Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 18 Nov 1964

Vol. 212 No. 7

Private Members' Business. - Land Bill, 1963—Committee Stage (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following amendment:

40a. In page 15, lines 9 to 29, to delete "(b) either—" and subparagraphs (i) and (ii), and to substitute the following:

"(b) any one of the following requirements which is applicable has beenbona fide complied with—

(i) where a person other than a body corporate is the sole tenant or proprietor of the land —such person has throughout the whole of the qualifying period resided either on the land or in the immediate neighbourhood thereof;

(ii) where a body corporate is the sole tenant or proprietor of the land—each of the persons entitled to a beneficial interest in the body corporate has throughout the whole of the qualifying period resided either on the land or in the immediate neighbourhood thereof;

(iii) in any case not mentioned in subparagraph (i) or (ii) of this paragraph—all the persons entitled to a beneficial interest in any part of or share in the land and all the persons entitled to a beneficial interest in the body or bodies corporate, which is or are entitled to any part or share in the land, have throughout the whole of the qualifying period resided either on the land or in the immediate neighbourhood thereof;

provided that the requirement in respect of residence shall in no case be satisfied or deemed to be satisfied by compliance with any statutory provision whatsoever relating to residence by a body corporate, and".—(Mr. Moran.)

Mr. Moran

I was saying that it is necessary for me to reassure the public about stud farms because of the point made by Deputy Flanagan. Stud farms have been excluded for a long time from our Land Acts and I am not changing the position under this Bill but I should like to put on the records of the House section 9, subsection (1) of the Land Act, 1927 which reads:

Notwithstanding the provisions of subsections (1) and (3) of the Land Act, 1923, there shall not be vested in the Land Commission by virtue of the said Act otherwise than in pursuance of a voluntary agreement any untenanted land so long as the Land Commission are satisfied that such land is being used in a bona fide manner as a farm for the purpose of breeding thoroughbred stock which in the opinion of the Minister for Lands and Agriculture is of a nature and character suitable to the requirements of the country.

So that stud farms have been sacrosanct, so far as the land law is concerned, since 1927. I am not interfering with that situation here. As far as Deputy Flanagan is concerned, he can be assured that the law is still there and this Bill does not interfere with the exclusion of stud farms from the land law.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

Perhaps the Minister would deal with the question of the man who has to leave his residence because the holding may be in debt and he has to go away——

Mr. Moran

We will be dealing with that on other amendments coming before us.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Moran

I move amendment No. 40b:

In page 15, lines 32 and 33, to delete "in the district in which such land is situate" and to substitute "in the immediate neighbourhood of such land".

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Moran

I move amendment No. 40c:

In page 15, line 43, after "In this section" to insert the following:

" `immediate neighbourhood' includes any place which the Lay Commissioners are satisfied is not more than three miles from the nearest point of the relevant land;".

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Moran

I move amendment No. 40d:

In page 15, line 47, after "published" to insert:

" `throughout the whole of the qualifying period resided' shall be construed as requiring that the person or persons mentioned in sub-paragraph (i), (ii) or (iii) (as the case may be) of paragraph (b) of subsection (3) of this section has or have ordinarily dwelt on or in the immediate neighbourhood of the land, provided that the Lay Commissioners may at their discretion disregard, for the purposes of this section, any temporary absence or absences from the land which they are satisfied is or are reasonably attributable to illness, business, vacation or any other cause."

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

I think we are also dealing with amendments Nos. 43b and 41.

Mr. Moran

These amendments deal with the question of reasonable absences from home, that is, what I would call excusable non-residence. Now, the words "ordinarily dwelt" remove the rigidity of lines 11 and 12 of the original text but at the same time ensure that no owner can satisfy the requirement by establishing any sort of formal or technical residing which the ordinary citizen would not accept as such. The discretion proposed for the Commissioners will allow them to deal humanely with all human problems, while bearing down on the trickster. The alternative could well mean endless legal argument on fine points and technicalities.

Deputy Blowick in his amendment has tried to list all instances but the official amendment takes the more generous line of admitting "any other cause"; this will cover the odd case where a man has some extraordinary excuse for absence and yet the Commissioners are convinced that he is genuine. I could cite many disadvantages in Deputy Blowick's amendment but the main one is that his sub-paragraph (iv) is too broad and a man might spend years in England and say that he was seeking to provide "funds to equip and stock" his holding. There must be some limit to the time a man may spend on this activity. In practice, the Commissioners do make allowances in genuine cases of shortage of capital. In this official amendment, I am leaving it completely at the discretion of the Lay Commissioners to decide every case on its merits. This is a matter that has to be decided by the Commissioners and just as they do now people are entitled to take their case before them.

We have all had experience of people who may have been absent for ten or 12 years and once they come back and convince the court that it is their genuine intention to return and work their lands and take up residence, the Land Court is always very reasonable with them. By adding "any other cause" it means that the Lay Commissioners may decide every case on its own merits and can, where satisfied that the case is genuine, without writing in any particular legal reasons, decide to leave the lands alone if they are satisfied the man has a genuine intention of coming back and working his land.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

This is an amendment which calls for a more detailed and clearer explanation from the Minister. He went to great lengths to tell the House that the decision in regard to absence will be for the Lay Commissioners—in other words, it will be exclusively a function for them— but he appears to forget that earlier in this Bill he has vested in himself the right to authorise an inspection of any holding, if he so decides. I presume that when the Minister is authorising an inspection, he will be prompted by representations made to him, that one of the main facts of any deputation which approaches the Minister asking that a holding be acquired for the relief of congestion and for division amongst the local applicants will be that the owner is absent, and upon hearing that, the Minister may authorise an inspection. Whilst he tells us that the decision to take action or not to take it will be a matter entirely for the Commissioners, it puts the owner of such lands in a very weak position, having regard to the fact that the Minister may order an inspection, and when the officials of the Land Commission see that the Minister is so interested in such a holding as to order an inspection, that may be a means in itself directly or indirectly of influencing the Commissioners to take a certain line of action.

I should like to hear from the Minister if he will order an inspection in the case of a small holding which the owner inherited and which was very heavily in debt due to the financial circumstances of the family or due to economic considerations: the owner is compelled to draw the curtains, close the door, put a padlock on the door, and emigrate to Scotland or England to earn sufficient money to pay his debts, to obtain a full title to his holding and to remove the mortgages thereon; and while he is in the process of earning that money, he may find that the Minister has ordered an inspection, that there has been local agitation for his land as a result of which he may eventually be dispossessed.

Mr. Moran

I do not think that is relevant.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

I think it is relevant. The Minister has told us that will be a function of the Land Commission. There are cases where the owner of a holding has been absent for three or perhaps five years.

Mr. Moran

On a point of order, I do not wish to be unduly restrictive with the Deputy, but these amendments have nothing to do with any question of ordering inspections.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

I know that.

Mr. Moran

The amendments will operate only after inspection has taken place and after proceedings have been started, so any question of inspection is completely irrelevant, in my submission.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The amendments deal with residence on the land.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

The Minister's efforts to knock me off my track will not succeed this time, I am afraid. I am dealing with the question of the owner being absent from the land. There are many cases in which the owner is absent from the land for very genuine reasons. He may decide to emigrate to earn money to pay his debts. He may have failed to obtain a loan from the banks or the Agricultural Credit Corporation to stock his land. He may decide to leave the land to make quicker money to pay his debts. Surely in a case of that kind the Land Commission would be unreasonable and unfair if they entered into proceedings, much less an inspection.

There are many cases in which the owner of a farm may decide for one reason or another to live with his relatives or in a town. Now, as never before, since these amendments were circulated people who do not reside on their holdings are haunted night after night by the ghost of the Land Commission appearing to them. There is great uneasiness in the country. There are many holders of land on which there is no house. A small farmer may have another small holding four miles away, and a further small holding the same distance away but probably in another direction. It may be the intention of such a farmer to keep those draw holdings, as they are described, to settle his sons or his daughters. In many instances the draw farm subsidises the home farm. A man may be supplying milk to the creamery and he may decide that when his stock go dry, he will put them on what he calls his outfarm. His livelihood is now endangered and his very existence is threatened because his outfarm is in danger of acquisition because it is not a residential holding and he is not living on it.

In my opinion, that provision contains a very high degree of insecurity of tenure. When land is well worked, whether the owner lives on it or not, one would expect that it would be free from the teeth of the Land Commission, as the Minister described it last week. I believe very many people who for one reason or another do not reside on their holdings will now find themselves in very grave danger. For the record, and so that we can quote them to remove the doubts, the uneasiness and the fear that exist in the hearts of many landowners, I should like to hear from the Minister what guarantees he is giving to the owners of all the draw farms throughout the length and breadth of the country. If he tells us the Land Commission will not interest themselves, provided the lands are well worked and well managed, why are these amendments necessary, if the Minister has confidence in and trusts these hardworking and industrious people who depend entirely on their land?

This provision is causing considerable worry and for the Minister to speak for five or six minutes is not sufficient for the landowners who want some security and who are dependent on the land for their livelihood. In the west of Ireland, the people are as hardworking and as industrious as they are in any part of Ireland. There are hardworking people in Galway, Roscommon and Mayo who must leave their land idle when economic circumstances force them to put padlocks on the doors. We do not want those people to be faced with the position when they return home, having put a few pounds together to purchase livestock and equipment, of finding that their lands are between the teeth of the Land Commission and in the jaws of the Commissioners. That is something we want to avoid.

It is something the Minister says is not going to happen. All we have for that is the Minister's word, but, according to the amendment, it can happen. It is our duty as an Opposition to take steps to see that it will not happen. That is why I am so disturbed by the provisions in these amendments in relation to the absence of the landowner because of domestic or economic circumstances. I feel that while it is a matter for the Commissioners, they will be reasonable in dealing with them, I would be satisfied if I could be sure that it was the Commissioners who would be dealing with them but I am afraid of this because of the powers the Minister has taken in this Bill that certain absentee landowners may be the victims of these provisions.

I should not be the one to stand over or defend the absentee landowner, the man who may own a couple of hundred acres of land and who may visit it once in four or five years. We are not interested in that man. We are interested in the small men who must leave their lands as a matter of necessity and I am not at all too happy that such men will not come under the notice of the Land Commission according to these amendments. For that reason, I should like a more detailed statement from the Minister, reaffirming the security of such people. I think the powers given in these amendments are drastic and that they put these smallholders in a high degree of insecurity. I am afraid that the power given in them will be used to drive the smallholder, who cannot pay his way and who has to go abroad, out of his holding.

That is why I think the Minister should make it perfectly clear to the people in the congested parts of the country, particularly in Mayo, Roscommon and Galway, that if they have not a good standard of living on their own smallholding from their own Government, they are guaranteed against the acquisition of their lands when, for sentimental reasons, they want to hold on to them. They are entitled to hold on to them and the fact that they are absent from them through economic reasons is no reason why the Land Commission should take them from them.

Mr. Moran

These amendments are in ease of persons who are absent from their holdings. The trouble about Deputy Flanagan is that he has not a clue about the west of Ireland or about the congestion problem. He comes from a rancher county. The most important of these amendments is the one which reads:

"throughout the whole of the qualifying period resided" shall be construed as requiring that the person or persons mentioned in sub-paragraph (i), (ii) or (iii) (as the case may be) of paragraph (b) of subsection (3) of this section has or have ordinarily dwelt on or in the immediate neighbourhood of the land, provided that the Lay Commissioners may at their discretion disregard, for the purposes of this section, any temporary absence or absences from the land which they are satisfied is or are reasonably attributable to illness, business, vacation or any other cause.

That discretion could not be wider. The Land Commission can decide every case on its own merits and can decide whether they can move or cannot move in any particular case. Deputy Flanagan is very concerned about some people who own big tracts of land in this country, people like Mr. Skorzeny who has a big farm in Kildare and who lives in Paris. This is the type of person this section can deal with; it can bring these lands in where they are required for the relief of congestion.

I suggest that Deputy Flanagan is more concerned with obstruction than with the relief of congestion. He is creating fright in the mind of the landowners on the assumption that the only land which the Land Commission go after is the land of the small man who has to go to England, the widow whose husband has recently died and who has left her lands, when everybody knows that these people are never touched. The Land Commission go after lands that have been misused and let for years and years, and even then the owner of these lands has the right to come back from Australia or America and protect his right if he can satisfy the land court that he is going to come back in one, two or three years and use the land. If he does that, the land court will support him.

These amendments are designed to get after the type of people I have described to this House and I commend them to the House. It is essential under this Bill to set up a new land pool for the relief of congestion, a problem which I intend to deal with.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendments 41 and 42 not moved.

Question proposed: "That section 34, as amended, stand part of the Bill".

Mr. Moran

As we now come to consider section 34 itself, I want to assure the House that in preparing it, I had no intention of arming the Land Commission with any unreasonable or intolerable powers over landowners. My aim was, and still is, to give them adequate power to proceed with their work, unhampered by certain difficulties which have grown up around them since the principal post-Treaty Land Acts were framed.

Deputies who are at all familiar with land reform work will be aware that if lands are offered for sale and the Land Commission start to show an interest in them, the owner may be advised by over-cautious friends to make a quick sale to a third party or to cancel the offer, fight off the attentions of the Land Commission and then sell when he feels safe. This is not quite so common, now that we have started to pay auctioneers' fees, but it still occurs.

Accordingly, one of the proposals in section 34 is that if the Land Commission require lands for their general statutory purposes and if these lands have recently been offered for sale, then the ordinary defences against acquisition are not available to the owner. This does not mean that every holding offered for sale is going to be snatched compulsorily by the Land Commission. Far from it. What the section does mean can be summed up by saying: "This man no longer needs his land and if the Land Commission do need it, they may have it, provided they pay market value."

Deputies, who are familiar with the land code, will also be aware that the principal defence against compulsory acquisition is that based on what we call "the two adequates", that is to say, adequate production and adequate employment. Not all Deputies may be aware that, under a judicial decision made some years ago, the "adequates" defence is available, even if the owner of the land resides permanently, say, in Australia and lets his lands each year. Yet, where there is no local congestion, that is the law. The owner may be a permanent absentee but if he ensures that the conacre tenants supply "the two adequates", his position is invulnerable, under the law as it at present stands.

I am not prepared to believe that Dáil Éireann, which approved this protection against acquisition, intended it to operate so broadly as to protect a permanent absentee in Australia. I am sure it was generally intended to extend protection to the ordinary resident Irish farmer who achieved the adequates by his own efforts or management.

In any event, the relevant sections have been interpreted in the manner I have indicated and it is very necessary to tighten them up, if they are to function properly in future. In seeking a remedy for this situation, I came finally to the conclusion that the "adequates" defence should be available only to a resident tenant or proprietor. In the context of the family farm and our general desire to see a thriving and prosperous rural society, I think we should start from the argument that only the good resident farmer is clearly entitled to the fullest protection of the land code. All others —the non-residents—should be open to question and scrutiny. They may have excellent reasons for not being resident and, in practice, the Land Commission will have to make allowance for these cases, but these do not take from my main contention that the non-resident, on the face of things, is not entitled to the same guaranteed statutory security as the resident farmer.

I want to assert, in the same way, that landowning companies cannot claim the right to be sheltered by the statute in quite the same was as the family farm. The company formula has been used to cover many things from tax evasion to purchases by non-nationals and I have no desire to see it used as a smart device to defeat the Land Commission. On the other hand, the genuine family company will normally be fully protected because its shareholders will normally be in residence on the lands. Again, I would assure the House that exceptional cases will get all the consideration they can reasonably expect from the Lay Commissioners.

The two adequates had to be judged in former cases of land code. In sections 34 and 41 of this Bill, it is provided that the "adequates" defence must be related to the 12 months preceding the Provisional List, thus giving the owner opportunity to be judged on the full annual cycle of operations and making the law definite about the period. There have been no amendments tabled in respect of this 12 months period and I take it the House is in general agreement with that proposition.

I can say that in the past few months I have given careful consideration to the criticisms levelled at section 34 inside and outside the House. I have heard and read quite sympathetically the views of various organisations intimately concerned in these matters; where practicable, I have accepted suggestions and made suitable adjustments by way of official amendments, but the text, as now amended, represents an honest attempt to overcome the genuine difficulties in the working of the land reform programme and, by and large, it is the least which should be done towards that end. I accordingly recommend section 34 to the House.

Let me say, in anticipating any further arguments that, of course, I appreciate that circumstances may change. A man may offer his farm for sale and, due to family circumstances, because somebody comes home from somewhere or for some other reason, may change his mind about selling. If that is so, he has the Land Commission court to go before and to satisfy them that he has genuinely changed his mind, that his family circumstances have changed. He no longer wants to sell the farm; he wants to keep it. All these circumstances will normally be considered impartially by the court. I cannot for the life of me see what is wrong with this proposition, where a man wants to unload a farm on the public market within a certain period, why that land should not, in the first instance, be available to the Land Commission for the special purpose of relieving congestion. Normally when a man wants to get rid of a farm, he does so for personal reasons. When this farm comes on the market, there is no argument in good sense or law as to why the Land Commission should not be entitled to have first option on it for the purpose of building up family farms.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

Despite the undertakings given by the Minister, I have certain grave fears about this section. Let me say at the outset when the Minister was so ready to preface his remarks with the statement that I represented a ranchers' constituency and that I was putting forward the ranchers' views, I can assure him that in the constituency which I have the honour of representing there are pockets of congestion as great as there are in any part of County Mayo, and I am very familiar with the problem of congests.

I am so familiar with the problem of congests that I am quite satisfied it is a national problem that must be solved and must be tackled. I am quite satisfied that the approach which the Fine Gael Party are taking is the most satisfactory manner of solving the problem of congestion. We all know there are congests in every part of Ireland. We all know there is insufficient land in the country to give every applicant a portion of land but I am greatly afraid that section 34 holds a high degree of insecurity for certain persons whose intentions are good. Whilst the Minister may tell us that such persons, because of domestic or financial circumstances, will not have their land interfered with, I want to say that it is only an expression of opinion on the part of the Minister.

I am sure the Minister must have asked the officers of his Department to brief him with statistics, with special reference to this section, dealing with the number of holdings set, sublet or worked by the owner himself for part of the year who for another part of the year must emigrate. I am satisfied that there are a number of such small holdings, as I am equally satisfied that this Bill is designed to bring within its clutches small holdings in the same manner as big holdings. Surely the Minister was wrong in trying to convey to this House that any of us on this side of the House, or indeed in any part of it, were trying to defend the absentee landowner, who is living abroad, not depending on his holding for a livelihood, who may have other vast sources of income, or indeed the alien gentlemen he has referred to in another county. We are not concerned with those people. On the contrary, we want to help the Land Commission and assist the Minister's Department in focussing the attention of the Commissioners on such holdings, with a view to having them acquired and divided amongst the local smallholders and deserving applicants.

When we see that a section such as this holds out fear for people who are not economically in a position to work their own holdings, either because of the size of the holding or because of domestic circumstances, the fact that the Minister gives this House a guarantee does not mean that such people are safe from the clutches of the Land Commission. I would have expected the Minister to have had from his advisers a suitable amendment to relieve the anxiety and worry of the many smallholders today and, indeed, reasonably good farmers who have draw farms to which the Minister has not referred.

There are numerous farmers in this country today who have two and three well-worked farms. Deputy Fanning of North Tipperary painted the clearest picture here. He is a good farmer and knows the conditions of the farmers who have these draw holdings for the purpose of settling their sons or daughters, or for the purpose of subsidising the holding on which they live. He reasonably inquired and solicited the support of the Minister to guarantee and ensure that the lands of such honest, hard-working farmers would not be interfered with. I am quite satisfied that, whilst the Minister agreed that there are special circumstances— and he quoted the circumstances— which the Land Commission will consider, when this section is passed and becomes law, he cannot stop the Land Commission from making a survey of every acre of land where the owner is working in Britain, Scotland or America, or even those who have come to the city to work. I think it is unfair and unreasonable that any man should be put to the trouble, expense, inconvenience and torment of having to consult his solicitor, pay costs and have a case prepared to bring to the land court and present it in such a fashion as to enable him to retain his lands.

Everybody knows that no worthwhile farmer will leave his farm. That is the first consideration. The farmers love their farms and their land and take great pride in them. I want to assure this House that, while this is so, there are numerous draw farms, the owners of which are now in dread and fear that these farms will be taken from them. I have referred three times today to the question of the draw farms. The Minister has deliberately made no reference to them on every occasion. This leads me to believe that when this Bill is passed, the Minister and his Department, no matter what the circumstances may be, will concentrate on the man who has a holding on which there is no residence and which may be some distance away from his main holding. I am also quite satisfied that there are dairy farmers in milk-producing districts with draw farms, who, when their stock go dry, shift them over to these draw farms and leave them there. I am afraid these people will be greatly disturbed and this section involves a high degree of insecurity of tenure for them.

The Minister has taken what we have described as the three Fs—fair rent, free sale and fixity of tenure—I suppose one thousand times and has torn them into shreds ten times over. It is a bad thing that this House should see the freedom we have enjoyed on the land being in any way disturbed. I feel the Land Commission may be inclined to let the Minister see how quickly they can get their work done and the moment this section of the Bill becomes law, notice will be served on every landowner who, because of domestic circumstances, must leave the country or leave his land. I can assure the Minister that this is a measure which has caused, and is causing, a great measure of worry and insecurity for these people. I am sorry we have reached the stage at which such provisions might be included.

I cannot accept for one moment the excuse the Minister gives this House, that his desire for such power and authority is solely in the interests of the congests and those who reside in congested districts, and that he is so anxious to see what he describes as the family farm of 45-50 acres. This House should view with serious concern the fact that we will provide with additional land and dispossess other people against their wishes of land they may have had in the family chain for hundreds of years.

In regard to the companies owning land, I should like the Minister to make a statement on the difference between native companies and alien companies. There is a difference. That in itself should be referred to by the Minister for the records. Many landowners, or foreign companies, for the purpose of expanding agriculture or increasing the amount of livestock on the land, have invested considerable sums in farm buildings, drainage, silos and other means of modern farming. There are many of those enterprising people giving good employment. Because the lands are owned by companies, they should not be the subject of special attention by the Land Commission, if they are well worked and giving good employment. I agree there is a considerable difference between that kind of company and the type of alien company who control certain lands. We shall have an opportunity later of discussing the subject of the purchase of land by aliens in all its aspects.

In the meantime, we should have from the Minister a statement in relation to the difference in the Land Commission approach to native companies and foreign companies. I have very great sympathy for the landowner who works with the object of providing farms for members of his family. We have in many parts of Ireland a love of land which is hereditary, where young people now in agricultural colleges learning modern methods of farming are anxious to take over their fathers' farms, whose fathers have been industrious hardworking people. It is regrettable that the Land Commission should take such farms away.

The farms I am speaking of are the draw farms which I mentioned earlier. In all such cases, the Land Commission should consider very seriously the ability of the farmers involved to work their land and whether or not they have sons and daughters to settle on the land. It is the duty of the Land Commission to give every encouragement to industrious farmers who have earmarked such draw farms for sons or daughters.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy has already gone over this ground.

Mr. Moran

About 20 times, but he wants to waste further time.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

This is no waste of time. It is of considerable importance to hundreds of hardworking farmers and it is our duty as a legislative assembly to see that the law as far as they are concerned is not alone fair but just.

Mr. Leneghan

I am sure there are few Deputies who have not heard of the cadhan aonraic, the last wildgoose which goes out around the end of April. I have little doubt Deputy Flanagan is in that position now. If his Leader had not come in just now, his backing would be very poor indeed, if my eyesight has not gone altogether. Last week his Leader came in here and, if I am not greatly mistaken, said this Bill was being accepted only by simple-minded people. There are no simple-minded Deputies in this House, if we except the man from Roscommon who has been elected by the simple-minded people of Monaghan.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Surely that has nothing to do with section 34? The Deputy must relate his remarks to the section.

Mr. Leneghan

Surely it is relevant. These people have got up here and opposed the section. I am perfectly sure Deputy Flanagan and his ilk are not worrying one iota, one way or the other, whether it is possible or not under this section to take land from anyone. What he is worrying about is whether he is in danger of losing his auctioneer's licence.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Neither has that anything to do with the section.

Mr. Leneghan

I think it has.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We are not discussing auctioneering licences.

Mr. Leneghan

I entirely, and completely agree, but the point I am making is that a genuine effort is being made here, at last, to take over the neglected lands of this country and settle them on deserving people. The position up to now has been that all anybody has to do, even if he has been 50 years in the United States, is to hand his land over to an auctioneer, or put a notice in a local paper, and it is time that was brought to an end. The man who puts them up for sale can bring in all the fake bidders in Europe he can assemble to bid the lands up to any price, a fake price, as we know. Then if the Land Commission wish to acquire those lands to settle on the poor people of this country who have no land and who have to ramble over to England because they have not, the Land Commission have to buy at these inflated prices.

Is it not unfair that in any country you can find a whole townland owned by two people aged 70 and 80 years? They are not married. I do not think they would even go out with other men's wives, not alone get married themselves. They are in the unhappy position that they have nobody to whom to leave those lands. If this section is enacted, it will do away with that situation and if we can get this section through, we shall get the Bill through. Then, instead of having people rambling off to England because they are unable to get land at home, we shall put the Land Commission in a position to acquire lands for our own people at reasonable prices.

I suppose Deputy Dillon probably got at least £4,000 out of the £15 heifer subsidy scheme and it is rich to hear him and people like him coming in here and talking for the poor people. I come in here to speak for the poor people of the west, not for the rich man. I say unhesitatingly that the Minister also speaks for the poor people of the west.

Mr. Dillon

The Minister will recall that in 1961 we introduced a Bill designed to facilitate the frustration of the acquisition of Irish agricultural land by aliens. The Minister at that time thought such a Bill was unnecessary and opposed it. The Bill was defeated. The Minister has now come round to share our point of view, and we are still of the same view as we were in 1961. We think some restriction should be placed on the acquisition of agricultural land by aliens, and where they employ devious methods to cover up their acquisition of agricultural land, we are of the opinion that the Land Commission should be furnished with powers to frustrate that purpose.

I suggest to the Minister, however, that we ought to differentiate between the foreign company formed to frustrate the land code of this country and to enable foreigners to acquire ownership of agricultural land, and a company formed by a genuine Irish family in the course of a family settlement. This section requires every beneficial participant in a company owning land to live in the vicinity of the land, as defined by the Minister's amendment, that is, within three miles of the principal holding. It is quite manifest that, where a trust is formed in the shape of a company to cater for a family, you may have elderly relatives who have retired from the land and are living in Dublin, Cork or Limerick. You may have the son of the family running the place, residing on the farm and operating it, and his grownup children possibly abroad in London or elsewhere earning their living. Yet, the old people, the actual operator of the farm and his children are all beneficial members of the corporation which owns the farm and, perhaps, a good deal of other property as well.

We are urging on the Minister that he should differentiate between the obligation which he places upon aliens and that which he places upon nationals. I think he is right to go the length of saying that, if aliens participate in a company which holds Irish land, we should apply to that company the full rigours of this proposal so as to exclude the possibility of fake companies being established for the purpose of frustrating the general principle on which the land code is founded, and which the Minister has now accepted, that is, that no more agricultural land should be transferred to foreign ownership.

At the same time, while we support that view, we think it is a bad principle that we should treat our own as we treat strangers. I know there is a temptation in a situation of this kind to call up the memory of the old days and much of the hardship and injustice that was wrought in past generations on our people by landlords and people who owned land. But we won that battle. We joined the battle with these people and we defeated them. Far from allowing them to drive us off the land, we drove them off the land. Now that we are the lords and masters of this land, the obligation is upon us to extend to them that justice they withheld from our fathers and grandfathers and those who went before us. We despised them for the injustices wrought on our people. It would indeed be a deplorable thing if we were misled by crackpots and imbeciles into emulating the example of those against whom we invoked heavy sanctions in the long ago. Now we have the power to treat them justly or unjustly. The temptation of the base and the contemptible is to indulge their yearning for vengeance by being as unjust to them as their forbears have been unjust to us, but I cannot see an Irish Legislature cast in that role. I think the very measure of the injustice done to us in the past should be our stimulus to say that, now that we have the power, we should do strict justice by them.

It is not strict justice to provide that, where, perfectly legitimately, a family whom we recognise as Irish, as belonging to our country, have, for their own family reasons, made certain family dispositions, in casting a net to catch aliens who we feel should not buy Irish land we should treat our neighbours on the basis as though they were aliens. They are not aliens; they are Irish just as we are. They are equal before the Lord with everyone else in this country. It would be a sorry day if an Irish Legislature would deal with their neighbours in a matter of this kind on the same basis as it is legitimately sought to deal with foreigners.

For that reason, I ask the Minister to leave this section as it stands but to make provision that it shall not apply to companies constituted exclusively of Irish nationals. If he does that, he meets our point. I cannot imagine he really intends that this section should be invoked against a company constituted exclusively of Irish nationals. There are ample powers, where the public interest demands that any land should be compulsorily acquired, to acquire it, but, as I understand the Minister, this section is primarily designed to deal with the fraudulent company that seeks to frustrate his purpose, and our purpose, to prevent the control and acquisition of Irish land by aliens. He can meet our point immediately by saying: "Very well; on Report Stage, I will provide that this section does not apply to companies, the shareholders of which are exclusively national, but let it be understood that, if any alien professes to participate in the company, it becomes subject to this section." That will meet our point. If the company is exclusively Irish, it ought to be excluded from the purposes of this section.

I put it to the Minister it would be much happier if the bulk of this Bill could be carried with general consent. As far as we are concerned, we are anxious to see what appears to us to be the useful elements of this legislation expeditiously passed. But we do urge on the Minister that this is a valid point made, not on behalf of people who are numerous in the country, nor on behalf of people whose cause is popular in the country, but on behalf of Irish men and women who are in our power and of whom we desire to boast that such people in the power of an Irish Parliament are secure of justice. I do not think the Minister will weaken his Bill in the least if he says: "Very well; between now and the Report Stage, I will arrange that this section shall not apply to such a company". If he does that, there is no further argument between us and we are agreed on a common purpose.

Mr. Moran

The purpose of the section, which I went into in more detail before Deputy Dillon came in, is to deal with certain situations of companies owning lands here, the real beneficial owners perhaps being abroad, and to make these lands vulnerable for Land Commission purposes for the relief of congestion.

Deputies, including the Leader of the Opposition, are always quoting extreme cases and suggesting that the Land Commission will take land from the widow or the genuine company, and so on. Deputies know that that is not so and that, even under the existing law, the Land Commission can go after unworked land, land that has been let over a long period of years. These are the kinds of cases this section is designed to meet and that is why we have forged this qualification to make these lands in suitable cases vulnerable.

There are people who purchase land under one device or another and usually under the name of an alleged Irish company. The land is let and they are living in Paris or London or where have you. These are the kinds of people I am endeavouring to deal with here. The question of providing for elderly relatives under a family company and all such extreme cases do not really apply under the existing law nor are they contemplated here. Many wealthy factory-owners play about with farms as a hobby and there are certain taxation devices for siphoning profits from one section to the other.

Mr. Dillon

Not now.

Mr. Moran

In my belief, yes, now.

Mr. Dillon

It used to be.

Mr. Moran

Here, we are trying to deal with the relief of congestion and to provide a land pool. These are the types of cases—non-resident companies and what have you, owning big sections of land that should be vulnerable for Land Commission purposes and in respect of which the statutory protection provisions should be removed where these lands are wanted for national purposes.

Deputy Dillon asked me to look at this between now and Report Stage. I shall, but I can assure him and the House that, unless we remove the front of the Irish company in this field, we might as well throw our hats at it. There are so many devices open, under the company laws of this country and probably of other countries too, to evade what we are after here that unless we make this applicable to Irish companies we are simply wasting our time. The simple case is the foreign company. We all know where we are in that connection. The trouble is an alleged Irish company with, for instance, a herd on the land the major shareholder in order to avoid the provisions of this section. I invite Deputies to consider that position. It is to ensure against that position that the powers here are being sought.

I shall have another look at it but, from my knowledge of the company laws and the stories I have been told, whether true or false, in connection with manipulations of Irish companies, I say to the House seriously and sincerely that unless we spread our net in this way we are wasting our time in trying to make these lands vulnerable to the Land Commission.

Mr. Leneghan

It is obvious that this argument will be prolonged as long as the Opposition can possibly prolong it. We have all heard the saying "De mortuis nil nisi bonum” but what about “De mortuis et vivis nil nisi verum”? I am afraid a lot of the latter has not been spoken in this House in the past few weeks. Deputy O. J. Flanagan probably knows more Latin than Deputy Dillon and no doubt he will understand the point I am making. I think it is a shame. In all fairness to the people in the west of Ireland, in particular, I must point out that the prolongation of this debate is designed to ensure that this Bill will not go through this House and, even if it does, that it will not go through the Upper House until after next Spring with the result that very few people in the west will be transferred next Spring to holdings in the midlands. I consider that this is very poor politics.

I completely and entirely agree with the Minister, not simply because he is a Mayoman but because I honestly believe that what he has in mind is the correct thing to do. However, the fact that he is a Mayoman makes it much easier for me to agree with him because he or anybody belonging to him is not the type of person who would do any of the things fired forth here by Deputy Dillon and Deputy Flanagan. According to them, if the Minister gets these powers there will be fire and brimstone upon certain people. There probably will. That should have happened a long time ago.

The ordinary common man, the ordinary tenant down the country and even the ordinary person who had to emigrate to make extra money, perhaps to buy extra acres next door so that he or those coming after him will be able to live there in reasonable security, should not be touched. I know from my associations with the Minister and with these people that he is the last man in Europe to do anything which would deprive the widow, the orphan, or anybody else of that type, of their land. This matter has been fired up here purely and simply in an effort to stop this Bill from going through because we have people here who are auctioneers and who are afraid that if this Bill goes through, they will lose their five per cent. I do not think they are right. I suggest that in the west of Ireland at least that will have no effect and that in the midlands and in the east——

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy will understand that we are discussing section 34, as amended.

Mr. Leneghan

If auctioneers were not involved, there would be no hold-up on this Bill. I suggest, in view of that, I am quite within the rules in discussing this matter——

An Ceann Comhairle

If the Deputy continues as he has been speaking, he will certainly not be within the rules of relevance.

Mr. Leneghan

——but if the Chair rules otherwise, I shall sit down.

Mr. Dillon

The Minister is undertaking to look at this again between now and Report Stage to facilitate our procedure. I am prepared to bring in an amendment. I can recognise the difficulty the Minister has in mind. You can have the one hundred per cent Irish company that is owned by a holding company in which there are shareholders who are aliens. You can have the company in which the holding, down in the provinces, is owned by a gentleman living in Vienna. Surely between us we can devise a section of an Act which will provide that if any beneficial interest, direct or indirect, hereafter vests in someone other than a national in a company owning land in Ireland, that company shall become fully subject to all the powers in section 34. That meets our point.

I am quite prepared to say "any beneficiary, proximate or remote", and then it is up to a family making a genuine family settlement in consultation with a solicitor to see that no jiggery-pokery is engaged in. If, at any stage, there is a beneficial interest passing to any alien, then automatically the whole settlement becomes subject to the general provisions of this section. If the Minister will make such a provision between now and Report Stage, that satisfies us. We are solely concerned to protect the security of tenure of a genuine company representing an Irish family. Outside that, we are in entire agreement with the Minister, and I think we urged this before on the Minister, as far back as 1961, that the time was overdue to take Draconian measures against foreigners acquiring ownership of Irish agricultural land, either per se or per alios.

In regard to land legislation, I do not think it desirable that acrimony should be engendered. I should much prefer to see land legislation passed by general consent. From every point of view, I believe that is desirable. Certain fundamental issues emerged in the course of the debate on this Bill and it is manifest that on these issues, we and the Minister are not going to agree. We have argued them and we are pledged unequivocally, if we get into office, to repeal the provisions of section 27 and to cancel any arrangement the Minister may make whereby an executive officer of his Department is a Land Commissioner. We must agree to differ on those issues. But here is another matter where I do not believe there is any genuine difference between us. We both want the same thing, and I think, on reflection, the Minister will find that if he puts the matter before his legal experts, an agreed solution can be found. On that basis, we are prepared to let the section go through. We shall submit an amendment for Report Stage and I have no doubt the Minister`s draftsmen will be able to prepare a better one. If that should be the case, we shall be very happy to accept it on the Report Stage.

Mr. Moran

In dealing with this amendment, I am not going to be sidetracked in giving the reasons I set out at length as to why Deputy Dillon's proposals put before us in 1961 were unworkable.

They say: "Qui facit per alium facit per se”, but Deputy Dillon must realise that this section is designed to deal with what I call the Dame Street type of farming, a front of a farm company with nobody residing on the holding which is not being used in the best national interest. I am satisfied, and I have been told, that there is an instance or two of registered Irish companies, which, on paper, are still 100 per cent Irish controlled, but in actual fact are a front for other people. How one can get over the position when an alleged mortgagor realises his mortgage and takes over possession without dealing with documents of title unless you make a provision of this kind, is beyond my ingenuity to answer at present——

Mr. Dillon

Legal or beneficial ownership?

Mr. Moran

Legally, I can visualise a case in which X, Y and Z own a company as Irish shareholders, but some continental is in actual possession of the land on the basis that he has moved in to realise his mortgage which is a fictitious one——

Mr. Dillon

As mortgagor, he is the legal owner.

Mr. Moran

But he enters into possession and he is there and, on paper and in the Land Registry, it is the company owned by X, Y, Z, Irish nationals, who have access to it. You do not know how he is there.

All I can say is that if there is a way of dealing with this matter between now and Report Stage so as to segregate the genuine Irish farm company from the foreign-controlled one, I should like to find it.

Mr. Dillon

And we shall agree. I sympathise with the Minister's difficulty. I shall do what I can to help and the Minister will do what he can, and there is no need to argue further.

Mr. Moran

I think the real answer to the Deputy's fears is the fact that the Land Commission will not be after the genuine family or the genuine case of an Irish farm company. That has not been their practice in the past, nor will it be in the future.

Mr. Dillon

If it is possible to put that in the Bill, we are both agreed that it is desirable to do so.

Mr. Moran

I do not think it is.

Mr. Dillon

But if that is so, we need have no further argument.

Question put and agreed to.

SECTION 35.

Question proposed: "That section 35 stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Moran

This section proposes to allow the Minister for Finance to fix, from time to time, the maximum expenditure by the Land Commission on work connected with watercourses, drains or embankments. Under the existing law, section 44 of the 1933 Land Act, the Land Commission must obtain the sanction of the Minister for Finance before incurring expenditure exceeding £500. With changing money values, the limit of £500 has become too restricted and, for instance, a severe winter storm can overnight create urgent need for repair work costing much more than this sum. Indeed, in many cases where there is a question of expediency and urgency, if the Land Commission can go in in a hurry, the work will cost much less than if it is left for a while.

This section generally deals with emergencies but it will enable the Minister for Finance to fix with me, or with whatever Minister for Lands is there, a global figure under which the Land Commission may move in without reference to the Department of Finance, without red tape.

Mr. Dillon

We think this gives the Minister a flexibility he ought to have.

Question put and agreed to.

SECTION 36.

Question proposed: " That section 36 stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Moran

This matter was debated with section 31. It deals with the question of small purchase money arrears, which was debated already.

Question put and agreed to.

SECTION 37.

Question proposed: "That section 37 stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Moran

Section 37 amends the Land Act of 1936. As Deputies who are familiar with this field know, there is a safe period of seven years after vesting during which, under the law as it exists, the Land Commission cannot touch a farm. Some very odd cases have arisen. For instance, I was questioned by Deputy Sweetman in this House some time last year about a case in which there was a migrant who died and his widow sold out the new migrant's holding within six months of coming to it but because of the fact that there was this immunity the Land Commission could not step in. There were two cases some years ago of two brothers from the west who were in holdings up here who had them let. One of them had gone away, in fact. Again, there was this immunity so that the Land Commission could not interfere.

This section, of course, would also deal with unvested holdings that may become vested in future. There are approximately 10,000 holdings still unvested because for one reason or another, the Land Commission have not got around to them but by virtue of the fact that a vesting order is made, whether the owners of these holdings may have them let for years and may be in England, America or Australia, again after the vesting order is made there is this seven year period during which the Land Commission are prohibited from acquiring or taking them over.

I am not wedded to the proposition that is here, that is, the period of two years which I have suggested. I am quite satisfied that seven years is absolutely unreasonable and that there is now no good reason why there should be this immunity for a period of seven years. The odd case can occur, particularly now in the valuable new holdings migrants are getting, costing up to £8,000, for instance, that are specifically designed for migrants, that due to some family circumstance, within a short time, the migrant that has gone up there may go away, may die, may give up the holding, or the Land Commission may have picked a bad land user. In these cases it should be open to the Land Commission to move in within a reasonable time. I do not say it should be moved into straightaway, overnight. But the Land Commission's hands should not be tied from moving in in a suitable case to acquire such lands.

Normally, of course, the Land Commission would not move in unreasonably and, indeed, it can often happen that a man going up from my part of the country may need a couple of years. He may have to build up stock because he needs more stock for the bigger holding he is getting and may need, perhaps, to let a couple of fields or to go to England for a year, or what have you. I contemplate that that must occur from time to time in this sphere of things but I do feel that, outside migrants altogether, the law is wrong whereby by the very fact of vesting this field down in the west of Ireland these lands, irrespective of their user, are inviolable for a period of seven years after vesting.

On the Second Stage of this Bill, some Deputies referred to this period as being unreasonable and to this power as being a wrong power to give to the Land Commission. I do not think they quite understand what my real purpose was in trying to cut down this period. I suggest to the House that a reasonable period after vesting is two years. If, on the other hand, there are any convincing reasons given to me between now and Report Stage as to why I should add another year to that, I am not tied to two years. My own judgment is that two years is quite reasonable. Again, it is solely in an extreme case that the Land Commission would be moving in at all within that period.

Mr. Dillon

Am I not right in believing that the average period that elapses between allocation and vesting is ten years? The tenant is usually in occupation of the holding for ten years before he is vested during which period —it used to be certainly all around Ballaghaderreen—the practice was that a new allottee might expect to be ten years on the holding before he was vested and during that ten years he was, in fact, paying rent in lieu of annuity and was or could be excluded from the holding by the Land Commission at any time if there was nonuser or unsuitable user of the land, whereas, when the land was vested all the rent that he had paid during the years of tenancy was credited to him as instalments as from the date of his original entry on the holding but my recollection was that there was ten years probation. Has that period been greatly abbreviated?

Mr. Moran

Yes, it has.

Mr. Dillon

Perhaps the Minister would be kind enough to tell me what is the average period before vesting now?

Mr. Moran

In the old days, we called it an annual sum or, in the west, interest in lieu of rent, but my recollection of these procedures is that it was generally where an addition may have been given but where the Land Commission were still waiting to get another holding in the area, as they did not consider that they had sufficient land to make a proper scheme, that they were left in that way for so long as the Deputy has suggested. I think the practice now is that where they are vesting them they vest the whole townland together after giving them additions and there is no such time lag as there used to be.

Indeed, as I have said, there are only about 10,000 unvested cases now left in the whole country and probably most of them are in the west of Ireland and most of them are probably old rundale estates the problems in relation to which have proved insoluble up to now.

The Deputy will appreciate that in regard to many of those cases some are gone abroad; some of them are gone for many years with no intention of returning. Those few acres may be vital for Land Commission purposes, but by virtue of their vesting, the holdings are untouchable for a period of seven years. I am saying I think that is wrong. The object of this section is to cut that down to two. In the case of the unvested holding, I have also mentioned to the Deputy the question of a migrant who for one reason or another fails in regard to land user on the new holding and that there should not be this protection for a period of seven years and that the Land Commission should be able to move in on him in proper circumstances if he deserves it.

Mr. Dillon

I find myself in substantial agreement with the Minister but, as usual, my mind is, I confess, prejudiced and harassed by apprehension of the new character of the Land Commission. If the Land Commission were constituted as I think it ought to be constituted, exclusively in a quasi-judicial form and if section 27 did not exist, I would not quarrel with the Minister at all. If he said that, on reflection and having listened to the best advice, he would make the two years three or four, I would not quarrel with that. He will agree with me that 20 years ago the ordinary period for vesting was about ten years and if you added two years to that, it meant that a man got ten years during which he was on probation and two years in which he was in an inalienable position vis-a-vis the Land Commission and thereafter he became susceptible to acquisition like every other landholder.

I would find myself—and I think Deputy Flanagan will agree with me —with no reservations on this section if we had not this fundamental difference in regard to the two previous sections, that is, the constitution of the Land Commission and the power of the Minister under section 27 to direct the inspection of lands. I am not without hope that before this Bill finally leaves Dáil Éireann we shall manage to persuade the Minister to drop these two powers. It would be a source of great benefit to the country if the discussion on this Bill had not those two confusing elements in it. It would have been good for the land code to have the wider measure of agreement that could have been arrived at in the absence of the two provisions to which I refer.

However, so far as we are concerned, in view of the abbreviation of the period of years between entry and vesting, we think the Minister might be prepared, having obtained the best advice, to appoint three years rather than two but it is not a matter on which we have very strong views. If the Minister says on Report Stage that, having taken the best advice he prefers two, we are prepared to agree. If, on the other hand, he takes the view that three or four years is the better period, we shall be prepared to agree to that.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

There is no great difference of opinion between ourselves and the Minister on this section. It is true to say that there has been a considerable speeding up by the Land Commission in the vesting of holdings and I ask the Minister to direct seriously the attention of the Land Commission to the early vesting of holdings. The new tenant may require financial assistance and in most cases where financial assistance is sought either from the Agricultural Credit Corporation or indeed from any other financial concern, they usually address a query relating to the vesting of the holding.

I have recently directed the attention of the Land Commission to a number of these cases where the very progressive and most successful allottees were farming according to the highest standards, but when they sought financial accommodation from the banks they were told to address a communication to the Land Commission with a view to early vesting. It would be a very great asset to those allottees to be vested as early as possible so that they could be accommodated if they required financial assistance. I agree there is a considerable speeding up in vesting but I would ask the Minister to endeavour to get this section of the Land Commission working so that vesting will be completed at the earliest possible date.

The Minister's attention has been directed to a number of estates where vesting is overdue and where hardship is being experienced because of this. The Minister sees frequent reports from the Land Commission as to the progress these new tenants, migrants or others, are making on their holdings. While there always appears to be a great deal of publicity given to the one undesirable who may not work his farm in accordance with the high standards expected of him, it is generally felt that the vast majority of them make a great success of their holdings.

On an occasion such as this when we are discussing these people under this section, it can be said that the Land Commission have in most cases made wise choices and that many of those who have obtained holdings are living up to the expectations of the Land Commission and to the expectations of this House. It is encouraging for us to be able to say that they are making a good living and settling down on the land which they love. The Minister will agree that it is very seldom there is a failure in this respect.

Mr. Moran

I have paid tribute on many occasions in this House to the outstanding success which the vast majority of migrants have achieved on their holdings, and particularly migrants who were brought up over the last 15 or 20 years. I am thinking more in this section of dealing with the type of case left in some of these land slums in the west and of the 10,000 unvested cases to which I have referred. Deputies may not be aware that in some of these cases tenants object to vesting because they feel, not without reason, that once they are vested, they are written off by the Land Commission, that the Land Commission have no more use for them and they will get no more grants, and so on. They sometimes object to vesting, not on the best legal grounds but for the purpose of keeping themselves as Land Commission liabilities. I am not thinking so much of the odd case of the migrant, such as the case raised here last year by Deputy Sweetman, and one or two others that I know of, in which there were very unusual family circumstances. There were cases in which, if this protection did not exist, the Land Commission would have moved in and taken over holdings. I am thinking in the main of the vested cases to which I have referred.

Question put and agreed to.

SECTION 38.

Question proposed: "That section 38 stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Moran

The purpose of this section is to expand and complete the arrangements under which the Land Commission may recover sums by way of claims against purchase moneys or similar funds. The existing law is governed by section 13 of the Land Act, 1939, as amended by the Land Act, 1953. Broadly speaking, provision is made for the recovery of sums due to the Land Commission, or losses, or expenses incurred by them, through owners overholding beyond the appointed day.

The main weakness in these provisions is that they include (1) the possibility of a claim relating to a period before the appointed day—for instance, apportionment lettings, and (2) claims relating to a period after the date of possession when the owner re-enters the land. Sometimes we have these troublesome cases and expenses are incurred by the Land Commission that should be recoverable out of the purchase money and interest. Claims for apportionment lettings of the land are only adjusted by consent but, if the owner repudiates them, or if the owner goes to England or America, for instance, and ignores them, the Land Commission are left without a remedy under the existing law. Whereas they may have a remedy at law, they are also hamstrung in the case of the owner who re-enters the lands in defiance of the Land Commission, in defiance of a court order actually, and resists being put out.

What I am asking under this section is that in these cases, in order to deal with the troublemaker, the Land Commission should be entitled to reimburse the expenses they will have to incur in dealing with him.

Mr. Dillon

I prefer to believe this proposal had its origin in the Department of Finance. It does not sound to me like the spirit of either the Land Commission or the old Congested Districts Board, many of whose distinguished officers now adorn the Land Commission. These are cases very largely of people who are acting quite irrationally under an illusory sense of grievance against the Land Commission. They are the people who will not go out or who, having surrendered their holdings, go back in again. They are the cases one sees brought in the courts, committed to jail for failure to carry out a High Court order to vacate land or surrender possession to the Land Commission on a certain given day.

I cannot imagine the Land Commission or the Department of Lands urging on the Minister for Lands that he should seek by way of recovery of cost to exacerbate a family problem created by an eccentric parent who resists a decision, which has been confirmed on appeal, because, if the man's grievance is one relating to price, he has the right to go to the Land Judge and have the price settled under the terms of the 1955 Act at full market value. We know of cases where you get people who dig their heels into the ground. Mark you, it is not only odd evicted tenants of the Land Commission who dig their heels irrationally in the ground. Now, with such people I have got considerable sympathy.

Do we seriously desire here in dealing with such a person to impose upon him a fiduciary penalty by telling him: "If you put the Land Commission to expense that will be taken out of your purchase"? I do not think that is proper. God knows, the family is already afflicted with a parent who has developed an obsession in this matter, who gets himself cited for contempt of court, does a week in Limerick jail, and finally comes before the High Court, apologises, and says he will be good, and promptly goes back next week into the holding and the Land Commission is put to further expense, but do we really want to take it out on his wife and children by recovering the cost in the purchase price? I have no objection if the Land Commission go to law and the court awards a certain sum in favour of the Land Commission, having heard all the circumstances of the case, but do not think it is in the spirit of the Land Commission at all to seek, by a kind of sidewind, to impose a fiduciary or monetary penalty on a man who proves unduly troublesome.

We ought to bear in mind that in dealing with land acquisition, we are going to the very core of some people's whole nature. I remember the boast of the Land Commission in the old days of the rundale estate in the west of Ireland, which was insoluble until one of the senior inspectors heard there was an old pishrogue in the vicinity that the man who settled the rundale would have a red coat on him. He went down in a scarlet waiscoat and, lo and behold, the rundale problem resolved itself automatically.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Dillon

It was because the Land Commission understood our people and dealt with them on a sympathetic and friendly basis that they became and still are an example to the whole world.

Mr. Leneghan

County Monaghan— what has that to do with the West of Ireland?

An Ceann Comhairle

Order. Deputy Dillon.

Mr. Dillon

In European countries, the story of the Irish Land Commission and its work has been a source of inspiration. The fact that the Irish Land Commission and the old Congested Districts Board, now forming part of it, managed to resolve the land problem——

(Interruptions.)

An Ceann Comhairle

Order.

Mr. Dillon

——is a source of inspiration to many another country. I put it to the Minister we ought to be slow to take powers further to impose costs where we are dealing with a peculiarly difficult individual. I know how difficult it is on occasion to resolve these problem cases but I do not believe the Land Commission require the added power to increase the burden of costs chargeable against the purchase price. I should be glad to be advised by the Minister if I am wrong: does this not amount to levying a penalty on the wife and family of an intransigent owner rather than on the owner himself? If it does, do we really want to do that? I suggest to the Minister we should not do it. We have got along fairly well heretofore. It has been very often difficult and tedious but the State has not suffered any loss the State was not able to bear. If the Minister submits to the application of charging the purchase money of a farm he acquires with the legal costs that may be involved in resolving a difficult problem I believe he will have cause to regret it and, if this proposal came from the Department of Finance, I suggest to him that he tell the Department of Finance that he is collecting as much in these cases as he at present thinks it is prudent to collect, and he will be damned if he will collect any more.

Mr. Moran

The Deputy has misinterpreted the position. He is incorrect in his assumption that this proposal originated with the Department of Finance. It did not; it originated in my Department. It is a tightening up of section 13 of the 1939 Land Act which deals with charges on purchase moneys of and in the Land Commission. In a number of these cases where the Land Commission are, either compulsorily or by consent, going in and taking lands that had been let for probably a great number of years and when the appointed day, for the purpose of the Land Acts, is invariably the date on which the Land Commission take possession of the land, they may get formal possession, we will say, in November, whereas there may be existing lettings these lands up to the following March. Under the existing law, if this owner chooses to ignore apportionment of these lands, and particularly if the owner is abroad, the Land Commission do not under existing law have a remedy unless they go to the rather expensive business of applying to serve writs outside the jurisdiction.

Let us not forget that it is the taxpayers' money we are dealing with. It is all very well for Deputy Dillon to say, and it is true, that in many cases you have a recalcitrant owner who is what they call a bit of a head case. Having agreed to give up possession, the Land Commission are put to great expense, and if the Land Commission collect the money, it is a penalty against the man's wife and family. It is true that every head case that goes into a court——

Mr. Dillon

What a reflection on his wife and family. With that, I am in entire agreement.

Mr. Moran

The family possibly are the sufferers ultimately but what Deputy Dillon does not appear to appreciate is that the remedy is already there, except that it must be exercised in a far more drawn out and expensive way. Instead of getting in the purchase money direct, the Land Commission will have to institute proceedings separately for this sum. If they do that and get a judgement, they can come in before the allocation of the purchase money. In the end, the position would be much more expensive on the unfortunate wife and family than it would be if this section is passed because you would be avoiding the expense that would be involved.

As Deputy Dillon knows, if there is an amount due to a Department, that Department must proceed for that amount and recover it, if it is recoverable. That rule has been there since the foundation of the State. If there was an amount due in one of these cases to the Land Commission, they would have to proceed for it, but it might well be that by the time they got their decree, it might not be worth the paper it was written upon, but the Auditor General will not allow them to write it off without making the attempt.

This section is designed to extend the powers existing under section 13 of the 1939 Act and to provide a central procedure to deal with the cases I have dealt with, and indeed it is much more necessary to deal with the individual who is abroad and to deal with claims relating to a period before the appointed day than with the individual who is abroad and to deal with claims relating to a period before the appointed day than with the very odd character who comes back on to the land and has to be ejected by the Land Commission. Even in the latter case, it will be far less expensive to go at the matter in this way than if the Land Commission were compelled to institute separate proceedings.

Mr. Dillon

It is extraordinary to me that the Minister should adopt the view of the Executive, that if you can short-circuit the courts, it is an admirable thing to do as it saves money. It is quite true to say that if you short-circuit the whole procedure of the court, you arrogate to the Land Commission what I imagine the Minister must have strenuously maintained in his professional days was the exclusive prerogative of the court. Is that wise? I know that this is merely a tightening up of section 13 of the 1939 Act, as amended by section 13 of the 1953 Act. Does the Minister observe the strange coincidence that it has its origin in section 13, as amended by section 13 of the second Act? Thirteen is not usually a very lucky number.

This is not a matter of high principle but it is an unsound thesis for the Minister to advance that it is desirable, where you can save money, to short-circuit the courts. I do see at once that, where you are dealing with an absentee owner, the business of issuing writs outside the jurisdiction does not appear to be a very desirable device. I am thinking, however, of the head case, and God knows, any of us living in the country, particularly in the west, realise you are liable to come across a head case in the most unexpected places. A family which has to live with a head case suffers enough without heavy penalties of a fiduciary character wrought upon it as a result of the head case acting as a head case. Far from exciting our desire for revenge or hatred we should pity the head case and do our best to alleviate the circumstances of those who have the misfortune to have their destinies cast with him or her.

I commend this suggestion to the Minister for Lands. He is probably as familiar with instances of head cases as I am and he is probably moved to a sincere compassion for those who have to endure them. With that in mind, perhaps the Minister would look at this between now and Report Stage, and if he can see his way to tempering the wind to the shorn lamb, I am sure he will.

Mr. Moran

I have as much sympathy as Deputy Dillon or anybody else with what I describe as a head case. You also have the very stubborn individual who will not take advice because——

Mr. Dillon

That is a pretty good description of a head case. It is a euphemism for a head case.

Mr. Moran

There is a difference.

Mr. Dillon

Vive la difference.

Mr. Moran

I think this section is necessary. I will look at it between now and Report Stage. I have, however, fresh in my mind a recent case in a certain part of the country in which a man who was completely irrational caused himself and the Land Commission an awful lot of trouble. The Land Commission had to move, as the law is and must be, to have themselves indemnified. I am satisfied that if in that case we had this power, it would have been in ease of this particular head case and of his wife and family because there would have been less expense.

Mr. Leneghan

I do not think much has been left out of this debate. There is not a red herring that could be brought in that has not been introduced. In fact, last week, if I am not mistaken, someone introduced a dual purpose hen, whatever that is.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

If I may interrupt Deputy Leneghan, we are now discussing section 38 which——

Mr. Leneghan

I know.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

If the Deputy will allow me. This section relates to moneys outstanding through obstruction in giving possession to the Land Commission, and nothing else.

Mr. Leneghan

I know. The last thing anyone in the west of Ireland will do is give over possession to the Land Commission. Seeing that we have gone so far, I just wanted to suggest to the auctioneers that the fairest thing is to tell the truth. If they get the sales of the lands, they will still get their five per cent. If they get their five per cent, that will close their mouths and stop a lot of the nonsense that has been going on in this House.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

This section has nothing whatever to do with auctioneers or auctioneers' fees. It relates to "other moneys".

Mr. Leneghan

I know. If this section does not go through, we will be back where we started. It all started over the auctioneers. If we had not the racket which has been going on for the past 12 months, this Bill would have gone through long ago. I want to say this, and I will sit down as soon as I say it: I want to assure the auctioneers in this House that they will get their five per cent. That should cure them and put them in a position to support the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

SECTION 39.

Question proposed: "That section 39 stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Moran

The central idea of the section is to simplify the arrangements for disposal of default holdings. There is a relaxation of the rigid control by the Minister for Finance in the matter of writing off arrears and costs. Under the existing law, that is, section 20 of the Land Act, 1939, it is provided that the Land Commission must have possession of the default holding before they can resell it on compromise terms including a writing off of all or part of the arrears and costs. It also reserves to the Minister for Finance the right to sanction every write-off. In practice, a reasonable settlement is often made with a member of a defaulter's family and the technical necessity of insisting on obtaining possession merely delays matters and forces up costs. As to paragraph (b) it is in the interest of more efficient administration that the Minister for Finance proposes to authorise the Land Commission to make their own settlements within reasonable limits to be fixed by the Minister for Finance from time to time. This really gets rid of the red tape.

Mr. Dillon

This is a very sensible provision, in my judgement, but I suggest to the Minister that he should look at section 38 again. He is on the right lines in section 39 where he can get a settlement which does not involve protracted litigation and odds and ends may be written off. He should have that general discretion within limits as suggested in paragraph (b). He can use his wisest discretion in writing off incidental costs and getting the business closed. I would be very happy to see paragraph (b) of section 39 attached to section 38, which would give the Minister discretion to pursue the purchase money for the statutory charges, or not, as he in his discretion thought suitable in the special circumstances of the case. If the absentee from whom the lands were acquired were living in Chicago or Los Angeles, I do not see why the Land Commission should not recover the costs before remitting the money to Chicago or Los Angeles, but if the Minister's inspectors told him that a head case, or a sad case, was involved and the family had suffered great trouble already, I should like the Minister to have the discretion to say: "They have had trouble enough. Write off these odds and ends." That is the kind of discretion I would readily place in the hands of any Minister for Lands, in the conviction that it would be used in a humanitarian and sensible way. Any of us who have experience will recognise the desirability of the global control of the Minister for Finance expressed in paragraph (b), but within that global control, the Minister for Lands should have the widest discretion to waive claims of that character. I suggest he should seek a similar discretion in section 38.

Mr. Moran

I have said I will look at it.

Mr. Leneghan

I should like the Minister to make the position quite clear. So far as I can see, the big opposition to this Bill since the day it came into this House has been from the auctioneering section of the House. They are the people who opposed the Bill right through.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That has nothing to do with section 39.

Mr. Leneghan

It has, of course.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

It has nothing whatsoever to do with it.

Mr. Leneghan

If this land is in the hands of the auctioneers, will they get their five per cent, or whatever bargain they have made? That is all I want to know on this section.

Mr. Corish

No answer from the Minister.

Mr. Moran

The auctioneer gets the five per cent.

Mr. Leneghan

He will get his money. Is that right?

Mr. Moran

Yes.

Mr. Leneghan

It shows exactly what they are—bloody frauds.

Question put and agreed to.

SECTION 40.

Question proposed: "That section 40 stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Moran

The purpose of the section is to fill a gap in the existing law. It is proposed that on the partition of a commonage, the burdens, charges, etc., attaching to each undivided share shall transfer to the corresponding share in severalty. The existing laws dealt with under the section are section 24 of the Land Act, 1939: fee simple purchased under the Land Acts; section 25 of the Land Act, 1950, which covers land dealt with under Forestry Acts and other lands not dealt with under Land Acts; and section 23 of the Land Act, 1953, which covers rights of commonage without fee simple.

These sections do not provide, as simple justice would demand, that burdens and charges should transfer in an orderly manner to the appropriate partitioned parts of the commonage. The registrar in the case of registered land has no clear authority to amend the folios in a commonsense fashion, and this section is designed to deal with that situation.

For instance, you have the rather absurd position under the existing law where there is a parent holding— and this is very common in congested areas—with perhaps undivided 56 shares of commonage and that commonage is being taken over by the Forestry Division or the Land Commission, and the old lady in the house has a charge against the parent holding for right of residence and support, that charge also attaches to the undivided 56 shares in the commonage. She could come in on the take-over of the commonage by the Land Commission. It is to deal with that situation that this section was devised.

Question put and agreed to.

SECTION 41.

Mr. Moran

We have already discussed this section. It is really the same as section 34 which we have discussed already. The whole point of section 41 is covered in section 34.

Mr. Dillon

We are now getting into troubled water. Are these the amendments which were divided into three groups?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

These amendments have been agreed to.

Mr. Dillon

What amendments are we talking about now?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Amendment 42 (a). It was discussed with amendment 40 (a). They were taken together.

Mr. Moran

All these amendments were debated together. They were debated in groups on section 34. I move amendment No. 42 (a):

In page 16, lines 49 and 50, and page 17, lines 1 to 20, to delete "(b) either—" and subparagraphs (i) and (ii), and to substitute the following:

"(b) any one of the following requirements which is applicable has been bona fide complied with—

(i) where a person other than a body corporate is the sole tenant — such person has throughout the whole of the qualifying period resided either on the holding or in the immediate neighbourhood thereof;

(ii) where a body corporate is the sole tenant—each of the persons entitled to a beneficial interest in the body corporate has throughout the whole of the qualifying period resided either on the holding or in the immediate neighbourhood thereof;

(iii) in any case not mentioned in subparagraph (i) or (ii) of this paragraph—all the persons entitled to a beneficial interest in any part of or share in the holding and all the persons entitled to a beneficial interest in the body or bodies corporate, which is or are entitled to any part of or share in the holding, have throughout the whole of the qualifying period resided either on the holding or in the immediate neighbourhood thereof;

provided that the requirement in respect of residence shall in no case be satisfied or deemed to be satisfied by compliance with any statutory provision whatsoever relating to residence by a body corporate, and".

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Moran

I move amendment No. 42b:

In page 17, lines 23 and 24, to delete "in the district in which such holding is situate" and to substitute "in the immediate neighbourhood of such holding".

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Moran

I move amendment No. 42c:

In page 17, line 41, to delete "locality" and to substitute "immediate neighbourhood".

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Moran

I move amendment No. 43:

In page 17, lines 44 to 48, to delete "or, in the case only of land forming the bank or shore of a lake or river, the provision of facilities for persons boating or fishing on the lake or river;" and to insert "or (in the case only of land not adjoining an occupied dwellinghouse which was in existence at the commencement of the qualifying period) the provision of facilities for persons boating or fishing on the sea or on a lake or river;"

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Moran

I move amendment 43 (a):

In page 18, line 4, before "neighbourhood" to insert "immediate".

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Moran

I move amendment 43 (b):

In page 18, line 35, after "section" to insert:

"`throughout the whole of the qualifying period resided' shall be construed as requiring that the person or persons mentioned in subparagraph (i), (ii) or (iii) (as the case may be) of paragraph (b) of subsection (6) of this section has or have ordinarily dwelt on or in the immediate neighbourhood of the land, provided that the Lay Commissioners may at their discretion disregard, for the purposes of this section, any temporary absence or absences from the land which they are satisfied is or are reasonably attributable to illness, business, vacation or any other cause;

`tenant or proprietor' includes the wife or husband of a tenant or proprietor."

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Moran

I move amendment 43 (c):

In page 18, after line 35, to insert the following:

"`immediate neighbourhood' includes any place which the Lay Commissioners are satisfied is not more than three miles from the nearest point of the relevant holding."

Amendment agreed to.

Question proposed: "That section 41, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Dillon

This is the section in respect of which the Minister has undertaken to look into the question as to whether he can effectively differentiate between an estate in the beneficial or legal ownership of an alien company and an estate in the beneficial and illegal ownership of an Irish national company. That question arose on section 34. Does the same issue arise in connection with section 41, as amended?

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

There is no difference.

Mr. Moran

It is the same principle. One deals with tenanted land and the other with untenanted land.

Mr. Dillon

We can depend on the Minister, if it is practicable, to devise a scheme to differentiate between ownership by an alien and ownership by an Irish national?

Mr. Moran

Subject to what I have said.

Mr. Dillon

Quite.

Mr. N. Lemass

Deputy Flanagan, earlier this evening, made use of some things he heard in East Galway over the weekend and gave us quite a long talk on the honourable purpose of Fine Gael in talking on the Bill. I was in Loughrea over the weekend and I heard some things and I would like to know if there is any basis in truth for them. I heard of a parcel of land not far from Loughrea owned by the Fine Gael Deputy for that area and which, under this section, would become land to be acquired by the Land Commission. I understand that not only has that Deputy been unco-operative with the Land Commission but she has locked the gate of the field and denied a neighbouring farmer the right of way to bring his cattle out on the road. I should like to know if there is any truth in this.

Even though Deputy Ryan in my constituency took an interest in the Land Bill, I felt it was not altogether right for a Dublin Deputy to participate in the debate. I should like some assurance from the Minister that the prolonged filibustering operation indulged in has not been to protect the rights of the Fine Gael Deputy for East Galway so as to enable her to jump the gun on the Land Commission.

Mr. Moran

I have not with me at the moment details of the case to which the Deputy refers. This section 41 which was debated in conjunction with section 34 deals with untenanted land as well as tenanted land. These matters have been discussed at length on the previous section and on the relevant amendments. I do not know if there is anything I could usefully add.

Mr. Dillon

There is a good deal I could usefully add to what has already been said. Deputy Lemass is the son of the Taoiseach. As such, he is not subject to the direct control of the Taoiseach. Certain standards are expected from all Deputies and one would expect that the Deputy who has found his way in here only as a result of his relationship with the Taoiseach would have set himself a special standard.

Mr. N. Lemass

I am here as a Deputy for Dublin South West.

Mr. Dillon

It is quite open to any Party at the by-election in East Galway to make any statement they like on the public life of anybody. If it is consistent with the Deputy's standard of personal honour to slander somebody in public, he is quite free to do so.

Mr. N. Lemass

The standard being dictated by Fine Gael?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Dillon.

Mr. N. Lemass

Is what I asked true or false?

Mr. Dillon

These standards are universally recognised wherever rational men are assembled.

Mr. Leneghan

We are entitled to know what was said.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Deputy must cease interrupting.

Mr. Leneghan

I was not talking. I cannot hear one word of what Deputy Dillon is saying.

Mr. Dillon

If Deputy Lemass wanted to attack Deputy Mrs. Hogan O'Higgins, he had ample opportunity of doing so in public.

Mr. N. Lemass

I did so.

Mr. Dillon

Why draw it up in here, under the protection of parliamentary procedure?

Mr. N. Lemass

Mr. Kelliher, one of your speakers, listened to me.

Mr. Dillon

The Deputy is saying it under the absolute privilege of Parliament. Why does he not repeat in the open what he now seeks to promulgate under privilege? Surely no man can sink lower.

Mr. N. Lemass

Nonsense.

Mr. Dillon

It is bad enough to slander where the appropriate limitations for slander are available but surely it goes beyond the limits of the lowest we have experienced in this House so far, when Deputy Lemass——

Mr. N. Lemass

The Deputy will get an answer to this.

Mr. Dillon

——should so far degrade himself and the name he bears as to avail of an occasion such as this to make a vicious attack on a colleague, and a lady, in this House, in respect of her home, which she holds as the daughter of one of the most distinguished members this house has ever had and also a great public servant. I wonder does Deputy Lemass hope to tarnish the name of Hogan with this kind of slander? Does Deputy Lemass hope to achieve something by pelting mud at somebody who bears the name of Hogan and O'Higgins?

Mr. N. Lemass

If this is a denial, I will accept it.

Mr. Dillon

I have never heard the like of such contemptible conduct in the normal experience of this House. There is nothing in respect of the fight for the land that the people of this country cannot look back upon with pride and gratitude.

Mr. N. Lemass

I hope the farmer who wants to get his cattle out on the road will appreciate this lecture. The Leader of the Opposition is not denying what I said.

Mr. Dillon

The Leader of the Opposition is merely disgusted by the conduct of the Deputy who bears a name which, by virtue of his father's office, we ought to be entitled to respect. He seeks to drag it into the gutter of slander and he ought to know that mud thrown will not stick on the name of either Hogan or O'Higgins. These two names are associated in this country with the establishment and the institution of the State. There is no farmer in this country or no vagrant on the road whose rights are not abundantly guaranteed by the institution that O'Higgins died to establish and that Hogan tried to establish in this country. If the Deputy has no sense of shame, he will perhaps sympathise with the sense of loathing which those of us who venerate those names experience when that smirch has been put on them.

Question put and agreed to.

SECTION 42.

Question proposed: "That section 42 stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Moran

The proposals herein are very similar to section 39, except that they deal with the case in which the Land Commission make an advance to repay arrears as distinct from the ordinary case in which they seek a cash payment to recover them. The same principles of cutting out the expense of possession proceedings and relaxing finance control apply here. In this case, where there is a holding and a relative or a new man comes in to take it, the Land Commission can advance the purchaser the necessary money to meet the arrears on the holding which is being sold.

Mr. Dillon

Is this a power which is often used?

Mr. Moran

No, it is not very often used, but it is a power which I am satisfied is necessary in each of the new purchases.

Mr. Dillon

I think the Minister will agree with me that the Land Commission, ejecting an existing tenant and installing an incoming tenant, appear to be cast in the role which used to be associated with the name of Greville in rural Ireland. I have never heard of a case in all my experience of the Land Commission evicting a tenant and installing somebody else. I cannot recall one single case. Can the Minister recall one? I have known of a case where people have given up a holding and it has been divided for the relief of congestion but I cannot remember a case where the Land Commission evicted a tenant and put in somebody else. Has the Minister ever known a case in which the Land Commission evicted a tenant and put in somebody else?

Mr. Moran

I have known of a case in which they were on the point of doing so and the neighbours came to the rescue. This section is designed also to deal with a different kind of case. We have sometimes a case of abandoned land, particularly in isolated areas, where the tenant went away and left accumulated arrears of annuities. As the law is, these arrears will have to be put down in cash by the neighbour or relative. There is provision made here so that the Land Commission can make an advance to cover the arrears and enable the new man to purchase. It does not arise very often but it is a useful provision and it is in ease of the purchaser when he comes along in cases of this kind.

Mr. Dillon

Perhaps I misunderstood the Deputy. I had understood that in a case where the Land Commission evicted a man for non-payment of rent and where arrears had accumulated, the incoming tenant was given an advance by the Land Commission to pay off the arrears which the evicted tenant had accumulated, and that this was then added to the land annuity of the incoming tenant who was allowed to pay it off over the years ahead.

Mr. Moran

What the Deputy is saying could happen in theory but does not happen in practice.

Mr. Dillon

If this is a proposal that where arrears have accumulated on a holding and a neighbour or relative or purchaser for value says: "I will buy that holding at an auction but I cannot possibly put down the money for the land, plus arrears of land annuity outstanding", thus enabling the Land Commission to say: "You can pay it on the annuity, pay it off with the outstanding instalments of the annuity", that is sensible.

Mr. Moran

That is the idea behind it.

Mr. Dillon

It proposes to facilitate the Land Commission in evicting the sitting tenant and facilitates a grabber who comes in to pay off by giving him an advance to enable him to grab. That seems to me to be an outrage in every sense of the word, and the kind of transaction I have never known the Land Commission to be associated with, if it is not exclusively for the relief of a purchaser of value for what is virtually abandoned land.

Mr. Tully

A farm is abandoned, as the Minister says, and in a short time the Land Commission take it over and there is no accrued annuity. The Land Commission take it over and appoint another tenant. Should there be equities on that farm? The reason I ask the Minister is that I know of an instance where a man who had a big family got a farm. Subsequently he died. His family sold everything in the place. The farm was taken over by the Land Commission and given to a son subject to equities. The family who had sold everything came back and sued the son who, because the farm was given to him subject to equities, had to pay out hundreds of pounds. This was, I think, the result of a mistake by the Land Commission. There were no equities on the farm because it had been abandoned. The Land Commission had taken it back and appointed another tenant.

Mr. Moran

Anybody who accepts a title subject to equities, unless he has intimate knowledge of the history of the family circumstances, is a lunatic. That is a short answer to what the Deputy has said.

Mr. Tully

This man was.

Mr. Moran

The Land Commission must be realistic and we know in rural Ireland that if a man is sold out by reason of arrears of annuities, there is not a neighbour within a hundred miles who will touch such a place. This section is really designed to deal with cases where you have abandoned land or where a relative will take over in aid of the existing owner and that relative has not sufficient money to pay off the arrears and purchase the land. This device enables the Land Commission to make a second advance in respect of some lands. Under existing law, once one advance is made, that is the total purchase. Under this they can make a second advance for the purpose of enabling the relative, or new man, to take over and pay off the arrears.

Mr. Tully

If the land is, as the Minister says, abandoned, surely the only responsibility the tenant should have is for any accrued annuities? He should not have responsibility for anything else. Why should the Land Commission appoint a tenant and put him in the position of being liable for debts which did not exist except in the imagination of some people? Is there any way by which, when this section is being put into the Bill, that sort of thing can be stopped? When it happened once and the courts decided there was a claim against the land, surely it can happen again and is there no way by which the Minister can ensure that only accrued annuities will be redeemable and chargeable against the new tenant?

Mr. Moran

This is a very technical field and it is difficult to give any kind of global opinion on all these kinds of cases. Each case would hang on its own tail. Normally if a holding were being sold for arrears of annuity, depending on the Land Commission, the information would be sent to the local Land Commission auctioneer and he would be supposed to put it up for sale. He is supposed to get a realistic price for it, and the amount of that money attributed to the arrears should be taken by the Land Commission and the rest set aside for what Deputy Tully calls these people who would be entitled to certain equities. In other words, the owner or his relatives should theoretically come in for anything that was left over, after the Land Commission arrears of annuities and costs are deducted from the purchase money. In actual fact, what happens is that, outside the question of abandoned land, and even in this case, a relative or neighbour comes along and the technical sale is theoretically gone through for the amount of arrears due and the new man or neighbour comes in.

This section is designed to enable the Land Commission to make a second advance to cover these arrears in a case where a new man would not have the wherewithal to pay off the arrears, so it amounts to a second advance. One could not, and I certainly could not at the moment without having another look at this matter, assure the House that this section could provide for all the types of case Deputy Tully gives, or could possibly arise. It is a very technical field and would depend upon what happened in an individual case and how it was handled. I shall have a look at what the Deputy said and consider it.

Mr. Tully

Have I made my point clear? This was not a question of somebody being sold out for arrears of annuity. It was a case where a tenant died and left his wife and one or two children on the farm. They sold everything and moved out. Subsequently they notified the Land Commission that they were giving up possession. The Land Commission repossessed the farm and house and appointed the son of the former tenant as the new tenant. The land was vested subject to equities which the court interpreted as being a share of that farm, and to go to each member of a very large family. After the court case, which involved £1,600 to £1,700 the new tenant succeeded in getting on his feet many years later. Can the Minister ensure that under this particular section that sort of thing can be avoided in future, so that if somebody abandons a farm, there will not be any further claim on it—the new tenant will get a clean bill?

Mr. Moran

I can only assume from what the Deputy has said that the real owner——

Mr. Tully

Died.

Mr. Moran

That he was vested and died intestate and that members of his family came back against the son who had been put in, according to the Deputy, by some Land Commission device, as being a new tenant.

Mr. Tully

Exactly.

Mr. Moran

I do not quite understand how that could happen under the Land Commission procedure. If the Deputy says it has, I accept that it in fact happened. I do not know if this provision would affect a case of that nature. Coming down to fundamentals, if the man died, if he were the vested owner of these lands, then the Statute of Distribution under the intestacy laws would apply to his interest in that holding, and how the Land Commission would override that and substitute something to the exclusion of the other members of the family——

Mr. Tully

The holding was not vested. The tenant died a few years after getting the farm and the Land Commission repossessed it in the ordinary way.

Mr. Moran

This is a very technical field. There are myriad variations of what can happen, particularly in cases subject to equities. That kind of title is not a title at all unless there was familiarity with the family circumstances. However, I shall have a look at it before Report Stage, but I do not think one could devise a section like this to embrace all the cases that could arise in order to prevent a situation such as that envisaged by the Deputy arising.

Question put and agreed to.

SECTION 43.

Question proposed: "That section 43 stand part of the Bill".

Mr. Dillon

Would the Minister tell us what this means?

Mr. Moran

The purpose of the section is to remove restrictions on the classes of persons to whom lands already purchased for cash under the 1950 Act may be allotted, which, incidentally, we are repealing under the Schedule. Section 22 (1) (c) of the Land Act of 1950, which is scheduled for repeal, as I have said, restricts cash purchase to lands required for migrants and for re-arrangement. Allottees of exchange holdings or rearranged holdings are known domestically as "class (b) allottees" because they are listed under "(b)" in the lists of persons or bodies mentioned in section 31 (1) of the Land Act of 1923, which is the main section governing the resale of untenanted land.

Section 28 (12) of the 1950 Land Act provided a small escape clause by which lands found not to be required for class (b) could be disposed of to certain other classes. The new proposal will release lands on hands from all the old restrictions and will allow them to be sold, if necessary, to any of the other classes: (a) uneconomic holders, (c) evicted tenants, (d) exemployees, (e) trustees, et cetera, (f) landless men, public bodies and miscellaneous. It is likely, however, that this release will be needed only to allow the Land Commission to dispose of some odd lots of surplus land.

These legal doubts have arisen under the restrictive sections of the 1950 Land Act, now being repealed. The Land Commission found they were not free—one case I recall was a parsonage —to dispose of lands. This is to enable them to unload the few odd lots they have acquired under that section.

Mr. Dillon

Perhaps the Minister forgets that when the same provision was being enacted in the 1950 Bill, he described it as eyewash, as a device that could never be used.

Mr. Moran

For the Deputy's benefit, I repeat that I am repealing it here.

Mr. Dillon

The Minister is saying to himself that this provision worked very well, that because it worked so very well he wishes to extend it to a wider field in which he can use the procedure hereafter. I think I am right in saying that this section is designed to apply exclusively to lands held at present by the Land Commission as a result of purchases by public auction. Hereafter, the Land Commission will be free to buy at public auctions land for a very much wider category of purposes than hitherto. In the circumstances it would be only fair for the Minister to say: "I appreciate the purpose for which Deputy Blowick brought this section before the Oireachtas. I now confess that the restrictions imposed in the 1950 Act have proved so successful in their restrictive sphere that I am now asking Dáil Éireann to use the provision in a much wider field to dispose of certain properties on hand for which we have ready purchase but which we could not put up for sale owing to the restrictions of the 1950 Act. We foresee that in the future we shall be able to work this procedure much more widely".

If the Minister had said that, we on this side of the House would have replied: "Well, better to learn late than not at all." Surely the Minister feels in the light of his knowledge now that the strictures passed on Deputy Blowick at the time have been disproved and that the genial character of Deputy Blowick, of which we are at present deprived, reminds us constantly of his responsibility and of his excellent understanding of Land Commission needs. Surely Deputy Blowick is entitled to that testimonial as the author of this new and revolutionary principle which has resolved a great many difficult cases and which, apparently, the Minister thinks can be used hereafter to resolve a great many more.

Deputy Blowick and he represent the same constituency. This, surely, would be a gracious gesture from one Deputy for South Mayo to another. It might be a deathbed conversion, but at least it would prepare the Minister for his coming career on these benches: it would entitle him to say in Opposition: "When I was Minister for Lands, I was never slow to pay a tribute to my predecessor in office".

This is a splendid occasion on which the Deputy Moran of tomorrow might, as Minister for Lands today, declare himself indebted to Deputy Blowick not only for the inspiration underlying the section 43 now proposed by him but also for the property he has at his disposal now and which he proposes to sell if we give him the power he seeks in this section. I think the Minister ought to have learned, in the course of this long, anxious debate, what many of us already know—that the soft answer turneth away wrath. It has been a source of gratification not only to the members of Deputy Blowick's Party but to those who were privileged to be his colleagues in Government that his colleague in representation in South Mayo—I do not know if you wish me to report progress, a Cheann Comhairle——

An Ceann Comhairle

Fortunately, there is a half a minute left.

Mr. Dillon

That gives me the opportunity of inquiring from the Minister to what extent he expects in the future to be able to use this purchase at auction procedure; whether he expects, in addition to acquiring the right to dispose of properties at present on his hands if purchasers do not fall into the limited category, he intends to use this power extensively for the wider purpose and now seeks authority to purchase at auction in competition with others who may be bidding for the land.

Mr. Moran

In reply to Deputy Dillon, it is my intention to spend more than £10,000 a year for the acquisition of land under this new Land Bill, and that is all the Deputy and Deputy Blowick spent when in Government.

Mr. O.J. Flanagan

That is not true and the Minister knows it is not true.

Mr. Dillon

We will resume that discussion in the morning.

Progress reported: Committee to sit again.