I know that those cottage tenants would be satisfied with five or six acres. I know that the uneconomic holder would be satisfied with ten or 12 acres. Inspectors come down at colossal expense to the taxpayers and take statements. The applicants are told to sit tight and they need not worry. They sit tight too long, the land is divided and they are passed over. All they see is two or three buses arriving from the West of Ireland with migrants, while they cannot get as much as an acre of land. I have no quarrel with the migrants. They are living all round me. They are decent men who work hard but they cannot live on their present uneconomic holdings. Their children have to emigrate so that they can find the money to pay the rates and taxes. Valuations in Meath are not like valuations in the rest of Ireland. There is no free commonage and no free grazing. The rates must be paid on the 22 statute acres; if they are not paid, they must get out. I appeal to the Minister to think twice before he insults the people amongst whom he sends these migrants.

We want justice and fair play and nothing more. If the Fianna Fáil Minister made an Order excluding cottiers from getting plots to provide grazing for their cows, then I would ask the present Minister to revoke that Order and see that justice is done. If he does not he is going to create a problem for himself. He is going to do something that will leave a sour and bitter taste among many of us for long years to come. If there was reason and common sense used in connection with the work of land division, then I suggest the eastern and western Deputies could work hand in hand. They could see that good work was done in the national interest. All we are asking for is fair play and justice.

I would ask the Minister to see that, before any more migrants are brought up to the Midlands, justice is done to the few dozen men in the area who are looking for land. At the present moment there are men who have been herds on estates for 20 and 25 years. The employment they had was their sole means of gaining a livelihood. What is the Land Commission doing for any of them? Are they being given a holding on these estates, a thing to which they are perfectly entitled? They are not. They are being offered £150 to get out lock, stock and barrel, to fend for themselves on that small sum after giving 20 or more years' service on these estates. Are these men supposed to go with their tails between their legs to bow and scrape and to feel lucky that they have not been thrown into jail by the Land Commission? I will not stand for that.

I say that these men, after their long years of service, are fully entitled to a holding. I do not care whether they are married or single. At present they are being shoved out on the roadside. In my opinion, they are fully entitled to a holding. If they do not make good, the holdings can be taken off them after a few years. I say, give them a trial. The present position is that they are turfed out and others are turfed in and planted where these local men should be given an opportunity of making a living for themselves. What use is £150 to any man? But that is all we get in the County Meath, and we are supposed to be contented with it. We are not contented with it.

Another grievance that we have in my county is that the Land Commission spend too much time in the taking over of a holding. There is a holding at Moneymore, Longwood. The land is not good. We have there eight uneconomic holders and two or three cottiers. The man from whom that land is being taken has taken crops of wheat off it three years in succession, so that when it is finally taken over it is going to be nothing more than a dust bowl. How can anyone expect the poor impoverished men who will get ten or 12 acres of it to make good in view of the fact that it is nothing more than, as I have said, a dust bowl? Crops of wheat have been taken off it three years in succession. The guts have been pulled out of that particular farm.

These are things which the Land Commission should be thinking about. In my county it has land set for the last four, five or six years. It has been getting £32 an acre for it for tillage. I say that is a public disgrace. The wheat racketeers from England have been brought in there by the Land Commission. They bring in their tractors, tear up the land, get big crops of wheat from it and then they are off. The result is that the land is left in a condition in which it will produce nothing but scutch, dirt and thistles.

The Land Commission then steps in and divides it amongst the poor fools from Clare and Mayo and expect them to make good on it. Why should the Land Commission try to make money in that way? Their job should be to provide economic holdings for our own people and so enable them to make a living on the land. But no, the Land Commission will not do that. They must do the racketeer with this 11 months' system by setting the land for as long as they can get anyone to take it. I hope that will be stopped immediately. It is not good enough to allow it to happen. I hope the present Minister will take his courage in his hands—that he will be the boss and not the Land Commission. I am satisfied that the Land Commission have been in full control of the Minister. In my opinion he should not be a tool in the hands of these people.

In my county we have many headaches as far as land division is concerned. I am asking the Minister to be a realist this time. I am demanding now that those men who are being denied five or seven acre plots should be provided with a cow plot of 40 or 50 acres in the vicinity of where they live on which they can graze their cows. I say it is nothing short of a public scandal that these men do not get land. At least, in the interests of fair play, they should be given a cow plot. They are fully entitled to that. These cow plots should be provided since the land is there. That should be done before other people are brought in from outside the county. If the answer is given to me that the maps have already been fixed up, then I say let the maps be changed so that those men are given their rights.

Ten or 15 years ago, under the Fianna Fáil régime, there was the case of a man who got a holding. He turned out to be of the type I spoke about earlier. He set the land for years. He got £180 for the building of a house but never built it. The land was set. It was a public disgrace and eventually he was evicted, and I must say rightly so. He made no effort whatever to work the land. The result was that a new man was brought up from the West of Ireland. The land had been on the hands of the Land Commission for three years, but when this man came up a new house was built for him. He came up, let the land and locked the house, and we have never heard of him since. The house is there locked up. Right beside that holding there is another one. The house on it has never been opened during the last 30 years. The rats are running in the front door and out the back door. There are 40 or 50 acres of land going with that house. That is the way the Irish taxpayer's money is being spent.

While that is the case, I can see in my own locality how a poor unfortunate widow, with a small holding of about 22 acres, is being treated by the Land Commission. I see inspector after inspector coming there peeping in through the windows to see if there is a bed in the house. This poor woman is in very bad health herself. She spent 20 years nursing her husband who for years had suffered from paralysis. The inspectors come there to see if they can find any loophole in order to take the land off that poor widow. It is time that that should be stopped. If it is not stopped, I shall keep on exposing it here. I would ask the Minister to face up to these things.

In my opinion the people in East Meath are getting a very raw deal indeed. They are getting nothing at all. Everything is given there to the stranger. In that area they go in extensively for the growing of fruit. They are a good thrifty people and try to make a living from fruit growing. I would ask the Minister, as I asked the last Minister, to make a concession to them by giving them five or ten acres to enable them to enlarge their small holdings. Nothing has been done for them. I would ask the present Minister to reverse the decisions that were taken in these cases by previous Ministers. Fruit growing fits into the Irish economy and those men who are engaged in it should be helped. They grow fruit for the Dublin market. I would ask the Minister to see that they get five or ten acres of land to enable them to put up new plants for the production of fruit. In many cases, the old plants are worn out. The Government should see that justice is done —fair, simple justice.

I would ask the Minister—as I asked before—to realise that North Westmeath from Castletown up to the border of Cavan across to Kells and down almost to Athboy is a terribly congested area. It is just as much congested as Mayo, Sligo or Leitrim. I challenge contradiction on that and the people there are living on bare, barren rocks. The Land Commission say they have combed it out and they cannot do any more although there are many men there in the area who have offered to give up holdings of 20 and 30 acres and get out and go elsewhere and allow their land to be divided. But the Land Commission says, "No, our books are closed."

I think that is a terrible scandal. In the Castletown area, near Navan, in County Meath, where a holding was divided there were so many uneconomic holdings in the vicinity that it would all be eaten up. What was the result? They got two or three, whom they brought in from outside, and planted them there and we public men were ignored. How can we stand over the like of that? We are supposed to be loyal to the country, to the Government, to the people and to the Dáil, but we must voice our grievances, and we have grievances, scores of them. I believe myself that land division should be taken completely out of the hands of the Land Commission. They do not know what they are about. I believe the committee of agriculture and the Minister for Agriculture should have some control over land division. The Land Commission is too complex and too big and too unwieldy, and is not facing up to its tasks as it should. I am not saying that everything done by the Land Commission was wrong. There was plenty of good work done by them, but there is too much wrong being done.

It is the same with vesting. We are told that some counties are completely vested. As far as my County of Meath is concerned there are people who have had holdings for 15 or 20 years and they are not vested yet, and they are expected to stock these holdings with the best of stock and market their produce. But how are they to do it? They cannot go into the banks for £100 unless they have three or four of their strongest neighbours with them, and even then they may be kicked out. They are expected to make good on 20 or 22 acres of land, and it was these people who got the dirty end of it. They got the scutch and the sedge and the rushes, but the high and dry banks were given to the big lordly men from the West. The big men got the big, broad acres surrounding the big house, and they were very glad to be able to go in there and make good, and so they did.

I would ask that the land, when it is divided, be vested after seven years, or even before seven years, to give the owner a chance of proving his title. What is the use of giving a man 22 acres of land and a house and no money and expecting him to make good? Those men are just as poor as anyone in the West of Ireland, and no honest farmer there wants to go to his neighbours to ask them to bail him for £100 or £200, because it is a risk that the neighbours do not like to take, as the man does not own his land. The banks are tough people, and they want to get a hold on any title deeds you have or any insurance policies, and they will make sure that they are well covered.

The poor little devils of farmers as result will not face the door of the bank at all. They know the insult they would get. Then if they set their land in order to make a few pounds for 11 months the inspectors and the touts are down after them asking: "Have you your land set?" What else can the man do but set it when he has no money? I would ask the Minister to see that vesting is carried on as quickly as possible.

I am living on a Land Commission holding myself and when was it vested? Twenty-one years after I got it, and had it not been that I had a little money of my own I might have had to emigrate to England myself to earn a living. The Minister should realise that these people need a little money to work their holdings. Five hundred pounds or £1,000 is nothing to-day when you come to stock a little holding. It is the same as a couple of £5 notes two years ago. You may have to pay £70 for a cow and £80 for a bullock. Are they expected to go to the West of Ireland and buy sheep for £6 or £7 each? They cannot do it.

Before the Land Commission concludes I would ask them to recognise that the Counties of Meath, Westmeath and Dublin are the gateways of the markets for the Irish people and there are no other gateways. It is through these gateways that the cattle and the beef have been going for the past 20 years. The farmers were able to go to the West, to Ballinasloe, to Roscommon, to Longford, to Waterford and all over the country and buy suckling calves and store cattle and feed them and rear them in Meath, export them and bring back money to this country. But if you keep on making 22 or 30-acre scraggy farms you will have County Meath in the same position as the West, and no longer will the Meath farmers be able to go to the West to buy as they did in the past. The farms in Meath should be 70, 60, 50, 40 and 30 acres and nothing under that except for cottage plots. We want to see an improvement in the lives of these people so that the thrifty farmer in the West will again open his eyes as he sees the train puff in when he knows and sees the Meath men are there, because he knows the Westmeath and the Meath men and the Dublin men of old, and he knows that they will sweep out the fairs and get C.I.E. lorries to bring the store cattle, the sheep and the sucking calves and pump them into County Meath and Westmeath to carry on the Irish economy, to sell the beef off the land and bring back the money that is keeping this country going.

The Minister knows that what I say is a fact, and I hope he will not lose sight of this and that when land division is embarked on scores and scores of men will not be brought up and planted down on 22 or 20 acres of land. Those men have the tradition of going across to England to earn their living and sending the money home, but that does not lead to national economy. There is no progress being made and no national outlook. We want to stop that and to stop emigration, and we want to see that when a man is given a holding that he lives on it, works it and rears his family and, if possible, gives employment to at least one man as well, because no man with a holding of 30 acres is doing well unless he has an agricultural worker with him.

These are problems which many other people like me know of, and as the Minister is now taking over for a fairly long term—I believe a ten-year term——

Mr. Blowick

Spare the poor fellows opposite.

Captain Giles

They are sad enough. I do not want to make them any sadder but I believe there can be a ten-year term in front of this Government, and if the Minister does his job as we would like him to do it I think we will have a national economy here of which we can be very proud, with thrifty, manly men living full lives on their farms and giving employment around them. I would ask, when the big estates go on the public market, that the Land Commission should take over these estates in the interests of the people and have them divided and not have the Aga Khan and the Indian princes coming in and buying them up for stud farms. These are stud farms to-day and whitehead bullock ranches to-morrow. Then we are told that they pay 25 per cent. extra if they are coming in, across the water. Very few of them are without associates here. They are as slick a lot of bucks as ever you came across.

Mr. James Tully

Coming as I do from County Meath, I am afraid that I cannot agree with a lot of the things that were said by the first three speakers. Deputy Giles has covered a lot of the points that I will be touching on. When Deputy Maguire was speaking he referred to what are known as migrants and said that they come principally from County Mayo. I do not know whether they come from Mayo or not, but I know where they come to. They come to Meath, both under Deputy Blowick the last time he was Minister, under the Fianna Fáil Minister the previous time, and since. Apparently a lot of people have got the impression that Meath is made up of a number of very big ranches which must be divided between the migrants from the West and that if that is done everybody will be happy. I would like to point out to those who do not seem to realise it that Meath has quite a number of people who are depending for their living on ordinary labouring work with the county council or neighbouring farmers. Some of them also work their small farms and try to eke out an existence on them. When an estate is divided it was the usual practice until some years ago that one or two of the neighbouring farmers would be given holdings on that estate, and the result would be that an economic holding would be established, and after a while a family could be reared there and in turn they would be able to make a living out of it. The position now is that when an estate is divided one qualification a man must have apparently for the Land Commission if he wants to qualify for a farm in County Meath—that he must not be a Meath man.

We have no objection whatever to the migrants who have come to County Meath. The people who have come there have been welcomed and at the present time perhaps they are as much Meath as we are. We treat them as neighbours and find that they are very fine people, but we believe that the position has been abused and that the Land Commission are abusing their authority and their powers. They are dividing farms at the present time and they will give no land at all to local applicants.

Deputy Giles referred to the question of people who were living on farms or working on farms for years but were ruled out for one reason or another when it came to a question of dividing farms. As recently as last week I heard an instance of where a man had been working on a farm for 13½ years but the other day, before the change of Government took place, the farm was given by the Land Commission to a man from County Galway. This estate of approximately 120 acres was given to one man. I agree that 20 and 30 acre farms are not economic even in County Meath where a lot of the land is good, but at the same time I do not think it is correct or fair for the Land Commission to give over 100 acres to one man, whether he comes from Galway or Mayo or Meath. If the farm were divided into 40 or 30-acre farms they would be economic holdings, and if the Land Commission set that as their standard they would be doing very well. I know quite well that we may be told that the Land Commission inspectors who go there have a very difficult job to do and that it is impossible to please everybody, but I am sure I am not asking too much in asking them to please a few. We ask them to take into consideration the rights—and they are rights—of the local applicants, who are as much entitled and as well able to work the farms as the people who come from other counties.

We have another position arising there which was touched on by Deputy Giles, and that is the question of emigration. I know a number of farms in County Meath where there are three or four sons as well as the father in the family. You would imagine that, if an estate was being divided beside them, they would be entitled to share in the division so that they would not have to go and emigrate by being refused a farm beside them given, in preference, to a migrant. Years ago it was a case of fleeing to hell or to Connacht. These people have to flee to England. There is no other place for them, and it surely is galling to them to see a farm right at their doorstep given to people from outside counties and they themselves completely passed over for no other reason than that they happen by accident of birth to be born beside the farm. I do not think that it is fair that that should be continued by the Minister. The system is wrong and it should be changed.

We have another problem, that of employment at home. We find that when migrants come in, rightly so, they come with big families. Those families cannot all find a living on the small farm that they get, and before long they compete with the local labourers for employment. The result is that there is unemployment. Many of them perhaps will get jobs which normally were held by local people, and the result is that unemployment in Meath has grown very much in the last few years. We can blame the Government or anybody you like for it, but it is the policy of the Land Commission which is primarily to blame. If they were more considerate and looked into the interests of the local applicants this position would be avoided.

We have also the question of people who for years have had a cow or two grazing on a local ranch, as we call it. When that ranch is divided it is surely not too much to expect that they would be given a few acres on which to graze their cows, but even very recently we have had instances of those cows being put out on the road by the sheriff's men and the land divided among migrants. I do not think that is Christian or morally right, and this House should not stand for it.

We have another problem, and that is that when the Land Commission takes over a farm they usually divide farms between a number of people, but in one or two instances because the local people have tried to pursue their right they will leave one farm which they will not allocate to anybody. To my own knowledge farms like that have been left for years, and in one or two cases the houses built on those farms will need considerable amounts of repair before they could be made habitable for anybody. Meantime the Land Commission set that particular farm in meadows and we are told that the Land Commission are able to recoup some of the money they pay for the farm by doing that. I do not think that practice should be continued.

There is one question which was mentioned by one or two speakers today—that the pool of land available for unemployment has got smaller. As long as people can come in from other parts on to the big ranches the land available for unemployment is not small. I would have no hesitation whatever in saying in public that, if necessary, the State should take over those farms rather than let them lie idle. There was no justification or excuse for that situation. If that was done not alone would the needs of Meath men be satisfied but the needs of many people in the congested areas of the West and South and North of Ireland could also be satisfied.

I have one other complaint. That is that the Land Commission are too slow when they take over farms. We are told that great bodies move slowly, but I do not think that the Land Commission are such a great body that they should move at this very slow speed they move at. It is a well-known fact that sometimes the Land Commission will wear out the patience of everybody who is an applicant for a farm before they decide to give it. Perhaps it is a good thing at times to go slow but the people should not be kept waiting so long, though many of them have become more or less used to it.

We have had a number of farms in Meath divided over a number of years and the Meath men who have got them have made very good farmers. The suggestion that they do not make good farmers is entirely wrong. There are men in Meath—and I would not entirely agree with Deputy Captain Giles that they are practically all Fianna Fáil supporters—who have got farms and made a bad job of them. Being human that is bound to happen, but the bulk of them are not like that.

I feel that the last right to select applicants for farms should not be given entirely to the Land Commission inspector. There should be some kind of court of appeal from his decision, because no matter how decent, honest or capable the Land Commission inspector may be, the fact that he has given a farm to somebody means that somebody else is disappointed and leaves him open to criticism. Something should be done to avoid that.

We have also, of course, in East Meath, the area where I myself live at the moment, a very fine fruit-growing industry. It is capable of expansion, but I believe that the main reason why it cannot be expanded is that the people interested have not got enough land. We have a lot of land divided where no Meath men got anything at all. I think that the Land Commission were very unwise in doing that. When there was a definite claim a holding of land should have been given, no matter how small, to some of those people who are engaged in the fruit industry. Everybody who finds a living on a farm is somebody taken off the ordinary market, and if they find employment, they do not have to compete with other people also looking for employment. In North Meath particularly a great number of people are living in congested areas. It is not so much that there are so many people living on the land as that the land is bad. In many cases it is worse than any land in the West of Ireland and people cannot make a living on it. It is amazing how they do eke out an existence. If the Land Commission were to investigate the matter they would be satisfied that these people are far more entitled to farms that are within nine or ten miles of them than people who are taken out of their environment.

Deputy Giles referred to the question of wheat ranchers. Where it is supposed that farms are listed by the Land Commission, wise guys go to the owner and take over the land for two or three years, at a very big rent, for the growing of wheat. Anyone who knows anything about farming knows that it is utterly impossible to make a living out of land which has been under wheat without being manured for three or four years. It is no wonder that many of these people have to give up the idea of making a living on such land.

The question of employment by the Land Commission and by the Forestry Division arises on this Estimate. The people I represent, the Federation of Rural Workers, have quite a number of people employed by these Departments. While wages are more or less standardised at county council rates for the area in which they work, we do not agree that it is the correct rate although it is better than the wage they received previously. We do not think that the conditions under which they work are all that might be desired. The officials in charge of the Department should have a different approach to this matter. Five months ago we had occassion to list a number of complaints for consideration by the previous Minister for Lands. It is a very long list. The Minister said that he would go into them very fully. He did so and after a few months gave a reply but the reply he gave had no relation to the questions. That is not the way to handle complaints made by working men. Some machinery should be set up to deal with the question of wages and conditions of employment in the Land Commission and the Forestry Division.

Mr. Hilliard

I want to deal with a few points in connection with the Estimate.

Mr. McQuillan

Is no Deputy going to be allowed to speak except Deputies from Meath?

Acting-Chairman (Mr. Beirne)

I think on proportional representation we are giving fair play to all Parties.

Mr. Hilliard

I am entitled to speak in this House.

Acting-Chairman

Only one Fianna Fáil Deputy has spoken so far. One Independent, one Labour Deputy and one Fine Gael Deputy have spoken.

Mr. McQuillan

I am only referring to the Deputies from Meath.

Acting-Chairman

One Independent has spoken already.

Mr. Hilliard

We have a new Government and a Minister for Lands who held office previously. I would like him to tell the House what the Government policy is in regard to the acquisition and distribution of land. It is a question that has agitated the minds of many Deputies and people outside the House for a long number of years. When Deputy Blowick was Minister for Lands in a previous Government he stated that he intended to speed up as far as he possibly could the policy of migration from the nine congested counties and to pursue as far as he possibly could the acquisition of land in the other counties where land was available in order to secure that end. That is what he stated was the policy of his Government. I presume that that is the policy of the present Government. I have looked over the Minister's statement in introducing this Estimate and, as he has not referred to that matter, I would be glad if, when concluding the debate, he would state as clearly as possible the policy of his Government in this regard. It follows that all the Deputies of his Party and the Parties that support the Government support the policy of the Minister and the Government.

As far as the Land Commission and their inspectors are concerned, they are the people who carry out Government policy as they find it. Government policy is expressed in the Acts that are passed in this House and in whatever directions the Government give under those Acts to the Land Commission.

It is all right to make a plea in this House for local landless men and to suggest that the cottage tenant should be allotted five acres of whatever land is available. So far as this Party were concerned, when they were in office, between 1933 and 1939, they gave land to landless men and they gave five acre plots to cottiers wherever possible and during those years Deputies of the Fine Gael Party attacked that policy viciously and pointed out in this House the use, or misuse, that these people were making of that land. Statements made in this House by responsible Deputies must be noted by the Department concerned, whenever serious criticism of policy is offered. This Party, when they were in office, passed an Act to deprive ill-users of land of land allotted to them.

Internal migration was a policy that was initiated and pursued by the Fianna Fáil Government. The Land Commission, as a result of Government policy, transferred a substantial number of tenants or landowners from the congested districts of North Meath to other areas in County Meath. I know that the reports on those people in the files of the Land Commission show them to be the best possible farmers who occupy Land Commission holdings. I understand that a scheme was in course of preparation to migrate a certain number of people from the Barley Hill district of County Meath to other parts of County Meath to enable the local uneconomic holders in that particular area to benefit from the distribution of the land that would come into the hands of the Land Commission as a result. I hope I will get an assurance from the Minister that whatever the Land Commission is doing in that regard will be continued until the congestion that exists in County Meath is wiped out. I understand that it is a fact that the previous Coalition Government closed down entirely on internal migration, by Government Order.

Mr. Blowick

What?

Mr. Hilliard

I understand that there were six tenants being transferred to other holdings in the County Meath and that a scheme was being prepared by the local Land Commission officials in that regard during the term of the previous Coalition Government and that it was found that the scheme could not be put through because, it was alleged, the previous Coalition Government had closed down on internal migration. I should like to be assured whether or not it is a fact.

Mr. Blowick

There was never any such decision.

Mr. Hilliard

It is a fact, of course, that the people recommended for the transfers did not get the transfers anyway, except in two or three cases. In so far as the displacement of employees from estates acquired by the Land Commission is concerned, and where, under the terms of the Act passed in 1949 or 1950 by the previous Coalition Government, power was taken to pay compensation to such displaced employees, I want to tell the Minister that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction in regard to the administration of that Act and in regard to the amount payable in compensation to displaced herds and others who are offered compensation instead of farms. It is a fact, of course, that the Land Commission are operating under the terms of that Act. The Act gives, as I know, power to the Land Commission to determine the amount of the compensation that shall be payable, but there is no method by which under the Act the amount of compensation is measured. During the course of the passage of the Act through the House, I questioned the Minister on that point and I pointed out that there was no basis or method by which compensation could be measured. I want to tell the Minister and the House now that there is in County Meath a good deal of dissatisfaction in the administration of that particular section of the Act. Many men who could work farms and who are in a position to work them, were offered compensation in lieu thereof. It is a fact, however, that in some cases farms were given to herds or workmen on some estates, and I do not think that any fault could be found with the persons to whom land was given in these cases.

I want to say, in passing, that wherever there is a local uneconomic holder within the statutory distance from an estate about to be divided, the Land Commission always gives him an addition on that estate. That happened during the previous period of office of the present Minister and it happened in the period of office of the Fianna Fáil Administration. To my knowledge, there was not any case of an uneconomic holder genuinely working his holding and living within the statutory distance who was refused an addition on an estate that was being divided. I want to put it to the Minister also that I believe that, before uneconomic holders from the nine congested counties or from other areas are accommodated in County Meath or in the Midlands with new farms in furtherance of the policy of bringing their holdings up to an economic standard or as near as possible to it, I think it would be a good thing from every point of view to see that uneconomic holders in areas like County Meath or Westmeath would be accommodated in the same way, whether or not their holdings are within the statutory distance of the estates that are about to be divided. The numbers who live on uneconomic holdings in these areas would be small, but I think that they should be accommodated either by transfer or by additions to their holdings, even though the additions might be over the statutory distance from where they live. I know, of course, that it is hard to work a holding when the distance between two portions of it is too great.

I know that in this debate I could deal with the question of Land Commission roads, Land Commission houses and other incidental matters, but I think it is not the fault of the Land Commission themselves or of their engineers that these jobs were not done in these cases as they might have been. I know that in some cases contractors who built houses may not have done the job as well as it should have been done, and that the Land Commission take the necessary steps to see that the contractors are compelled to carry out the alterations or extra work necessary. Recently I was in a house myself built by the Land Commission for a migrant and I must say that the work was deplorable. I brought the matter to the notice of the Minister and I know that the matter will be investigated. I have done a certain amount of it myself and I know that the contractor has not got his full payment. I quite believe that proper action will be taken, but I feel that when it comes to the building of a house by the Land Commission, or by any other authority for that matter, that the defects should be detected before the building is completed and that proper action should be taken then.

Mr. McQuillan

The type of speech which we have heard from two Deputies from County Meath, Deputy Giles and Deputy Tully, must make the Land Commission feel very satisfied with themselves, because here we have a clash of Deputies representing congested areas in the West and Deputies in the Midlands who wish to obstruct the migration scheme of the Land Commission, for the very natural reason that they wish to see, first of all, local people in their own constituencies satisfied with regard to land division. Whenever the Land Commission find that there is a dispute in any locality, the first thing they do is to sit down and wait until that dispute is forgotten or dies out. When they see a conflict in this House between members in the House with regard to the policy of the Land Commission, is it not easy to understand the reason why for the past 30 years so little has been done to solve the main problem for the solution of which the Land Commission was set up, namely, the ending of congestion and the creation of as many economic holdings as possible in this country?

The first few words I have to say on this Estimate deal in a general way on a national basis with the problem which confronts us. I am not concerned particularly with regard to the local needs of the Meath man who lives on ten or 20 acres, or the congest in the West of Ireland. I want to say that I believe that until we get an agreed policy on this whole question Ministers may come and Ministers may go, but the policy that is there will go on for ever. The present Minister had experience for three years of the Department of Lands. I look on that three years' period as his apprenticeship period. He is now fully fledged and he knows what he wants to do. He has had, as I say, three years' experience and he has the Ministry back again. I wish him luck, and I hope that he will prove successful.

He is a man who comes from an area where people find it very hard to exist on the holdings they have. He is a man who understands rural Ireland and I hope he will have the courage and the strength to take these very necessary steps with the Land Commission that will enable the major problems to be solved within a period of, say, ten years.

Deputy Ben Maguire pointed out that the Land Commission gave figures and statistics and that people were bewildered by them and thought that a lot had been accomplished. Naturally in this House we have to listen to statistics and figures and the Land Commission are anxious to prove that they have done trojan work over the years in the solving of congestion. I believe there is only one way to show up the Land Commission and to prove that the figures they have given do not give us the real over-all picture. I think it will be agreed by the Minister and by Deputies that an economic holding must be at least £12 valuation, that that is the very minimum. Now, let us bear that in mind and listen to these figures. On the 5th February, 1953, I asked a question in this House in connection with the number of holdings in the country and I asked for a breakdown of those holdings. The figures given to me in 1953 were the figures that were available—the last date was June, 1951. At that date there were 379,123 holdings in the country. Of that number, 163,169 were in the five counties of Connacht and in Kerry, Clare and Donegal. That is nearly half the total number of holdings, situated in eight counties. In the same eight counties, that is, in congested areas, we had on that date 55,200 holdings under £4 valuation; we had 51,800 more over £5 and under £10. That is to say, we had a grand total of 107,000 under £10 valuation in Connacht and in Kerry, Clare and Donegal.

We go a little further, taking the rest of the country into consideration. The total number of holdings in the whole country, under £4 valuation, reached 124,500. We had another 85,300 over £4 and under £10. To clear away all the figures again, the total number of holdings on that date was 379,123 and of that total 209,800 were under £10 valuation. It is admitted that no holding can be considered to be economic, to my knowledge, with the Land Commission unless it is at least £12 valuation and maybe good deal more. That is to say, we have two-thirds of the holdings in the country to-day under £10 valuation. We have had 30 years of native Government, we have had different Governments and different Ministers and each Minister comes in here in turn to tell us on his annual Estimate the great work that has been accomplished in the previous 12 months.

Deputy Ben Maguire spoke very clearly about the conditions that exist in the West of Ireland and I have no intention of following in his footsteps or repeating the arguments put up by him. I am five years in this House now and every year when this Estimate comes up I am sick and tired impressing on whatever Minister is in office the need to get after the Land Commission and try to solve these problems. We hear talk from Ministers and ex-Ministers that the pool of land available for the relief of congestion is becoming exhausted. I heard the ex-Taoiseach on that here, when he rambled for hours on the land problem. If the Minister puts this knowledge into his mind, that wherever there is one acre of land available for purchase by an alien there is one acre available for the relief of congestion and if he takes that as his starting off point, he can remedy congestion and bring most of the holdings up to an economic level. We must have a complete close down on the purchase of land by aliens. What I say here are facts. There are men to-day retired from the service of the Land Commission who have publicly declared, men whose word can be trusted, that in a few years over 100,000 acres of the finest land in the Midlands had passed into the hands of aliens and no Government did anything about it. We have had Ministers for Finance of different Governments coming into the House and, mar dheadh, putting a purchase tax on land to prevent aliens coming in.

How many would that prevent? How many different combines came in in the last ten years and purchased big farms? On how many occasions have I and other Deputies tried to extract from the Minister the exact figures as to the amount of land that has passed into the hands of aliens—and we cannot get the figures? The reason I am saying this is that I want the Minister to be successful in his office and what I am saying here now is for the purpose of strengthening the Minister's hand. If the Minister in the future shows promise and takes the right steps, he need not worry as far as I am concerned, as he will have my support and the criticism that I will levy will be as constructive as I can possibly make it.

In the course of Deputy Tully's remarks he mentioned that a migrant from Galway or elsewhere was given 120 or 130 acres of land in County Meath. The position there is quite clear, that that man gave up land to a similar valuation probably in the county from which he came, and the land in County Galway was used then to relieve congestion in that locality. It is an admitted fact that if you can rearrange holdings in the area where the tenants live, leave them in their own surroundings, leave them amongst the people they know and live with, they will be better off and they will work better and make a success of the holdings they have. But it is a much more economic proposition, when the question of moving people is brought in, if you can move one man and fix up seven in that area. It is more economic to move him to Kildare than move seven families. I see nothing wrong with moving a man from Galway to Meath if by removing him from his former locality we are able to fix up six or seven with economic holdings.

Deputy Derrig spoke in glowing terms of the work achieved by the Land Commission and he said—I am subject to correction in this—that over £1,500,000 had been spent on improvements in the last three years; that £1,500,000, in terms of money at the present time, was a tremendous sum. I think that we must take into consideration a Government—I am not criticising any Government in particular—prepared with a stroke of the pen to spend £600,000 on an air strip in Baldonnel, or £4,000,000 or whatever it is over a period of years on Dublin Castle; and other sums on the Bray road and on bus stations. I am not criticising that expenditure, but then we have people coming along and criticising the expenditure of £1,500,000 on land improvements and suggesting: "Now, you should be quite happy in the West and in the congested areas; there is £1,500,000 for you to spend on housing and roads and land improvements and that is enough for you." That will not satisfy the people in the West. They are only asking for their rights. The day of raising the hat has, I hope, disappeared in this country, as also the day of bending the knee.

I know that Deputy Blowick means well. However, when we talk about our key industry — agriculture — we should always bear in mind that the key to successful agriculture lies, to a great extent, in the hands of the Minister for Lands. There is no point in talking in the West about the expansion of agriculture if the holdings of the people are uneconomic. There is no use in talking to the man with a valuation of £6 and telling him that, by using more fertilisers, he will be able to keep another bullock along with the one which he has already. That will not give the man a living. An extra bullock will not provide such an increase in his income as will enable him to rear a family. While the land settlement problem continues, alternative methods must be made use of by the Minister and his Department to provide these uneconomic holders with a living. In that regard, I will reserve what I have to say until the next Estimate which, I assume, will be in relation to the Forestry Division.

I wish the Minister well in his Department. I hope that, when he has had time to make a thorough reexamination of the affairs of his Department—after his three years' former experience as a Minister and after the rest which he has had between then and his resuming office now—he will embark with renewed vigour on a policy that will give the people living in these congested areas the confidence that, at long last, there is hope around the corner for them.

Mr. Donegan

As a result of the existence of a natural economy for many centuries in this country, there is no more pressing need than the division of land in rural Ireland. As the efforts of the Minister will be to give Irishmen and Irishwomen their proper place in an Irish economy, I would ask that he should also consider the proper place of our farm to be divided, or being considered for division, in an Irish economy.

Every factory must have a finishing shop, and, in these first remarks of mine, I want to direct attention to a certain type of farm which is mainly to be found in County Meath and County Kildare. On the 1st July next, we are changing over in our cattle trade to the production of fat cattle, as distinct from the production of store cattle, for export to Britain. During the war, the British farmer got a subsidy if he kept the cattle for three months. From the 1st July next, that position will no longer exist and, as a result, we may look forward to the resurgence of the fat cattle trade and a certain decline in the store cattle trade.

There are farms in County Meath and County Kildare that are finishing shops. I would ask the Minister to consider, when these farms are being considered for division, whether their place in the economy of Ireland is to feed for three months a bullock that has been fed, by Irish hands, on Irish cereals and Irish roots for the preceding two and a half years or whether that farm should be in the shape of ten smaller farms. In my view, there are certain farms which should be kept in their entirety for this purpose and I think that that need will be emphasised within the next few months by the trend of the cattle trade. I ask the Minister to consider this matter deeply.

With regard to the compulsory acquisition of land, I believe that if a plebiscite were taken of the people who received holdings on any single large estate, and if they could say whether they would prefer to do without the land or to take it when it had been compulsorily acquired from an Irish national, they would indicate that they would prefer to do without it. I hold and believe that the freedom of Ireland is bound up not only in the men and women of Ireland but also in the land of Ireland, as is proved by the fact that every man who fought for Ireland fought for the land. Therefore, I would say that if the Minister would consider very deeply whether or not he should compulsorily acquire land he would be doing the right thing because the compulsory acquisition of land is a very powerful weapon or instrument in the hands of the Land Commission.

Like Deputy Giles, I know of a certain widow of very small means and holding whose land was examined with a view to division because she was not working it. That lady could not work her land. If the Land Commission acquires it, she will receive only a few hundred pounds—certainly not more than £1,500. However, if her land is left to her, she will derive from it a small pittance which, together with the results of her own industry in the way of poultry production and so forth. will enable her to live the rest of her life in peace and comfort on her holding. Therefore, I would suggest that the compulsory acquisition of land should be embarked upon only in the last resort and that the Minister should consider looking for land where land is offered rather than where it is not wished by the owner that his land should be divided.

I believe that land division is necessary but, like Deputy Giles and other Meath Deputies, I would ask that the claims of the local people be considered sympathetically when land is being divided in Leinster. These local people have just as strong a claim as the people in the West. They also are land hungry and have uneconomic holdings and, even if there is not quite as much congestion, I think an uneconomic holding in Leinster is exactly the same as an uneconomic holding in the West, even if the man in Leinster has not five or six neighbours in a similar uneconomic condition. For these reasons, I would ask the Minister to consider these farms which are finishing shops and also to consider the need of the people in Leinster who are land hungry.

Mr. Blowick

Deputies will understand that I had nothing to do with the framing of this Estimate: it was framed long before the general election. Nevertheless, I think it is only fair to reply to some of the points that have been made during the course of this debate. It seems to me that there is a good deal of misunderstanding regarding the work of the Land Commission despite explanations that have been given by myself from 1948 to 1951, and by my successor in the last Government. If I repeat some of these explanations now, I hope that they will stay longer in the minds of some of the Deputies than would seem to have been the case in the past.

Some of the Meath Deputies seem to think that there is a constant stream of people from County Mayo up to County Meath. Mayo has got only its normal quota, when we consider the number of holdings in it, of migrants' holdings all down through the years. For the past three years Deputy Derrig was Minister for Lands, and for the preceding three and a half years I was the Minister for Lands. Going backwards, from 1948 to 1944 Deputy Moylan was the Minister for Lands, and before that again we had Deputy Derrig, Deputy Boland, Deputy Aiken, Deputy Ruttledge—and I do not know how many more. It is true that County Mayo seems to figure high, no matter where the Minister comes from, in the number of migrants' holdings. The reason is quite plain. Mayo was one of the most congested counties even if we go back to the Congested Districts Board days. The second reason is that it is a very big county. If not the third, it is the fourth largest county. Even yet I am sorry to say that we still have in Mayo the highest percentage of holdings under £10 valuation in the Twenty-Six Counties.

I want to tell Deputies that, regardless of where the Minister for Lands comes from, if the Land Commission are to give a fair quota of their attention in the relieving of congestion to every county, the stream of migrants from Mayo for some years to come will still be larger than from any other county. That is partly due to the fact that there is a high number of congested townlands in the county. It is also due greatly to the fact that there are no big farms in Mayo to relieve congestion internally. The few that were there were taken up by the Congested Districts Board long before this State was established. The result is that in relieving congestion in Mayo the Land Commission must take into consideration moving migrants out of it. That does not apply so much to Galway, Roscommon, Kerry, Clare, Donegal or any other of the congested counties. They have a number of large farms which may be acquired by the Land Commission and a great deal of congestion can be relieved internally, so to speak.

I hope that explanation will satisfy Deputies. These are the facts, anyhow. If Deputies think that is not the case, I will be only too glad, if they table parliamentary questions to elicit that or any other information, to give the figures, or the Minister for Agriculture may also have certain figures at his disposal that may perhaps settle the minds of Deputies. It would appear, from what both Deputy Giles and Deputy Maguire stated, that Mayo is getting more than its fair share of migrants' holdings outside the County of Mayo. That is a charge that I resent very much. As a matter of fact, Deputy Moran, my colleague from South Mayo, during the three and a half years I was Minister before, always accused me of the very opposite—that I was attending to every other county more than I should and that I was neglecting my own County of Mayo. However, facts speak for themselves, and I hope the facts I have given will help to ease the minds of Deputies who think that there is something unfair going on behind the scenes.

County Meath Deputies seem to think that the Land Commission are determined to give no land to Meath people. If I give them some figures I hope it will help to disabuse their minds of that. Seventy-five per cent. of the total land that has been acquired for the relief of congestion in County Meath since the passing of the 1923 Act has been given to Meath allottees.

I hope that will not come as too great a shock to Deputy Giles. It may surprise some Deputies also to know that all down through the years, during the Cumann na nGaedheal time, the Fianna Fáil time, the inter-Party time, and the Fianna Fáil time again, 90 migrants from congested areas in North Meath were given holdings in South and East Meath. I hope these figures will put an end to the talk that I have heard here and that was levelled against me when I was Minister before in the previous inter-Party Government along the lines that people from Meath do not get any land. As I say, 75 per cent. of the total land acquired by the Land Commission was given to Meath people and only 25 per cent. to migrants from outside.

The Land Commission have been scrupulously careful, not alone in Meath but in every other county, as far as I can learn, always to consider the needs of local congests when a farm was about to be divided. That is as true of Donegal and Kerry as it is of Mayo and Meath.

I think it is only fair to the commissioners and to the Minister to say that I absolutely disclaim any responsibility for what the commissioners do as these things were taken out of the hands of the Minister for Lands by an Act of this House and given exclusively to the commissioners to do. It is laid down very clearly in the 1933 Act and again in the 1950 Act that certain things were taken from the Minister and given exclusively to the commissioners. We must remember that the Land Commissioners in carrying out certain duties are a court and they should be free from political influence or influence of any kind. They are free from it. But I refuse to accept responsibility for anything that the commissioners do. That is not saying by any means that the commissioners are doing reckless or irresponsible things. It is altogether wrong for Deputies to come here and charge the Minister with having done something wrong when in reality the commissioners have taken a decision after very careful consideration of all the facts. We do not hear during the debate on the Department of Finance that the Civil Service Commissioners have done something wrong in the particular selections they make for filling Civil Service posts. There may be 60 applicants and only six vacancies. We do not hear the charge that the Civil Service Commissioners act unfairly or that they do something either reckless or irresponsible when they pick six particular applicants and the other 54 applicants have to go. We do not hear any dissatisfaction being expressed.

Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted and 20 Deputies being present,

Mr. Blowick

As I was saying, I cannot accept responsibility for these matters that have been handed over by this House, and rightly so, to the commissioners. If Deputies understood the work of the Land Commission a little bit more they might not be so quick in saying that the commissioners have acted wrongly in their decisions.

It may seem to us sometimes that their decisions are a little bit strange. Nevertheless, in all the long history of the different commissioners who are coming and going, not once has there been a charge of unfair treatment of a particular applicant or a charge of discrimination brought against the commissioners.

Deputy Hilliard mentioned that some six migrants were stopped by an Order of the previous inter-Party Government. There was never any such Order made by the inter-Party Government or the Fianna Fáil Government or the Cumann na nGaedheal Government. I do not know where the Deputy got that from because there was never such an Order. I am sure Deputy Hilliard is aware that the selection of allottees is entirely a matter for the commissioners, through their inspectors on the spot, and, if some six proposed migrants were to be changed, the Minister has no power good, bad or indifferent to stop it. I do not think even if the Minister made such an Order as the Deputy says he did, it would bind the commissioners. I think such an Order would be completely an overriding of Section 12 of the 1950 Act, and would not be legal. I do not believe they could act on such an Order, but the Deputy can take my assurance that neither by me nor any other Minister has any such Order been made.

How would it work if made? No Minister could make an Order like that which would apply to County Meath and not to other counties. A great deal of the migration in many counties in the West is within the counties themselves, and if such an Order were made for Meath, it would have to apply to the whole country, and all internal movement so far as the Land Commission is concerned would have to come to a full stop in every county there and then.

For the benefit of new Deputies, the selection of allottees, the particular lands to be acquired and the determination of the price of land are all matters deliberately taken away by statute from the Minister and given exclusively as functions to the commissioners and to the commissioners only. With that I fully agree and during the passage of the 1950 Act I gave my views on that subject, views which, I think, were fairly strong. I have no doubt whatever about the situation that would arise if these things were taken back again and given into the Minister's hands.

Deputy Derrig seemed to think that the 7,500 Congested Districts Board holdings not yet vested are mostly in the West. I think I am safe in saying that most of the 19,000 unvested holding—a great proportion of them—are still in the western counties because that technical term within the Department, Congested Districts Board holdings, refers to the holdings that stood on estates which were purchased by the Congested Districts Board prior to the 1923 Act, but a vast number of estates in these western counties were purchased under the 1923 Act and a large proportion of the 19,000 unvested 1923 Act holdings must lie there. I have not got the exact figures, but a large proportion must be there because a great portion of the area was still unpurchased at the time of the passing of the 1923 Act.

Deputy Maguire says that a lot of the acquired land is poor or waste land. A certain proportion of practically every farm in the country is waste of a kind, and when the Land Commission takes over a farm they have no option but to take the bad with the good. Surely it is not proposed that, when the Land Commission take over land or propose to acquire a farm compulsorily, they should take the good land and leave the bad. They must take the whole lot and the result is that when it comes to giving out that land, it is not so easy to dispose of the bad as it is the good land, which often means that a certain sizeable acreage of poor land is left on the hands of the Land Commiss because the allottees are not too anxious to take it. No one can blame them for that; it is one of the things that happen in the work of the Land Commission.

Deputy Maguire also mentioned fences. Personally, I am completely opposed to the old sod fence, and Deputy Maguire is right when he says that it is not a fence. It is not, because, from the day it is finished, it is crumbling and spreading and is an invitation to cattle, and particularly horned cattle, to poke at it in dry weather and pull it down. Apart from that, it makes a perfect home for rabbits, rats and other pests. I would much rather see a wire and paling fence take its place, even for external boundaries. When I was Minister previously, I definitely discouraged the use of sod banks, as we call them, as much as possible. If I mistake not, the Department of Agriculture, in relation to the land rehabilitation project, give grants for the knocking down, by bulldozing, of these fences and their replacement by wire and paling fences. That is all to the good. While there is a certain amount of argument in favour of the sod bank for shelter purposes and for the sowing of quickset hedges under them, it has definite disadvantages, one of which is that in the making of it a great deal of useful land is stripped and rendered useless. The width of these banks is six feet, so that they take up six feet of useful ground. They do not make a good fence and they provide a shelter for pests and I am totally opposed to them. I will see what can be done about the matter later.

Deputies asked what is the policy of the Department. The policy of this Government, as regards relieving congestion, is unchanged. It can be stated very briefly—to push on as hard as possible with the relieving of congestion. That about sums it up. The vesting of holdings is taking place, and, as I said in my opening speech, the number is down to a hard core of about 19,000 holdings, most of which must be improved in one way or another before they can be finally vested. The huge lump of unvested holdings which came on hands as a result of the passage of the 1923 Act has been gradually thinned down over the past six or seven years to a surprisingly small number, so much so that some counties are now completely vested and only where congestion still arises and holdings are small, scattered, rundale or intermixed, there exist these 19,000 unvested 1923 Act holdings and approximately 7,500 Congested Districts Board holdings. Until these have been improved, we cannot say that the work is finished, and the policy can be described as pushing on with the relief of congestion as hard as possible.

There is one last thing I want to say, and I have said it on previous occasions. Some Deputies appear to be dissatisfied with the slowness of Land Commission work. We must remember that the rights of private ownership cut across the work of the Land Commission very much. When I say they cut across the work of the Land Commission, I do not mean to suggest that I object to it, because I am proud to see the farmers of this country standing up for their right which Michael Davitt and his colleagues of long ago fought for and got for them—the right to own the land of this country. When the Land Commission moves in to tear a man by his roots out of his farm or holding, every single one of them contests it to the last ditch with the Land Commission. At present, and for some months past, the Land Commission are being brought up in the High Court or the Supreme Court in this connection, and we are awaiting a decision on a certain case there.

All that means slow going for the Land Commission, that is, unless we adopt something which could be described as a Communist tendency, and proceed to grab farms, right, left and centre from everybody. We have either to respect the rights of private ownership and allow the Land Commission, even though it is a State body, to dispossess a man of his property according to law, or to disregard all law and grab, left right and centre, as a certain country in Eastern Europe has done. I do not advocate the latter course, because I am one of those who have very great respect for the rights of private ownership, and it sometimes puzzles me how responsible Deputies can go so very close to the border-line of danger in advocating speed. I want to see as much speed as anybody, and sometimes the slowness entailed by the processes of law irritates me somewhat, but nevertheless, I would not by any means advocate speeding up the work of the Land Commission at the expense of a lessening of the rights of private ownership of a single individual in the country.

Mr. McQuillan

What about the aliens who came in here and bought land? What rights have they with regard to acquisition?

Minister for Defence (General MacEoin)

Private ownership.

Mr. Blowick

The aliens who bought land are protected under an Act of 1935.

Mr. McQuillan

There is quite a number in Deputy MacEoin's constituency.

General MacEoin

I hope they voted for me, too. Joe Timmony said they did.

Mr. Kennedy

Wait until the Mayo people keep up to me.

Question put and agreed to.