Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 23 Nov 1955

Vol. 153 No. 7

Private Members' Business. - Allotment of Holdings—Motion.

Mr. James Tully

I move:—

That Dáil Eireann is dissatisfied at the present system adopted by the Land Commission with regard to the allotment of holdings; and that it is of the opinion that the following matters should receive prior consideration in the division of land:

(a) the provision of a cow-plot where such is necessary, (b) the enlarging of uneconomic holdings within five miles of the land to be divided, (c) the provision of holdings for landless men who are living within five miles of the land to be divided and who are in a position to work the land, and (d) the provision of holdings for landless men requiring accommodation plots.

Unlike the previous motion, this is a subject upon which I claim to know a good deal. This deals with the question of land division and the method in which it is handled by the Land Commission under this and previous Governments is something which has drawn comment from people all over the country, and very adverse comment from people in counties such as the one I represent, where there is quite a lot of land to be divided, a number of people in need of land and very, very few getting it.

Back before this State was founded, land division was carried out, and up to 1939 landless men and uneconomic holders living alongside farms being divided were given a fair proportion of such land. Since 1939 onwards the pattern has changed completely; and the position now in counties such as Meath has forced both Deputy Desmond and myself to put down this motion for discussion here.

The Land Commission gives as an excuse for refusing to provide cow-plots in areas where land is being divided that way back in the days of the economic war cow-plots which were held under the Land Commission were returned to them because there was not enough stock. I do not think anybody would be foolish enough to accept that as a reason why cow-plots should not be given now. It may be a good excuse and a face-saver for the Land Commission but it certainly does not constitute a sound reason. Over the last few years, particularly since the war, we have had a large number of estates divided in County Meath. On many of those estates there were working men who had a cow or two, or possibly some young stock, grazing. Is it not very galling for them to find that when the Land Commission acquires and divides these estates not alone do the people who grazed cows on the land get no holding for them selves but they are deprived of the right even to a cow-plot on which they could enjoy the same privileges they enjoyed under the former landlords? I think this is a matter which the Land Commission cannot side-step, no matter what answer they may give. Where an estate is being divided and where people have formerly grazed cows and kept themselves and their families in milk and butter there is no room for refusal to the request that a cow-plot should be established for them.

I have raised this question here on numerous occasions. I have raised it privately with the Minister. He has always been very courteous. So have his officials. I would prefer a little more sincerity; and I do not think they are sincere. When I am told, here or elsewhere, that a matter will receive consideration, it should receive consideration. A mere excuse in order to get rid of me is not the way to treat people who need to have their representations dealt with. That is not the way to deal with men who are genuinely entitled to a very simple right, namely, the right to graze their cows on a cow-plot, the grass of which they are prepared to pay for and which the Land Commission is in a position to provide without any hardship on anybody.

I appeal to the Minister now to ensure that in the future division of land, where there is a genuine demand for a cow-plot that demand shall be acceded to. I have had experience over the last 12 or 18 months of people who at one time had a cow providing them with milk and butter. I met one farm worker recently who assured me that he considered the milk of a cow worth 30/- a week to him. He is deprived of that 30/- because the Land Commission decided when they acquired the farm that he was not entitled to any portion of it or to a cow-plot. He sold his cow, as did many others in County Meath, and when the Land Commission inspector visited the area later to find out if the demand existed the Land Commission was told, and so was the Minister, and it was he who told me, that the people concerned had no cows. Where did they expect the cows would be fed if they insisted on dividing the only farm on which the cows could be fed and failed to provide alternative feeding for them?

I come then to the other question of the enlargement of uneconomic holdings within five miles of the land to be divided. At the moment the arrangement is that holdings within a mile or a mile and a half can be enlarged. The Land Commission inspectors when they visit the area in which the farm is being divided very wisely visit all the uneconomic holders. They do not promise anything, but they visit and take full particulars and they leave everybody with high hopes that he will be looked after. But when the farm is actually in process of being divided, these people find they are left out.

Again, a very foolish excuse is put up by the Land Commission for failing to give land to these uneconomic holders. They state that if a farmer, who has two, three, five or ten acres of land, is not living entirely on the proceeds of that farm he is not entitled to be called an uneconomic holder. Because he has a wife and family to support and cannot make a living off the land he is compelled to seek work elsewhere until such time as he gets a farm big enough on which to live; but, if he does that, he is barred by the Land Commission; they say he is not an uneconomic holder; that he is working for a living. But that only applies in County Meath, and elsewhere, when a farm is being divided. Why should not the same slide rule apply there as applies, say, in the West of Ireland when somebody is being transferred and given a farm? I want to make it very clear that I have no objection whatever to the people from the West or the South of Ireland or anywhere else in Ireland getting an allocation of land. They are Irishmen the same as we are but I do object to giving them land in preference to people who have been born and reared beside these holdings and who are better able to work the land than the people who are brought in.

We hear a great deal of talk about bringing back the people who were banished out of Leinster and Meath by Cromwell. It is about time a little consideration was given to the people who did not go when Cromwell told them and who held their ground. They are being passed over and being treated even in a worse manner than Cromwell treated their forefathers. It is about time we woke up to the fact that all the people who have been living there were not planters. The impression is being given in some quarters that the only people who are living in the Midlands, particularly in places like Meath, are planters who were brought in there, that all the Irishmen left and were put over to Connacht. That is not true, as we know quite well. We also know that the real planters who hold estates there are protected by every device of the law to prevent the Land Commission from taking over those estates, giving them to the people who need them and taking them from the people who are not working them. At the present time, the regulation says: "within a mile or a mile and a half of the farm". I suggest that in this Bill that should be altered to five miles. Now that we hear so much about the parish plan, there is no reason why people from one end of a parish should not be entitled to a portion of land on a farm that is being divided at the other end. At the present time they are being ruled out. If it is right to bring people 100 or 150 miles to a farm, is there any reason why they should not be brought four or five miles?

We hear very often the suggestion that those Meath people who are looking for farms in Meath are not so badly off at all, that the people in the West and South are much worse off. Anybody who lives among the small farmers and the workers of County Meath, particularly of North Meath, would realise the position they are in. I do not think anybody in this House or outside it can contradict me when I say that nobody has a harder struggle to exist than these small farmers, the workers and labourers in North Meath. They have been passed over with very few exceptions by successive Governments; the Land Commission acting under this Government has been no different from the Land Commission acting under the previous Government and the Government that went before that.

It is time the position should be reversed. I do not know whether everybody in this House realises that there was a sudden change in the policy of the Land Commission around 1939 as regards the allocation of lands to landless men and to local smallholders. Up to that time it was the usual practice that they would receive land when division was taking place and I am prepared to admit that quite a number of those who got land at that time were not the right type. For that reason maybe they did not make as good a use of the land as they might have. But I do not think that gives any reason to the Land Commission and to Deputies to state that Meath men are not able to work land, are not prepared to work it, and that therefore it should not be given to them. The statement was made here on the debate on the Land Commission that, in short, Meath men were a lot of wasters and that to give them land was a pure waste. I think it is a greater waste to deny land to men who are able and willing to work it, who know how to work the land since they came to the use of reason and have been on it all their lives, men who do not require houses to be built for them and who have houses of their own in the area.

I do not see any reason why the Land Commission should go to the trouble and expense of building houses to bring outsiders in there who will not make as good a job of it as the natives. The natives are prepared to take the land as it is. They do not require the sop of a horse, a plough or anything else which is given to migrants who are brought in. All they want is the land. They are prepared to work it and to pay for it; yet they are passed over. The reason they are passed over is that around 1939 there was a very lamentable disaster at a place called Kirkintillock, where a number of people from the West of Ireland who were employed as "taty hookers" were unfortunately killed as a result of being housed in an old bothy. The Government of the day decided that something would have to be done to prevent these people from going over and taking these hazards. They set up a commission to investigate the matter and the recommendation in the report of the commission was that they should be kept at home. The first thing to do would be to cut down on the giving of the land to the people of County Meath, bring these people over and save them from the anxiety of going abroad by putting them into the farms in Meath which had previously been going to the Meath men and which, in my opinion, should still be going to them.

Did that arrangement have the desired result? Of course, it had not. At the present time, emigration from the West has not stopped and emigration from the Midlands has increased. I challenge contradiction on this, that for every migrant family put into County Meath a similar number of persons must leave on the emigrant ship. There are not enough jobs to go round for the young people in County Meath any more than in any other county in Ireland. When these people come in with their families, they are competing for the jobs formerly held by the young Meath men and women. It is my personal experience that, according as they come into an area, a proportion of the local people must of necessity move out. I do not think that was ever the intention of the Government who got this great idea of saving the people of the West from dying in bothy disasters in Scotland and I hope it will not take a similar disaster in which the Meath people will be involved to get the Government to change that policy and give fair play to the Meath men.

It is not just a question of trying to grab everything for the one type of people. I believe in common justice. The people in the areas around the farms are entitled to be considered. We have instances, particularly over the last couple of years, of men who have been all their lives working on farms and possibly have a couple of acres of their own, having worked at herding or been a labourer on a farm or done other jobs. When that farm is divided we find the Land Commission offering them £120, £130 or £150, and they think they are doing well by offering them that sum. At the same time the Land Commission officials and the Minister for Lands know well that that £150 would only be the value of one or two acres of the farm being divided. They will not offer one or two acres because they know that will be too small an amount to offer but they will offer them the equivalent in cash. I do not think it is right and in justice it should not be done.

I gave instances to the House and to the Minister in this regard. I know of cases where men, even Old I.R.A. men, who were prepared when they were needed to go out and fight for their country, were passed over and when the time came were offered a small sum of money. In one case a man was offered such a small sum that all he could do with it was to buy a caravan in which he is now living. He is an Old I.R.A. man with a disability pension from the present Government. I do not think that that is the way in which they should have been treated. It is the responsibility and duty of the Government to see to it that instructions are given to the Land Commission. The Land Commission claim to be an autonomous body: I am glad to say that they are above politics; but the Government should insist that they treat fairly the people who live in the areas beside the farms that are being divided.

The third provision is that landless men living within five miles of the farm to be divided should be given a holding. In the county from which I come, there are a very big number of men, some of them farmers' sons, some of them farm labourers, some of them county council road workers, all of them with a knowledge of farming who have worked on farms, and who are completely excluded from receiving a portion of land if land is being divided in the area. We were told here on several occasions that there is no law preventing these people from getting land. It is simply a provision made by the Land Commission which excludes them. It is simply something which the Land Commission and the Minister for Lands decided to lay down. The peculiar thing about it is that while in Meath they are not given a holding, in other counties, where land is being divided, farms are given to such people. The records of the Land Commission will prove that that is so. I do not think it is fair that there should be this discrimination and I would appeal to the Minister for Lands to see to it that where landless men are in a position to work land— many of them have by their own hard work acquired enough capital to work a holding—they should be given a chance, even given a trial period and if the Land Commission are not satisfied then the land could be taken from them.

I maintain that there is more congestion, if congestion comes into the matter where there are 100 labourers, farmers' sons, in a parish who are landless and who are in a position to work land, who have no other means of earning a livelihood and who must emigrate if the land is taken from them than there is in the West or South or anywhere else where the people have small farms. At least, these people are eking out an existence and seem to be quite happy in it. The landless man who has nothing before him but emigration cannot by any stretch of the imagination be considered to be in a happy position. That position should not continue. A stroke of the pen by the Minister for Lands would alter it and I would appeal to him to see that it is altered.

There is, finally, the provision of holdings for landless men requiring accommodation plots. I have referred to men who were in a position to work farms. Now I am referring to men who are not in a position to work farms, but who, if they had five acres, as was previously given by the Fianna Fáil Government up to 1939, would be able to get potatoes and crops for themselves and, possibly, to keep a cow and to have grass or hay for the cow on those five acres. There is no reason in the world why they should not be given it except that the authorities have decided against it. As I said in the previous connection, that applies in Meath but not in other counties. It has been given elsewhere. Why cannot it be given in Meath?

I honestly believe that if we are in earnest in talking about the flight from the land and the rural areas, some interest must be taken in places like County Meath. People are leaving these places so fast that, at the present rate, no matter what migrants are put in to replace them, in a few years' time the county will be almost denuded of its population. There is nothing being put before the young people who are growing up. They are not getting a chance. The man with the cow, who does not want land, cannot get a cow-plot. The man who has a small acreage and wants to work more land and who is prepared to live on it and to go off the labour market will not be considered because he is a local. The man who has no land but who is in a position to work it is passed over. The man who could do with a few acres, which would leave him fairly clear and who, at least, would be able to work it until such time as he rears his family, is not given it. By taking care of these people the Minister for Lands would be doing a good day's work.

I know that possibly very great pressure may have been brought to bear to try to create the impression that the land that is being divided should be reserved for migrants. I think I have made the case that the people who live in places like County Meath and many other counties should be considered, that they should get prior consideration and that those who previously did get the consideration have done nothing to disgrace themselves or the system by which they were given the land.

There are many other points which could be referred to on this motion. I am sure other Deputies want to intervene in the debate. For that reason I do not propose at the present time to say any more.

Mr. Desmond

I second the motion. I hoped to do so only formally but, unfortunately, I have to say a few words in so far as my colleague, Deputy Tully, seems to have concentrated on one county and seems to have forgotten that there are other counties.

This motion does not apply solely to Meath. It applies to many counties. I, like Deputy Tully, want to make it quite clear that there is no question of our having an argument, as it were, about giving land to the men of the West or South West. It is only fair that they should be helped in the circumstances in which they find themselves but it is equally important that we should realise the difficult circumstances prevailing in parts even of the South of Ireland as well as in County Meath. The extraordinary fact is that where the Land Commission could step in, if they adopted a system somewhat in line with that advocated in the motion, it would show itself to great effect in the South of Ireland because even in County Cork it is most notable that for some years back large tracts of land have been sold to people coming into this country, people who, in our opinion, will not make proper use of it as compared with what the local people could do.

Because of the position prevailing and the conditions laid down by the Land Commission, it seems that hard working people in these areas are to be denied the right to some of this land because they do not qualify under the rules laid down by the Land Commission. It is fantastic to suggest that some small landowners who should come within the category of uneconomic holders should be denied their right to get more land. We ought to adopt a policy in accordance with what we know of the Land League and the Land League days. The Minister, who came from an area that meant so much to the people of Ireland in those days, must realise that there are people in the South of Ireland denied the advantages of getting a few acres of land which would make them more happy and which they would work in a solid manner to make life better for themselves and their children.

That right is being denied to them at the present time due to the policy of the Land Commission. In many parts of County Cork it is quite obvious to us that, due to the policy of this Government and past Governments, the people are not being given the land which ought to be given to them. If a person is living in a county council cottage with an acre or so of land, there is no reason for the Land Commission to decide that he is not to get a few acres of decent land when a neighbouring holding is being taken over.

We are now getting into this country landed gentry. I believe that the Minister's policy is not in accordance with such an outlook but, as long as we continue as we are, the policy of the Land Commission will continue to be a policy of failure. I know that the Minister's position is difficult but I believe that there is something wrong in the whole approach to the division of land in areas in the South. I have heard of instances, which cannot be challenged, where an inspector from the Land Commission has gone around the country and has caused bitterness and friction between smallholders as regards the way in which land should be divided. If we believe in builing up conditions in rural Ireland to make for happiness and prosperity for a larger population, the present policy of the Land Commission is a hindrance to that object.

Let us openly admit that these people, hard working and industrious, farm worker and road worker, with an acre or two of land, if they go out of their way to get a few more acres within a five-mile radius of their present holdings, will make the best use of it. Nobody will object to people coming in from the West or SouthWest but we do object above all to the fact that the Land Commission should adopt the policy that where large farms are available in southern areas they can be handed over lock, stock and barrel to people who caused a great many difficulties to us in the past. We should give some little sympathy to the smaller people and make sure that they and their families will be put in a position to live in conditions that are at present being denied to them.

Mr. Hilliard

When I read this motion I came to the conclusion that this was a method that was open to Deputies Tully and Desmond to endeavour to get an expression, here in the House, from the Minister, of what Government policy is in this matter. I felt that, having failed to influence Government policy in this matter and having failed to force the Government to change its policy, they put down this motion to have the matter discussed in an effort to secure support in the House for a complete, change of the policy of the Government which these Deputies support. Deputy Tully in his statement on the motion has confirmed my belief along those lines that that is what is operating in his mind on this matter. So far as I am concerned I would prefer to see those difficulties that arise at Government level solved within the Government itself and determined by the Parties that comprise the Government rather than have a matter like this left to the decision of the House.

I am of the opinion that this motion misses completely the vital point involved in this matter. It does not make any mention whatever of the reasons that must be put forward for depriving the private individual who owns land in this country of the land he owns. Every Deputy in this House should know that the Government took it upon itself to give powers to the Land Commission to deprive the private individual of his property and they expressed it implicitly in the 1923 Act that the land was required for the relief of congestion.

If you want to get a change in this matter you must deal with that fundamental matter first. Following upon that line of argument, it naturally follows that the State is not engaged in a land division policy merely. The Land Commission is not empowered to take land from the owner for the simple purpose of dividing and distributing that land. It does not follow that land can be acquired for distribution to farmers or landless men, uneconomic holders or migrants for the purpose of getting increased production from the land or making greater agricultural use of it. It is laid down in the Act that the land is taken for the relief of congestion and the section also names the classes of people to whom the Land Commission may allot land.

It is a matter for the Government of the day as to how the Land Commission should proceed with the allocation of land and as to what classes of people preference should be given or what classes of people should be practically altogether excluded from the allocation. I think it would be a good thing if land were available to provide cow-plots. I feel sure the Minister himself, and every Deputy in the House, are of that opinion. In so far as the enlarging of uneconomic holdings is concerned and the regulation that this motion seeks to establish, I am not in agreement with them at all. Since I became a member of the House I have been endeavouring to impress upon the Government—the previous Government as well as this one—that in the Midlands generally and in County Meath in particular, the uneconomic holder should be satisfied first.

I should like, if the uneconomic holder happened to be too far away for the proper working of the addition, that he should be relieved by internal migration and that any pockets of uneconomic holdings in the Midlands should be relieved in that manner until they are wiped out entirely in counties such as Meath, Westmeath, Kildare and any other of the Midland counties in which land is available. I have made that case on several occasions and I reiterate it now. I do not think that people who work these uneconomic holdings and make a frugal living from, them in these counties should be passed over.

As far as the provision of holdings for landless men is concerned, the five mile limitation is included in this motion. I cannot see for the life of me how the State could provide holdings for all landless men from the point of view of the numbers who are looking for holdings. It is my belief that the land is not available in this country for that purpose—that you have not got sufficient land. I think it would be much better—I am putting forward this view honestly and fairly —for Deputy Tully and any other Deputies who live in the midland areas to press the case of the uneconomic holder. Certainly uneconomic holdings should no longer exist in such counties as Meath, Westmeath and Kildare when land acquisition and distribution have ceased. I do not see how we could ask a Government or ask the Land Commission to provide farms ad lib for landless men who apply for land, because the land is not there and it would be impossible to satisfy the full demand that would be made on a Government or Land Commission if that were freely acceded to.

Such statements may not get votes at an election for a Deputy representing a Midlands constituency, but I want to say that, as long as I am here, I will be honest with the people who are asked to come out to vote for me on election day. I will tell them exactly where they stand and what they should expect to get from a Government and what I am prepared to advocate for them. It was the policy of the Fianna Fáil Government to give accommodation plots to tenants of cottages and county council houses in which labourers lived. I should like to see that practice continued because I believe that in many cases such a provision has been of great value to the people who obtained the plots.

There is a considered opinion in this country that if we are to utilise land properly we must give people a sufficient amount of it in one allocation in order that land might be utilised properly. The opinion is becoming more pronounced in this country that the small holdings the Land Commission are creating at the present time and that they have been creating over a number of years are not large enough for proper development and that they are not giving a sufficient living to the people who work them. With the development of the modern technique that is now available to farmers to enable them to get increased production from their land, and with the advent of modern machinery, it has been felt in this country, as well as in others, that farmers require bigger farms in order to run them economically and to get a proper living as well as provide the best value to the State. I would urge upon the Minister to take into consideration all these factors. He has the Land Commission and all the other officials at his disposal in order that he might properly resolve all the difficulties that present themselves and all the questions that arise in this motion.

Mr. Blowick

From time to time, a debate like this takes place in the House about the Land Commission and about the division of land and it has become the practice to suggest that the Land Commission should have a land division policy. I should like at the outset to correct that because the work of the Land Commission is really land settlement rather than land division. Both Deputy Hilliard and Deputy Tully admitted in their statements that land was not a very plentiful commodify in this country. It was not, unfortunately, and we are very anxious for all the land we can possibly get.

I am sure that Deputies who keep in touch with events will realise that over recent years, particularly since the price of agricultural produce increased and land consequently became more valuable, the acquisition of every farm —even the smallest, and poorest—is being contested vigorously in the law courts and every loophole or flaw in the Land Acts is being speedily discovered. The result is that the Land Commission's job in taking up land is more difficult. We pass a certain law in this House and say to the Land Commission: "You can take up land for relief of congestion according to this and this but you cannot, according to this and this." It is just as well to talk bluntly—the Constitution lays down certain provisions and not even this House has power to introduce measures which would come in conflict with or outrage the Constitution. The point I am making is that it is becoming more and more difficult for the Land Commission to acquire land because the acquisition is being contested. On the other hand, we have the House here to correct flaws that may occur and make purchases available for the Land Commission.

In the case of the allotment of land, I want Deputies to know that it is no pleasure for the Land Commission or the Minister or the Government—no matter which Government—to exclude a particular type of person. Deputy Tully says that farm labourers and landless men should get land. It is no pleasure to the Minister or the Government or to Deputies on the other side to know that there is not sufficient land to go round. I assure the House—and I think Deputy Tully knows this—that not only myself but all who came before me would wish to give holdings to landless men. We know in rural areas where employment is poor and spasmodic there are many people who naturally have the art of working the land in their blood. They do not find sufficient employment and would like to have some land to work in their spare time or perhaps enough to employ them all the time. It is no pleasure for a Land Commission inspector to have to call on a man to inquire into his conditions and what land he has and later have to pass him over because he cannot be included in a proposed scheme which is going up for sanction.

Some Deputies feel and speak, as if with fiendish glee, that we decided not to give land to this type or that type. The truth is that we have 10,000 unvested uneconomic holdings still on our hands to be dealt with. That is a huge task when we consider that the most the Land Commission can acquire in a single year is something between 20,000 and 25,000 acres. If we just put it roughly that each of these uneconomic holdings would need on an average an addition of £10 valuation of land to improve them—many need much more in cases where there are very congested villages and where numbers of people have to be moved to get new holdings—it means that £100,000 valuation of land has to be acquired for these. That is only a rough guess and I am being conservative. The figure I have given is the poor law valuation and not the market price of the land. That much land will have to be acquired for that one purpose alone.

There is no gainsaying the fact that the best scope for the relief of congestion exists in the Midland counties. These can absorb some little overflow but it should not be forgotten that a great deal of congestion is relieved in the counties where the congestion exists, so much so that, in the congested area from Donegal to West Cork, there are very few farms left of any considerable size that have not been taken up and given out in additions or broken up into economic holdings.

Deputy Tully seems to think that all the overflow in the West of Ireland from Donegal to Kerry comes into County Meath. It does not. As a matter of fact, I was astonished myself when I looked at the figures—it is only a very small proportion.

Mr. James Tully

You should check again; the figures must be wrong.

Mr. Blowick

No, they are not. Take Mayo alone——

Mr. James Tully

You take it.

Mr. Blowick

Last year 26 actual holdings were established there for the relief of congestion on farms taken over. Very good work was done in Sligo and, I think, in Donegal where there was the peculiar problem that it was found difficult to get Donegal people to accept some of the holdings created even though they were nice, attractive holdings. Good work was also done in Kerry and all the western areas.

Now we come to consider what classes should be allotted land. It might be best to take the various parts of the motion in order. Deputy Tully says we should give cow-parks where such are necessary. We do give cow-parks and I have no difficulty in accepting that part of the motion— wherever the land is available and where the Land Commission feels that the cow-plots will be properly administered. In that regard the Deputy is pushing an open door. I think I should give some facts about cow-plots in County Meath to Deputy Tully.

Mr. James Tully

I have already given them to you.

Mr. Blowick

I do not think you have given these.

Mr. James Tully

I have.

Mr. Blowick

In 1946 Meath County Council offered all the cow-plots back to the Land Commission.

Mr. James Tully

Ask them now.

Mr. Blowick

All right. For one reason or another the Land Commission did not accept all. They accepted 15 and Meath County Council surrendered these 15 plots eventually. The Land Commission in nine of the 15 cases found trustees willing to administer the plots and out of a total of 28 cow-plots allotted in County Meath I think only nine are working to-day. I cannot understand that. I do not want Deputies to go away with the notion that I am casting a slur on the various areas in Meath where cow-parks were established. The truth is that if we give cow-parks in a particular town or village it means that a certain number—five or six or even nine in some cases—public-spirited men in the locality must be found who will say: "We agree to become trustees and administer these cow-parks, take in stock, pay rates and keep fences in order." It is not always one can get those men and very often when the first flush of enthusiasm which brings in a number of men prepared to give the time and take the trouble to administer cow-plots dies down, these men find that Johnny So-and-so wants to bring in a cow or something else and when they examine that, they find he is not entitled to do so because there is some more deserving case. Then Johnny gets up in arms against the trustees and the thing becomes irksome and the trustees begin to go. This is the experience not alone in Meath but in every county.

The trustees say to themselves: we are making fools of ourselves and getting into bad relations with our neighbours in being connected with this cow-park. Consequently the trustees fade out one by one with the result that the cow-parks were unmanaged and allowed to go into weeds or fall into the hands of the cutest local man who could grab it and use it for his own purposes. That is one of the difficulties in that system.

Mr. Hilliard

May I take it that the nine the Minister mentioned are being worked properly? We know they are.

Mr. James Tully

So are the others, and I can tell the Minister why the others were not worked.

Mr. Blowick

As far as we know the nine are being worked properly. Once the Land Commission allots a cow-plot and the trustees are established, it is not the business of the Land Commission to set themselves up as a police authority to ensure the trustees do their work. The Land Commission waits for complaints to come in before they investigate to find out if anything is wrong. All we know, without an actual investigation, is that these nine appear to be working satisfactorily. There are no letters, either signed or anonymous, coming in and that is one of the best signs that they are being administered fairly.

Wherever the land is available and wherever the Land Commission feel a cow-park will be administered fairly and for the benefit of those whom it is intended to benefit there is no reluctance on the part of the Land Commission to grant the land. That deals with (a) of the motion.

Clause (b) asks for the enlarging of uneconomic holdings within five miles of the land to be divided. I cannot possibly accept that. When I say that, I do not say it in any cantankerous spirit. When I put the facts before the Deputies, I think they will agree with me that such a provision would not be in the best interests of the people. Indeed, in the long run it would be detrimental to the interests of those we are trying to serve. In 1948 when the change of Government took place, I found a ruling by a previous Minister stipulating a distance of two miles. I cut that down to one mile and, when I explain the reason for that, I am sure Deputies will see eye to eye with me. I reduced the distance not for the purpose of conserving land for any particular class but to remedy an evil I found rampant. I had experience of it in my own district. I found when I went into the Department of Lands that the same evil was rampant in many other counties and I came to the conclusion that it was better to cut the distance down.

In the rearrangement and enlargement of holdings one of the most vital steps the Land Commission has to take is to try to establish a block of land of an economic size, irrespective of quality, or at the very least, an economic holding in two plots close to one another capable of supporting the holder and his family in moderate comfort. Now, that is only common sense. We all know that in the past subdivision destroyed the land. That was true of Meath as well as the West. A farmer who had a compact holding and had, perhaps two, three or four sons divided his holding into four parts giving a part to each son. That was bad enough but the next generation subdivided still further and recently I came across a place in which a man owning seven statute acres held that land in no less than 33 different plots. That will give Deputies some idea of the appalling mess land is in, particularly in the West of Ireland.

Every farmer knows that it is to his advantage to have his land in one, or, at most, in two parcels. This motion asks me to give an addition five miles away. To put it very bluntly, if we do that, we shall create more congestion instead of relieving the congestion that already exists. We shall have more rundale. That would be a retrograde step. In my own area the people are, perhaps, somewhat more open in telling me their troubles than they are in other counties, where I might be regarded as a stranger and people might not be so quick to confide their difficulties and their problems to me. In my own county I know scores of landholders and they tell me that, having reared perhaps four boys, they cannot get one son to stay on the land. They tell me: "Johnny does not like travelling over to the addition; it is two or three miles away and he is spending all his time on the road; he is tired of it." Now his father never grudged travelling the road to the new piece of land he got from the Land Commission 15 or 20 years ago.

That attitude on the part of the younger generation is an understandable one, but it is contributing in large measures, too, to the depopulation of the rural areas. We may possibly induce a young man to stay on a holding of an economic size. If we go back to the fragmentation of holdings we will undo all the good and find ourselves back in the state in which the country was under the landlord system and the system of subdivision which occurred 150 years ago. Knowing how serious that position would be, I appeal to the Deputies now to cut out the five miles. A tenant will get an addition up to one mile. Indeed the Land Commission have a system where, when there is no possibility of relieving a pocket of uneconomic holdings and no probability of a farm falling in in the foreseeable future, they can stretch that mile to a mile and a quarter or a mile and a half.

Mr. James Tully

Make it two miles. That is not a bit too far.

Mr. Blowick

It is too far. It was not for the purpose of victimisation that I reduced the distance to one mile. It was to do away with a new evil growing up in our midst because additions were being granted too far away.

Mr. James Tully

The Minister is looking at it from a different angle.

Mr. Blowick

I know Deputy James Tully will not have any difficulty in bringing in 20 men to tell me they will be only too glad to take an addition five miles away. The fathers in the West of Ireland were quite happy to do that. But the result is that they cannot get their sons to-day to stay on such a holding. I am sure western Deputies realise that. I am sure Deputy Tully is right when he says he can get plenty of people who will say they do not mind the distance. Those people look at it from a different point of view from the generation that is coming up. Now we cannot settle land for to-day or next week. We have to try to establish a solid, stable population on the land, a population which can live in reasonable comfort.

Mr. James Tully

What is five miles with modern transport?

Mr. Blowick

The small farmer looking for an addition will not have modern transport.

Mr. James Tully

He will have a bicycle and not an ass and cart.

Mr. Blowick

I have given the Deputy the experience of the Land Commission. That is the experience, too, of many Deputies. I would be surprised to find even one Deputy prepared to cross swords with me on that.

Mr. Deering

I want to speak on behalf of two people——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister is in possession.

Mr. Deering

——two people who are prepared to exchange holdings even though one piece of land may be of lesser value.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Let us hear the Minister.

Mr. Blowick

Where people want to exchange land and where the exchange will have the effect of making both holdings compact we are only too delighted to give them every assistance.

Mr. James Tully

Except in County Meath.

Mr. Blowick

Really these people are doing what it might be very difficult for a State Department to do. Paragraph (c) asks for the provision of holdings for landless men who are living within five miles of the land to be divided. What I have said earlier about the five miles applies with equal force here. We want to arrange the land in such a way that the others will not have to travel the road to it.

Debate adjourned.