Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 24 Mar 1971

Vol. 252 No. 8

Private Members' Business. - Land Commission Policy : Motion (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That Dáil Éireann approves of a policy to be carried out by the Land Commission which will ensure that in the allocation of land, the claims of local deserving applicants should be satisfied, before persons from outside areas are considered.

—(Deputy Tully.)

Mr. Bruton

This motion is worthy of very serious and careful consideration. In his introductory statement Deputy Tully made a very strong case for a better deal for the small farmers and landless men in the so-called non-congested areas who are anxious to expand their activities in farming. I fully support the case he has made. Consideration in relation to any estate should not be restricted solely to those who happen to be within a mile or half a mile of the estate. If we preserve the present policy without fundamental change many people will never be in the fortunate position that an estate will be divided within a mile of them and, therefore, they will never be considered. This to my mind is wrong.

There are many landless men, men who may be extensively engaged in farming by taking land on conacre but who do not own any land themselves. These men are to all intents and purposes farmers and the fact that they are not fortunate enough to own land should not be held against them. I also agree that the present policy whereby the annuity paid by the local allottees for land in the eastern part of the country is twice as much as the annuity paid by people who have come up from the so-called congested areas is entirely wrong and unfair. The 45-adjusted acres which is the standard acreage to which the Land Commission adheres at the moment needs to be revised upwards. Everyone knows that in modern conditions it is not sufficient to ensure an adequate standard of living, particularly in the light of the proposals which are receiving tacit approval from the Government which indicate that a farm should support a man and a helper. I do not think a man and his helper would be supported in very great comfort on 45 acres. However, I have grave doubts as to whether the object which Deputy Tully and others in this House espouse can be achieved by means of only a slight change of policy in the Land Commission.

Merely to increase the limit for consideration for land to within a radius of five miles of the estate in question or, indeed, to include landless men for consideration within that limit, while leaving the overall policy of the Land Commission intact, would create more problems than it solved. It would be an end to all migration not only from the west but within the eastern counties themselves. I also believe it could work out administratively to be very expensive if everybody within five miles of an estate had to be interviewed. It would also create a demand for land which possibly could not be satisfied.

I should like to expand on this a little. Over the past few years the amount of land acquired by the Land Commission in both Meath and Kildare has been falling rapidly. In 1967-68 the Land Commission acquired 2,569 acres in Meath; in 1969-70 they acquired only 1,234 acres. Every indication is that in 1970-71 it will be substantially lower again. At a time when land values are soaring the Land Commission is getting an increasingly smaller portion of Government resources. In 1960-61 the share of Government resources allocated to the Land Commission was roughly 1.9 per cent; this is down to 1.2 per cent of the total Government Budget in 1970-71. This is at a time when land prices have increased even faster than Government expenditure.

The question is where would the Land Commission get the money to buy enough land to satisfy everybody within five miles of an estate? This is a question which none of us in this House can dodge even if we happen to be on the Opposition benches. Another fact that has to be faced—this is something I have to bear in mind in advocating the case I have made earlier in my speech—is that if we change the limit from one mile for uneconomic holders and half a mile for landless men to five miles for all this would mean, assuming that the density of population is the same, mathematically the number of small holders to be considered would be 25 times the present number and the number of uneconomic holders would be 100 times the present number. I agree that this is substantially qualified by the fact that there would be an overlap between the five-mile radius of various estates and this would bring this figure down significantly because the interview for one estate would hold for another and so forth. However, it is fair to say it would create a very large administrative problem for the Land Commission. The figures given by the Minister—I have no reason to doubt them—indicate that 60 per cent of the lands which have already been distributed by the Land Commission have been given to local people who happen to be within the mile. If that were extended to five miles it would appear that a substantially greater amount of land would be needed to satisfy all the people within that radius, if 60 per cent of it is exhausted satisfying the people within one mile.

This would bring a further difficulty if another reality had to be faced, that is, of raising the target acreage of the Land Commission from 45 acres to 60 acres as I believe it should be, and if that included not only existing holders but also landless men. To do that again a lot more land would be needed than the Land Commission have at the present time. There are a number of ways in which we can get that extra land, and we would want to look very carefully at them. The first possibility would be to increase very greatly the expenditure budget of the Land Commission but that brings you only part of the way because if the land does not come up for sale how are they to acquire land? The position at the moment is that they can only acquire land that is offered for sale. I hope that in due course the effect which these proposals have on the Land Commission budget will be spelled out. I would like to make it clear that the difficulties to which I have referred apply only while the present Land Commission structure is adhered to.

It is essential that something be done about the many small farmers and landless men who are at present being deprived of an opportunity of acquiring enough land to enable them to develop their talents. However, nothing can be done within the existing structure of the Land Commission. A proposal such as that which is on today's Order Paper is within the existing structure of the Land Commission. This proposal is a good one for the time being but in order to achieve the long-term objectives which both Deputy Tully and I advocate, we must undertake a complete overhaul of the Land Commission. This proposal or the other one which Deputy Tully has on the Order Paper are more of a temporary nature.

I would suggest that in order to achieve the objectives set out here, the Land Commission should be converted into a land purchase corporation, retaining the powers to acquire land but devoting most of the £4 million that they now receive to extending credit at low interest rates, say 3 or 4 per cent, to all farmers with holdings of less than 60 acres and to landless men so that they might have enough land to enable them to participate in full-time competitive farming.

The amount currently being devoted towards this purpose by the Agricultural Credit Corporation is only about £150,000 a year. As a result only those farmers with holdings of less than 45 acres can participate. In many cases, the prohibitive interest rate of 8½ per cent is being charged. The substantial amount of £4 million which is paid to the Land Commission should be given by way of credit to small farmers to enable them to buy more land. There are one or two difficulties in regard to this. One is that land coming on the market might comprise a very big estate which no individual small farmer could contemplate bidding for. That situation could be met by the Land Commission using their existing powers of acquisition and subsequently dividing the land into lots and reselling these lots to smallholders who could avail of the land purchase corporation to which I have referred. To my mind this would be a better system than the present time-consuming and expensive process of interviewing everybody within a radius of one mile and drawing up a scheme of allocation. Also, the process of reselling would involve much less administrative expense on the part of the Land Commission thereby leaving available more money for the provision of facilities to farmers.

This, too, would be beneficial in that it would involve the extension of credit, and it would sort out those who were genuinely interested in becoming competitive farmers from those who might be merely seeking land as a form of security for their old age. This proposal should be considered. I am not putting it forward as one that is perfect but any method that we can devise of enabling small farmers to extend their holdings or of enabling landless men to acquire land, is worth considering. It is these people who should be put at the top of our priority list. This proposal would enable them to acquire reasonably sized holdings and not merely five-acre plots. If there are objections to this proposal, as I am sure there will be, I shall be glad to hear them. I know that it is not a watertight proposal but it is one that merits some consideration.

Mr. Enright

I consider this motion to be a good one and one that should be supported fully. In order to deal properly with this motion, it may be necessary to go slightly outside the scope of it. The Land Commission are a body who are criticised on all sides. I believe that even if Solomon were at their head, he, in his wisdom, would fail to satisfy the demands of everybody in regard to land division. It has not been possible to fulfil the demands of any generation in so far as land is concerned and I believe that the position will be worse in the future. However, the Land Commission are well able to cope with whatever criticism is levelled at them but there are two main bones of contention that arise in relation to the Land Commission. One is their present policy —I do not know whether it is actual policy but it is happening—and that is that when they acquire an estate they hold it for far too long. There are many delays in dividing estates. I know this from my own constituency. Lands there have been held by the Land Commission for four, five and six years.

When land goes on the market, local smallholders pay a high rent for it on the 11 months system in the hope that the Land Commission will recognise their claim to it. The Land Commission are paying fairly high prices for land and for that reason they may let it for a number of years in order to recoup their investment. They get high rents to offset their costs. The long delays in allocating the land lead to criticism of their policy.

The second bone of contention is the method of payment for land, that is, payment in land bonds. I would go so far as to say that it is decidedly dishonest for the Land Commission to pay for land with land bonds. They may find that they are so tied to this policy that they cannot change it. When the land bonds are sold, after a period the farmer finds that he gets only £70 or £60 for his £100. If an ordinary person acquires land from a neighbour and if there is a delay of six months or a year or two years before he pays for it, and if he then pays £60 instead of £100, or £600 instead of £1,000, or £6,000 instead of £10,000, he finds himself in the High Court for breach of contract. I do not see why this should not apply to the Land Commission.

I read that a Wicklow county councillor said that land bonds are comparable to soap papers. I would be willing to exchange a lot of soap papers for land bonds at any time with whoever made that suggestion. I hope that the policy of the Land Commission will be changed and that people will be paid in cash for their land. I have not an acre of land of my own, but if I had I certainly would not sell it to the Land Commission if they were to pay me in land bonds, because I would feel I would not be paid in full. Many people would be more than willing to facilitate the Land Commission by selling them land but they are reluctant to do so if they are to be paid in land bonds. This policy will have to be changed if the Land Commission are to function properly. I realise that the Minister is investigating this matter and I would ask him to come up with some solution with regard to paying for land in cash. This would speed up the acquisition of land.

The Land Commission come in for much criticism but from what I have seen of their work I believe much of that criticism is unjustifiable. They are doing quite a good job. Indeed, I would go so far as to say they are doing an excellent job on limited resources. The men, the labourers, the lorry-drivers, the men in the offices, the men in Dublin, are doing a very good job. The houses provided by the Land Commission are good houses.

Mr. Bruton

It depends on what county you are in.

Mr. Enright

I am speaking for Laois and Offaly and the houses there are excellent. The outbuildings provided are also good.

The motion we are discussing proposes that the claims of local smallholders and local deserving applicants should be satisfied before persons from outside areas are considered. It is desirable that the demands of local deserving applicants should be satisfied. When people grow up in an area and get to know the land, they have a love for it. They are anxious to live in that area, and that their families should live there too. When a suitable and attractive farm comes on the market and the Land Commission take it and bring in somebody from an area 40 or 50 miles away this leads to dissatisfaction and unrest. Sometimes it leads to many of the problems associated with land division. For this reason the claims of the local people should be satisfied first.

When people have been farming in an area they know the land. They know the crops that are suitable, the types of manures that are necessary, the type of sheep which thrive there, and the breeds of cattle that are suitable. It is a matter of getting to know the heart, and the feel, and the tilth of the land. Therefore a local person is in a better position to make the best use of the land in his own area. When people come in from outside it takes them a number of years to realise the potential and the quality of the land. Therefore the most beneficial use is not made of the land for a number of years. The claims of the local smallholders and deserving applicants should be satisfied before outsiders are brought in.

As far as I am aware, the mile limit is still Land Commission policy. Unless a person is living within one mile of the land he does not qualify for an allotment. The mile limit should be waived. I would extend it to approximately five miles. This would give the Land Commission much greater scope. I would go no further than that. They would know that an estate was suitable for allotment and they could allot it. Sometimes there may be other estates around the area and if the Land Commission could go outside the one mile limit they might be able to divide land in a more equitable way. The one mile limit should be abolished.

I should like to refer to people such as agricultural contractors and cottage dwellers with only cottage gardens who are engaged full-time in agriculture. I believe it is Land Commission policy that unless a person has five acres of land in his own name he will not be considered for an allotment of land. I believe there have been exceptions to this. About an hour ago I wrote to the Secretary of the Land Commission about a particular case. The person about whom I wrote has no land in his own name. He is 33 to 35 years of age and he is engaged full-time in agriculture. He lives in a council house and has a cottage garden. He takes land on the 11 months system and competes on the open market with farmers for this land. He has a wife and three children and they are living very well. He has nothing except the acre of land attached to his cottage. I believe that where a person has no means of livelihood except farming, even though he has no farm of his own, he should certainly be considered by the Land Commission for a farm.

I am reasonably in agreement with the Minister when he says that in the west of Ireland it is desirable that there should be part-time farmers, that industries should be provided so that a farmer with a small portion of land could have a job in a factory as well. I must say that people who are full-time in agriculture and have no land have a prior claim to land and should certainly he considered. They would certainly come in under this motion as being "local deserving applicants". The Land Commission have their officials around the country and they are in close communication with the farmers. They are, I hope, working closely with the committees of agriculture and they should have a good knowledge of all the people in an area who are engaged full-time in agriculture.

I wrote to the Land Commission some months ago about the person I mentioned a while ago and I was told that as he had no land he could hardly be considered but I think a person engaged full-time in agriculture should certainly come under the heading "local deserving applicants" even though he has no land in his own name. This rule should be fully considered and only people who are engaged full-time in agriculture should be allowed in under this heading. In regard to the Minister's point about small farmers being engaged part-time in jobs and part-time as farmers, I can see merit in that for the west of Ireland where it would not be as practicable to live on a 40 acre farm as on a 40 acre farm, say, in March, Offaly, Laois or Tipperary. It would not be of the same value and, therefore, a farmer with 40 acres in the west would require some further income. He would require a job as well and the Land Commission would have to facilitate him.

I believe that farms should be approximately 60 to 70 acres because nowadays it is almost impossible to make a living on anything under 60 acres. I am in full agreement with the motion.

Minister for Lands (Mr. S. Flanagan)

There is obviously a great deal of common ground between myself and the Members who put down the motion and who have spoken in regard to this matter.

I should like to say clearly at the beginning that it is, and has been, the firm policy of the Land Commission all down the years to give preference to local, deserving smallholders and also to dispossessed tenants of landlords and in the implementation of this policy particulars of all smallholders living in the vicinity of the land are invariably obtained before-hand by the local inspectors and it is only when provision has been made for all deserving local applicants and displaced employees that consideration is given to the introduction of any others.

It is necessary to emphasise that fact clearly at the outset and, perhaps, to reiterate what Deputy Bruton said— that 60 per cent of the land divided in Meath over the past five years has been given to local applicants. Of an aggregate of 10,678 acres divided in that county since 1965, 6,206 acres, or 60 per cent roughly, went to local applicants. Deputy Tully also represents Meath and he is the mover of this motion. Deputy Kavanagh, who represents Wicklow, will be interested to know that during the same period the percentage was 65 for his county. It is clear that what is at issue here is what is "local" and what is "deserving" and it is on the definition of the word "local" that the debate has so far taken place.

Under the provisions of the 1923 Land Act the Land Commission are obliged to satisfy themselves that prospective allottees are capable of working land and intend to do so and it is for the purpose of meeting these requirements that all local people are visited and particulars taken in regard to the property which they own, their family circumstances probed and evaluated et cetera.

I do not think it is necessary for me to say that this is a duty that is conscientiously discharged by the lay commissioners and I am glad that Deputy Enright and others have paid tribute to the fairmindedness of the commissioners on whom the ultimate responsibility rests for making decisions. I am personally satisfied, as Minister, and as Deputy before that, that the commissioners do their very best to be fair, having studied the different circumstances of the various applicants for land.

Obviously there are all sorts of considerations, including in particular marital status, because the fundamental aim of the commission all along has been to preserve the family farm. One can envisage circumstances in the future and, perhaps, the proximate future, when events in this country will tend to push aside the family farm for the business. I think that was in Deputy L'Estrange's mind when he spoke of the speculator, the entrepreneur, the person who has never been associated with farming. Indeed, this is already happening in Ireland. There are signs of such a trend rather than something which one can instance as having happened in one or two places. This brings one back to the wider fact that land is a volatile entity and, while it is static, its importance in a community is constantly changing. Its relevance and importance in localities is also changing with changing national and local circumstances.

Dealing on a narrower basis with the functions of the Land Commission, I have mentioned first deserving local applicants. Anybody who has served even a few months in this House knows that, as Deputy Enright said, even Solomon would not be able to satisfy everybody in deciding who is and who is not deserving. Many a day he or Deputy Bruton or anybody else who is in this House for the first time has already been cooped up in a corner being convinced by A that he should get land as the only person properly qualified for it and five minutes later another neighbour, B, comes in with, according to him, a better case for not giving it to A but for giving it to B —"it was a half-holding with his in the grandmother's time and they divided"—you can ring the changes on this, that and the other. Accepting the fact that there is not enough land to satisfy all the people who want it— and it is from that premise that every Deputy must argue and discuss everything concerning the activities of the Land Commission—you will realise that, no matter what any commission does, not all deserving applicants can always be accommodated. It is also important to remember that property has its rights as well as its duties, if I may invert the famous phrase.

Perhaps this is an appropriate stage to mention the migrants and the rights of people who are given land as migrants or as people qualifying for additions. This has agitated Deputy Tully's mind at Question Time and in this debate—the fact that somebody is given land, that it is vested in him almost immediately and that thereafter he is free to do as he likes with it. Experience in regard to migrants has been extremely favourable judging by statistics over the past 35 or 40 years or so. A survey of the Gaeltacht colonies in County Meath carried out a few years ago showed that out of the original total of 122 holdings allotted, 106 were still in the ownership of the people who were originally given them, or their immediate family successors. Two were resumed by the Land Commission and reallotted, one of them to a migrant's son so that only 14 of the holdings involved had changed hands by sale and of these six were bought by other colonists. I think this represents a very satisfactory effort on the part of the migrants and a very small turnover in land so allocated over 25 or 30 years.

I do not accept that land should be given to those people by way of addition or on migration other than on a permanent basis. I am not attracted by the idea of giving land temporarily on lease or on a conditional basis. I do not think this would be acceptable to the people themselves. Once the decision is made the land ought to be vested in the allottees and the obligations as well as the rights of ownership immediately conferred on them. In the cases mentioned by Deputy Tully at Question Time today and yesterday when he spoke of migrants who were vested and occupied holdings only for a few years and then cleared off, this is a hazard the Land Commission must face and if you accept that it is not a good idea to allocate land other than in fee simple you must take the risk that ultimately a small proportion of those concerned will abandon the holdings. The Land Commission would have their reserved rights to go after these holdings again as they have done in the cases I have cited in regard to the Gaeltacht colony in County Meath.

It is also important to realise that these owners may have had unfortunate family circumstances and may not have been able, through bad luck or some other reason, to make a success of the holding. They may have gone to England to try to accumulate sufficient capital to restock. One must have compassion for these people when this happens. They also have rights as owners and it is only fair that the Commissioners, in such circumstances, should give them a year or two or three or perhaps five years, depending on individual circumstances, to rehabilitate themselves so as to return and make a success of the holding which the commission were satisfied they were entitled to receive in the first place.

This also applies in congested areas where land hunger involves people almost in land-grabbing attempts. Owners as well as those who are looking over the wall have rights and if a family have survived for generations in a particular smallholding and if they wish to get a chance to go away for a number of years to build up funds to capitalise their work. I should be the last to suggest that they should not have it.

We then come to the question of what is local. That is perhaps the larger of the two issues here because most speakers who contributed have suggested that this one-mile limit is (a) sacrosanct and (b) improper. First, it is not sacrosanct; it is not a rigid limit and policy is sufficiently elastic to cater for some who may be marginally over the limit. In addition, where a pocket of congestion is found outside a mile from an estate it can be dealt with from time to time by migration of one or more smallholders in the estate and dividing their surrendered land among the remaining deserving holders.

It will be agreed that some limit must be placed on the distance a farmer should have to travel between his existing farm and any addition and the ideal distance cannot be calculated by slide rule. It is a matter for argument. It has been placed by Deputy Bruton at five miles and by somebody else at three miles. It could be one, two, three or five miles depending on the point of view of the person making the case. Some, indeed, argue that the mile limit is too generous. It is a frequent experience of the Land Commission that the number of deserving smallholders within the mile limit is too large to be accommodated with the amount of land available and in those instances very hard decisions have often to be made as to whom to select and whom to omit.

I hold the old-fashioned idea that the mile is long enough. I hold to the old idea that to keep the parent holding and the additional parcel as close together as possible is the optimum aim. All my experience in my own county and locality suggests that this is so. I know of many additions of land that have been given to people in my locality at home, in other parts of the county and in other counties which have simply not been adequately worked that were considerably under five miles away and some of them under one mile away. It is important to remember that one of the reasons for this is that whatever about the increase in the speed of mechanical transport, the walking pace of a cow has not changed within the past 50 years and it is unlikely to change in the next 50 years either. In fact, the growth of motor traffic and the necessity to eliminate possible road hazards has indeed added a further reason why there should be the minimum distance if the animals have to travel on the highway.

Deputies should be aware of the concern of the Department of Local Government and all planning authorities who are actively discouraging the creation of farm openings leading directly on to main roads. The farmer has his own interests to consider in this matter and Deputies will be aware possibly of the recent legal decision when a farmer was held accountable for the skidding conditions created by his stock on a road adjacent to his farm buildings. Deputy Enright and others will be particularly interested in that.

It has been found, looking at this whole matter from an economic point of view, that there has been a significant increase in costs as well when the distance between the holding and the parcel lengthens. There was a survey carried out in Europe recently which revealed that while the covering of the distance was quicker the costs of the transport, investment, amortisation, management, repairs and maintenance are very high and the financial expenditure significant. It was found by the researchers that what they called this unproductive waste reduced efficiency and could only be cured by improving structure, in other words, by making the farm more compact. Indeed my attention was recently drawn to a letter from an applicant seeking an exchange for a holding in County Clare. This holding was in four lots, two being some three miles away from his farmhouse. His own words were "With help so hard to get it was a great waste of time getting to and from the land." I do not have to tell rural Deputies how difficult it is to get any kind of help for agricultural purposes at the present time.

These considerations apart, isolated parcels of land create minor problems, including the difficulty of protecting it against trespass and other damage. The further away the parcel is the more those problems increase both in number and in scale. It is because of all these considerations that the Land Commission opted for the mile as the limit— not sacrosanct limit but general limit— for the allocation of land to local smallholders. In that way they have also adopted some reasonable balance between all the various factors involved, the desires of local people and of others who may consider themselves equally entitled.

The motion obviously is directed largely at the allotment of holdings to migrants from my part of the country and other western areas to Meath and other eastern areas. Again, I must state that it is only when all the local deserving claimants are accommodated, based on the criteria that I have mentioned, that migrants are introduced at all. The Land Commission, after all, are the national land settlement agency operating on a countrywide basis and their concern about the improvement of land structure must be directed particularly to the areas in the west where conditions are bad in the extreme.

Perhaps I could illustrate this situation. Out of a total of 62,700 farms in Connaught some 37,000 odd or 60 per cent are less than 30 acres in extent. This position is grievously affected by the fact that the land is poor and on top of that there is the additional problem of widespread fragmentation. Look then at the statistics for, say, County Meath. Out of almost 6,000 farms in that county, 2,000, or 34 per cent, are less than 30 acres. Here the land is uniformly good and fragmentation virtually non-existent. The corresponding figures for County Wicklow are 2,700 holdings and some 550 or 20 per cent of the total under 30 acres. Deputies will appreciate the conditions in the western areas are extreme and warrant exceptional measures for land structural improvement. Western Deputies know how difficult it is for the Land Commission to acquire for purchase anything like the quantity of land required for land settlement purposes in the west in general. The migration process over the years has added significantly to the pool of available land and very frequently the migration of some of the existing landowners is the only possible way to effect any improvement in the congestion and fragmentation conditions in the west.

This is and has been the justification of the migration policy but I am conscious of the very strong hardening of opinion in the east against migrants at this stage. I have been told this not merely in the House but outside the House, not merely by Members of the House but also by people who are not Members but who are interested.

Deputy L'Estrange referred to the fact that I am not particularly in favour of the continuance of migration from the west if a better solution to the problem of the western areas can be found. Deputy L'Estrange very fairly accepts that it is an obligation to provide a form of livelihood alternative to additional land for the people in the west if migration is to be discontinued. I suppose it is reasonable to say that whatever land is on hands in the Land Commission at the present time, and acquired originally for the purpose of accommodating migrants, should be used for that purpose. In that connection the Land Commission I hope will not have to put up with bullying tactics from rapacious locals who band themselves together, some and only some, prepared to work within the law.

I am aware of and I sympathise with the situation people in Meath and Wicklow find themselves in, but they must remember there are other parts of the country besides Meath and Wicklow and other people have rights besides the people of Meath and Wicklow. Having regard to the relations which have developed over the years between migrants and the people who receive them so kindly it would be a great shame if that record were endangered by any extremist activity either in the east or elsewhere. The aim is that migration should be phased out and I cannot offer any better assurance to the House than that. I consider it unlikely that any land acquired by the Land Commission in future will be put to use for migrant purposes. On the other hand, I think it most likely, once existing holdings marked out for migrants have been allocated to them either as co-operative or group migrants, that then any additional land that becomes available will be allocated to them. I hope that that will satisfy those Deputies who have put down this motion. I think I am running out of time.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister has five minutes left.

Mr. Tully

As it appears my reply will be the only one, I have no objection if the Minister wants extra time.

Mr. S. Flanagan

One other matter I want to deal with is the question of landless men. As the price of land has increased so greatly in a short time and appears likely to continue to increase, the pressure for additional land from people already farming in some capacity is going to increase. Landless men have always had a very low place in the priority list and if these are to be elevated to an equal status with existing holders the position will be chaotic. I cannot hold out any real hope that such a fundamental and radical change in Land Commission policy will take place. It would multiply the Land Commission's difficulties and make their situation impossible. It is already being made very difficult by some of the factors I have mentioned and it would be impossible if landless men, merely because they were interested in farming, were to be made one of the prime objects of the Land Commission's attention. Landless men must be accommodated in some other capacity.

I would not say the same thing about the conacre farmers mentioned here. The conacre farmer is a rare bird in our part of the country, but I am well aware of the situation in Westmeath. Meath and to some extent Kildare. Conacre farmers are a different matter and I think it is fair to say it would be in accordance with European thinking if these men were to get special consideration. I would certainly not include them in the same category as landless men, even though they are technically landless within the definition of "landless" in our present policy. As they have made their livelihood exclusively out of agriculture for a period of years I feel special consideration must be given to them in the circumstances. It is quite true that I recently interviewed some people directly involved or affected in this regard. I can assure the House I have every possible sympathy with them. I accept they have made their livelihood out of farming and they support their wives and children from farming but as things stand at the moment they do not qualify but this is certainly something which should be examined.

While I can accept the motion as it stands, subject to what I have said in the course of my remarks, if we were to expand "local" to include landless people and expand the area to five miles the work of the Land Commission would become impossible. Having regard to the fact that the pool of land available in counties like Meath is steadily declining anyway and the possibility of getting it at a price which would be economic to pass on with a full or half annuity is also becoming more difficult; indeed, from the point of view of discrimination between those entitled to half annuity and the full annuity is possibly not justified. It is another matter on which I would be prepared to have a second look.

Mr. Tully

A colleague of mine now departed from this world used to say, "I can look after my enemies, the Lord save me from my friends", and listening to Deputy Bruton this evening I am afraid I cannot go the whole way with a number of the points he put up. While supporting the idea he created Aunt Sallies which we have knocked down and I must spend some of the time. I have knocking down the remainder of them. He made the mistake of considering that I was thinking of the continuation of migration from the west or elsewhere at the same time as I was talking about giving land to people who live further than half a mile or a mile from an estate. Nothing could be further from my mind. The first thing which must be done is that the Land Commission must start beside the estate—by that I mean the nearest point to it whether it is along the road or across the fields—the Land Commission have, from time to time, proved that roads are easily made—and allocate land to deserving people.

I am very grateful to the Minister for the statement he has made here this evening which goes a long way towards what Deputy Bruton. Deputy L'Estrange, Deputy Kavanagh and myself would like to see happening. He was, I think, again misunderstanding something. He was under the impression that we were saying people who had no land at all should be placed on an equal footing with people looking for enlargement of their holdings. That is not so. Landless men, leaving aside the conacre farmer and the dairy farmer who has built up a dairy by taking grass, would be satisfied if they got a small portion of land. The Minister will remember a deputation which Deputy Hilliard, Deputy Bruton and I took to him. One of the men on that deputation lived slightly over half a mile from the estate but he had no land. He worked at a job and out of whatever money he was able to spare he bought several cows and calves and he was taking a letting of land on the estate. The official of the Land Commission told me they considered he was a very deserving young man but he was more than half a mile from the estate, he was something like 100 yards beyond it, and he was ruled out by some of the other people on the deputation who, because they were farmers living within a mile of the estate, were considered.

If the Land Commission feel that five miles is too far they should start beside the estate and go around in a circle and decide when they have enough deserving applicants to allocate the land to. I am not attempting to lay down a regulation that they must interview everyone within five miles. What I am saying is that the way land should be allocated is to start from the estate itself and go outwards until they get the necessary number of people. Landless men will be satisfied with a smaller portion of land. Farmers who want an addition should get that addition to bring them up to a reasonable standard. The conacre farmers and those who have built up dairy herds should also get land.

I had an experience with the Minister's predecessor in the case of a man who had built up from scratch a substantial dairy herd. He had been working in a factory and the doctor advised him that he should get an outdoor job. He started off with two cows and, as I say, he eventually built up a herd of 30 cows. Farms were divided all around him but he would not be considered because the Minister's predecessor said a dairy farmer was not a farmer. I do not know how he worked that one out.

The Minister talked about cows not being able to walk any faster than they did 30 years ago. With modern methods they do not need to be brought home in the evening time because they are accommodated on the land. The dairy farmer should get some portion of any land that is going. Certainly he should not be ignored.

We are talking about some temporary arrangement. The Minister must bring in legislation to straighten out a number of things. He must in equity bring in a regulation which will straighten out this question of half the annuity. The present position is ludicrous. It should never have been introduced. It has caused ill-feeling because migrants pay half the annuity while the local people have to pay the full annuity.

I want to emphasise here that there is no animosity against migrants in my county and I am sure that is true of other counties as well. Initially the fact that they were brought in was resented but there has been no animosity. They have been integrated with the local people. We are all Irishmen. The extraordinary thing is that the migrants are the very people who are now strongest in agitating against the bringing in of any more migrants. In this they are as one with the local people.

The Minister said that the half-mile or the mile is not sacrosanct. I am sorry to disagree with him, but up to the present it has been sacrosanct. Someone lays on a tape measure and you are either inside or outside. If the Minister now says to the Land Commission that this should not be so we are more than half way there.

The question as to whether or not there is enough land or where it will come from has been discussed here on numerous occasions, including the last two evenings. We all know there is not enough land to go around but the land that is there should be divided fairly. There are hundreds of thousands who will never get a piece of land or a full-sized farm because there are no large farms to be acquired and divided. The people accept that. In the same way people must accept that there is not enough land to give everybody a full-sized farm. When people here talk about 60 acres or 70 acres as the correct size of a viable farm they are talking so much hot air. It would be very nice if everybody could have a farm of 60 or 70 acres, but I have known people to make a good living on a great deal less land than that simply because they used it properly. With modern methods of husbandry I do not see any reason why many more could not make a good living on quite small holdings.

The Minister referred to five miles. I can tell him that there are people taking grazing land and conacre much farther than five miles away, travelling happily to it and glad to have it. I grant you the annuity, particularly in Meath, is very, very high. I believe the people taking conacre are paying a good deal more and, while they say they can give up the land if they are not making anything out of it, at the same time, if the annuities were reduced to what was agreed at the end of the Economic War, in other words, if the annuities were halved, that would be very welcome.

As the Minister said, there is no stronger force than the kind of land hunger which grips people in certain areas. At the present moment it is causing some difficulty in my constituency and in a neighbouring constituency. It is creating something I have not seen since I was a small boy; it is breeding discontent, the kind of discontent which can often end in violence. I should hate to see that happen and I believe it can be prevented by the exercise of a little common sense on both sides.

Mr. Bruton

Hear, hear.

Mr. Tully

I have proved to the Minister that these people do not have two heads or wear horns. If someone talks reasonably to them and agrees that certain of their claims are just, instead of just brushing them aside, saying we make the law and they must obey, this whole thing could be dealt with very easily. It is not a political matter. There are no votes in it for me, for Deputy Bruton or for Deputy Hilliard. The late Deputy Paddy Giles used to say to anyone who took an interest in land division that they were fools because, if ten people got land and 90 people were disappointed, the 90 were one's enemies for life. I personally believe the Land Commission have nothing to gain by giving concessions to Fianna Fáil, to Fine Gael or Labour. I personally believe they do not set out to divide land on a political basis. It is just too bad that sometimes it may appear that that is the case simply because a certain Deputy will go along and claim that he got the land for the people when, in fact, he did not. Unfortunately we have in this House people who are not prepared to tell the truth, if the truth will deprive them of a few votes.

Mr. S. Flanagan

Hear, hear.

Mr. Tully

I will never for that reason and the Minister is aware of this, say that any man is a man who must get land. I recommend him if he is worth recommending and I will give him whatever character I can. It is then a matter for the officials to decide. There is no use in carrying out an investigation in an area and passing one person over for one reason or another. I was told some years ago—I am not sure if it happens now—that some officials tended to listen to the neighbour who might feel he was strengthening his own case by blackening the person who lived beside him. I trust that is not continuing. If it is then it is one of the reasons why there is a certain amount of irritation between people who live around an estate.

In my constituency, in both Kildare and Meath, there is still a good deal of land which could be acquired. One of the reasons why migrants are so costly is that houses and outoffices have to be built for them and the land properly fenced. If land were allocated to locals I am quite sure the whole process would cost a great deal less.

I was rather surprised that no other Fianna Fáil speaker intervened in this debate in view of what Deputy Davern said at Question Time. This is not a political matter. It affects everybody and I should like to hear rural Deputies expressing their views because that is the only way in which the Minister can get a grasp of what the real situation is throughout the country.

The Minister referred to this question of 60 per cent of the land in Meath being given to Meath people. However, he has covered that by saying that he hopes that the present allocation will be the last. Incidentally, I often wonder why any Minister for Lands would send his best supporters out of his constituency. I know I would not if I were Minister. I suggest that he should not proceed with the building of houses. I know from discussions that I have had with some of these people that they do not want to come. Some years ago the mere suggestion that they would be entitled to get a farm in County Meath would send them rushing around preparing to move the next day. That no longer is the case and very many of them come and look at the farms and then move off. Indeed, it is very irritating for a man who lives beside a farm and is hoping to get a bit of it to see car load after car load of people looking at it and to hear them saying that they thought the land was better and that they are going to hold out for a better offer somewhere else when he would give his right eye to get it, such as it is.

There is this question of whether these people are the best people to work the land and it should be looked at this way. People reared in a district have either been working their own farms, or have been on their father's farm, or on neighbouring farms, and they know more about farming, particularly farming in that area, than anybody else and is there any reason why they should not be entitled to a bit of land to give them some security and a stake in the country? In my job as a trade union official I meet quite a lot of people for whom the five day week was negotiated and after 12 months practically all of them were prepared to say that one of the best things they got for years was the free day on Saturday because if they had some land, or if they could get some land locally, they could make as much money from it as they would working for a week for somebody else. It is a great thing to see this happening and every encouragement should be given to them. For that reason I would ask the Minister to be very slow about saying that landless men have not got much of a chance. Landless men, with the exception of people who are engaged directly in farming and own property, or stock, or rent a farm, are not expecting to get 30 or 40 acres but they do except that they should get a portion of the farm on which many of them work. They should be entitled to portion of that farm and I appeal to the Minister to try to ensure that this will happen when farms are being divided. Normally they are very reasonable people. Some people have been ruled out on the grounds that they were working away from the area. Working away from the area in my constituency means that a man gets up at about 6 o'clock in the morning and with four or five of his pals drives to Dublin to work on a building job and then returns home in the evening. You would be amazed to find those people, their wives and children out working on land which they have taken because they have none of their own, in an effort to boost the family income. There is no reason why people like that should be ruled out. Up to now the idea has been that people working away from the area are not entitled to land, or if they are tradesmen they are not entitled to land.

There is another thing which would help in this matter of having enough land available for the area. As the Minister is aware, farms have been acquired and kept for many years and I suggest that the Land Commission make a resolution for the coming financial year that any land acquired before the start of the last financial year should be allocated immediately.

I cannot see any reason for holding this land particularly as the Land Commission say they are losing money on it. If I had something on which I was losing money I would get rid of it as quickly as possible. There is no reason why the Land Commission should not save the State's money and save themselves annoyance by allocating the land much more quickly. Another thing is that it would do no harm if the people who are to be allocated land were brought together by the commissioner and told what it is proposed to do, because very often I have met neighbouring farmers who were allocated land and one will say: "I got this field and my friend got another one over there and if we could switch we would be much better off." If this has to be done through the Land Commission after the allocation it is a much bigger job. I have referred to the man who was left without water because the person who was doing the allocation did not know the full facts.

The Minister referred to evicted tenants. I do not think there are any left, certainly in my constituency, who would be claiming the right to get land. The Minister said that they hoped to allocate land to married people. Recently it was brought to my attention that an estate was divided and one man complained that while he and his family—he is rather old—were not given any land three sons of his brother, who lived down the road, got land and the fourth was being offered a farm which had been refused by somebody else. So much for the single man not getting land. This is the sort of thing which causes annoyance in the area. If somebody is being treated in a certain way then let us treat everybody else in the same way and there will be no quarrel. When the Minister says that he will do something he has the courage to do it and he has been breaking away from what was considered standard Land Commission talk over the years and he has made a certain number of statements which have given encouragement to people like myself who have been attempting to do something about land division. He has said that the Land Commission propose to change the system and I will be glad to see that done but I would appeal to him to forget about this limit of half a mile or a mile or whatever it is and to have his inspectors start on the inside and allocate out as far as the land goes. If they do that nobody will quarrel with it.

Finally, I should like to thank the Minister for the way in which he has met this motion. Some years ago, during the period of office of a different Government, I had a similar motion down on which there was a free vote and there was a rather strange selection of people in both Lobbies when the vote was over. Anyway we lost and the situation did not change. If the Minister makes the alteration as he proposes to do he will have the co-operation not alone of Deputies on these benches, and I am sure on the Fine Gael benches, but also of the people who he and his officials may feel are starting a kind of uprising against them. As soon as the people realise they are going to be met fairly with regard to land division there will be no further trouble. As I have stated publicly before, I will support their claims as far as I can as long as they stay within the law. Most of them do stay within the law but certain people have attached themselves to these organisations and have given the impression that they are spokesmen for them when they had no right to do so. Also certain people have taken advantage of the fact that the organisation is in the area to break the law and try to get the blame put on the organisation, or they have tried to get what they could out of the organisation. In the main, however, these are decent hard-working people who are entitled to a fair share of what is going and I am glad that the Minister appears to be prepared now to give it to them.

Motion put and agreed to.