I am glad of the opportunity which this debate presents to make a few points in relation to the activities of the Land Commission. I will not insult the Minister's intelligence or that of his Department by labouring what I have to say but one does get the feeling, when speaking in Estimates debates, that one's words might sometimes as well be spoken to the wind. I suppose that is inevitable having regard to the system but one can only hope that some of them will land somewhere and, possibly, bear fruit.
I agree completely with Deputy Smith in regard to the growing evil— and I do not consider "evil" to be too strong a word—of the large-scale purchases of land by non-farmers. Our farming industry is too important and our land is too scarce to permit it to become the hobby of rich men but, unfortunately, that has been happening with increasing frequency during the past couple of years. We have seen it happen in Westmeath which is part of the constituency that I have the honour to represent. We have seen non-farmers, principally businessmen from this city and, more particularly, men engaged in the building industry, paying very large sums for very large tracts of land. This move has certain ill-effects. First, as Deputy Smith has said, it inflates the price of land because if a man in one part of a county sells land at £400 or £500 per acre, the next man to offer his land for sale expects to receive the same price so that there develops a psychological compulsion to ask for and give these inflated prices. This effect ripples out over an area much wider than where the purchases take place and begins to affect the price of land throughout the country generally. It is a bad thing that land should be inflated to such an extent that the genuine bona fide farmer who wishes to expand his holding, is not able to pay the inflated price.
Another ill-consequence of this development is that it is giving rise to much rural discontent. In my county and in County Longford we have seen the growth in recent years of a body called the Land League. I have great sympathy with the objectives of the members of this organisation. I know that in the case of most branches of that league, the activities are based on a genuine concern to rectify what they see as a social injustice. They see land being purchased by people who are non-farmers while they, who are depending on farming as their sole means of livelihood, are left by the State to try to make their living on holdings that are inadequately sized. It is no wonder, then, that they form themselves into pressure-groups to have the State acquire these large farms that are being used by non-farmers.
There is a danger that when such agitation begins, persons of ill-motivation may take advantage of the front presented for the purpose of agitating merely for the sake of agitation. I have no doubt that this has happened in some cases and the policies pursued by certain branches of these land leagues in some areas have not been happy. They have tended to be intimidatory. I have warned any members that I have met that they should not spoil the justice of their cause by using methods that are unlawful and unjust. By and large I find they are very conscious of this. However, the fact that they have been forced into those organisations presents an opportunity for subversive groups to take advantage of the front and try to cause mischief in our society. There would be no need for these fronts if there were a policy of control of entry into the farming industry. Our land is much too valuable an asset to allow it to become available for sale to any speculator who fancies himself as a gentleman farmer and who has the status of an estate down the country with which to impress his friends.
In this connection I know that in some cases justification is based on these purchases by pretending—I use the word "pretending" advisedly— that the farms are being turned into stud farms. This is a loophole that will have to be plugged. It is not good enough to put one or two brood mares on a farm of 500 or 600 acres and call it a stud farm. Some criteria must be established so as to ensure that only bona fide farms can escape any action by the Land Commission.
I have found, too, that in cases where such purchases are brought to the attention of the Land Commission, the Land Commission find that they are unable to move to acquire these large holdings from these non-farmers because it may be the case that, for historical reasons, there are no congests within a mile of the area. The field staff find themselves, then, in an impossible position before the Commissioners when the objection to the acquisition is being heard. If there is no congestion the Commissioners are more or less coerced into allowing the objection and to restoring the land to the nouveau rancher.
While there might not be congestion in the immediate vicinity of such a ranch there is no part of this country sufficiently far away for one to be able to say that there is not congestion which could be relieved by acquiring the farm concerned. I see this to a very sharp degree in my constituency. In Westmeath I see tracts of land of up to 1,000 acres in the hands of individuals while not ten miles away in County Longford there are men trying to rear families on holdings of 15 to 20 acres. It is very difficult to explain to these people the technical reasons that inhibit the Land Commission from acquiring these ranches. I am sure they regard my explanations as hollow and cannot comprehend them. I sympathise with their lack of comprehension because the illogicality of the explanations I give is apparent to me.
I would urge the Minister to give urgent priority to devising some control on the entry of non-farmers into farming. It is a matter of great social consequence and one which, if not controlled, could lead to most undesirable and possibly violent or semi-violent agitation. The fact that very little violence has occurred to date in this regard is commendable and reflects great credit on the restraint of persons who are deprived of land and who are endeavouring to eke out their living on uneconomic holdings while this scandal is taking place within their knowledge, either in their own county or in adjoining counties.
These large ranches would be ideally suited for acquisition and division among migrants from congested areas. At this stage I would make a special plea in regard to the problems in Longford-Westmeath in this regard. I would urge that when farms are acquired in Westmeath the migrants be taken from other parts of the county or from the adjoining county of Longford. Very often they are taken from the west or south-west and this is hard on the people in the immediate adjoining areas who cannot understand why persons from the west should be given preference while they themselves who are in a similar position and who are close to the land being distributed are overlooked. It would be less of a social trauma to move people from Longford to Westmeath than to bring migrants from, say, Galway and Mayo to the midlands, where the way of life is different in many small ways. There can be difficulties of adjustment and of becoming assimilated into the community. Many of these difficulties could be avoided if migration was confined to the immediately adjoining counties. Land was divided in Westmeath not so long ago and several holdings were earmarked for migrants from the west of Ireland. This caused considerable acrimony among smallholders in the area. They could not understand why they were not qualified to get land; they were working their farms economically and were married with wives and families to support. It is difficult to explain this situation in terms of the national policy of the Land Commission. I could not explain it to them. It was not enough to say that it was Land Commission policy to bring people from the west and to give them these holdings in the midlands. If the people in the midlands were satisfied that would be all right, but there was demand and need in the midlands and it was considered that the people there should get preference when land was being divided, because they would settle more easily and adjust more easily.
I wish to speak particularly of Longford/Westmeath. I make no apology for speaking about this area; that is what I am here for. There is a vast problem about land, particularly in County Longford. There are small-holdings there and holdings which are often very fragmented so that in the absence of a massive scheme of re-arrangement the problem is insoluble. Such re-arrangement can only be achieved where there is adequate staff available to do this work.
I raised this matter by way of supplementary question to the Minister some days ago and he invited me to raise it on the Estimate. I do so now, with pleasure. The staff in Mullingar have to deal with two counties. There are particularly severe land problems in the area. There is one acquisition inspector there and three inspectors available to deal with allotments and re-arrangement. This staff is hopelessly inadequate. It is impossible for that office to inspect all the land that comes for sale and to process the purchase of it. It is quite hopeless for the three remaining inspectors to deal with the amount of land that becomes available, having regard to the utterly fragmented condition of the county. To try to deal with it with that staff and in isolation is only toying with the problem. The problem will never be solved this way.
This is a serious social problem. It is important to the country that the problem is not being solved. This is being highlighted now by our accession to Europe where the value of agricultural land is appreciated. It is becoming apparent that we are not utilising our resources fully. It is not a question of making good land out of bad land or of being handicapped by the land's physical characteristics. All the problems can be solved by man provided the drive and energy are there and thought is given to the problems. I do not want to be taken as being critical of the staff in the Land Commission offices throughout the country. My experience of these men is that they are dedicated officials carrying out their work with a sense of vocation, but they are strangled by a system which does not allow them to acquire the land they need and which is slow to operate, cumbersome to manage and unduly bureaucratic in its approach. The requirements of accountability, particularly financial accountability, impose limitations but the operation of the Land Commission in practice far exceeds any requirements in this regard.
I have no doubt that if the mass of practical knowledge and enthusiasm that is to be found in Land Commission offices throughout the country could be harnessed by the central authority of the Land Commission in Dublin worthwhile schemes and plans would quickly emerge and these would go a long way towards alleviating many of the glaring and long-standing problems.
We have been an independent State for the past 50 years. The Minister indicated some time ago that his Department might be redundant. I beg leave to disagree with him. There is a serious problem in regard to land structures. This problem must be solved. One tremendous aid now available is the incentives provided via the EEC for elderly farmers to retire and to make their lands available for younger men who are prepared to use the land in accordance with proper development plans. Some years ago the Land Commission on their own initiative produced a type of retirement plan but it never got off the ground; it was regarded with suspicion by farmers. It seemed to be financially inadequate. The facilities made available by our membership of the EEC appear better financially and appear to be of a kind that could be “sold” to the type of farmer whom we would like to see retiring and handing over his land to more go-ahead younger people.
It must be emphasised that the retirement is completely voluntary and that there is no element of compulsion in this scheme. In order that this retirement scheme might work successfully it would have to be "sold" successfully to the persons for whom it is intended. I respectfully suggest to the Minister that the persons not to "sell" such a scheme are the officials of the Land Commission, because so far as the farmers are concerned they are "them", not quite their opponents but somebody with interests that might be in conflict with the farmers' interests. These schemes will have to be encouraged by the farming organisations themselves such as the IFA, Macra na Tuaithe and Macra na Feirme. The local authorities, via the county committees of agriculture and the instructors who are friendly, familiar figures to many of the farmers, could be utilised to explain the benefits of these schemes. This is an area where sensitivity is demanded and in the absence of that sensitivity this scheme, which has a tremendous, far-reaching and beneficial potential, might not get off the ground.
This is a matter which deserves very serious consideration. The Government might be able to devise a way out of their dilemma in regard to the termination of non-incentive payments to farmers, in other words, the dole. I understand that there would be no objection under the terms of our membership of the EEC that payments be made to small farmers to supplement their income, but that these payments will have to be in some way incentives and tied to production. The present system of paying a deontas will have to come to an end. I do not think any self-respecting person entitled to these payments would be disappointed if his payment were tied to his farming activities. If he has any self-respect he cannot object to that.
I realise that this politically is a delicate area, but I look to a Government secure in their support from the electorate, to have the courage to deal with this delicate problem firmly and quickly. I understand it is a problem that will have to be dealt with very quickly if we are not to lose a lot of money from the European Economic Community.
I now come to the acquisition of land and the machinery for it. Land acquisition is a tedious process. Very often the delay is due to legal complications which may result from a title not being in order. Difficulties in putting it in order may result from difficulties in solicitors' offices—I will not put it differently from that. Very often it is compounded by the extraordinary procedures that have to be adopted in the Examiner's Branch of the Land Commission when the sale is a compulsory acquisition and the title has to be shown via the Examiner's Branch. I cannot see any justification for continuing that procedure any longer. I do not see why conveyance to the Land Commission, whether by way of voluntary sale or compulsory acquisition, should not be conducted, like any other conveyance, through the Land Commission Solicitor's Office where the procedure is as speedy as in normal commercial circles. It would ease many problems and would help the reputation of the Land Commission in rural Ireland if acquisitions could be completed speedily and if payment does have to be in bonds that the bonds would be handed over straightaway. I know that they are placed to credit and the person owning the land receives the accumulated interest in due course but invariably income tax has been deducted and there is the further practical difficulty of having to reclaim the income tax.
Again, if land bonds are in a falling market or if by the time they come to be allotted as opposed to allocated or allocated as opposed to allotted—I am not sure of the technicalities the Examiner applies in this regard—they may have fallen and there may be a capital loss. The Examiner's Branch is now archaic and the persons in it, who are all lawyers, could do their conveyancing via the Solicitor's Office in the normal way of conveyancing.
I should like to turn briefly to the Minister's remarks on the Forestry Section of the Department and to mention a couple of points in relation to that section. The first is in regard to the grant which is now being made available for private planting. This grant used to be in the sum of £20 per acre payable as to £10 on planting and payable five years afterwards as to the balance of £10. The grant has been increased to £35 payable as to £20 on planting and the balance of £15 seven years after planting. I do respectfully suggest to the Minister that a grant, part of which will not be paid for seven years, is psychologically useless to the farmer who is getting it. It is very much a case of live horse and you will get grass.
If the farmer plants his acre of trees and does it competently he should be paid the full grant there and then. If the trees do not develop due to some fault in his husbandry the State should be prepared to accept the occasional failure but when a tree is planted it requires very little agricultural expertise to make it grow. It will normally grow without any more work on the part of the farmer. To inspect seven years afterwards and see how the crop has done and then pay the balance of £15 is, I hesitate to use the word "ridiculous", but it verges on that. Having regard to the comparatively trivial amount, I do not see why the whole grant would not be paid. The motive is to encourage private planting. Give the grant when the trees are planted and let there be no more about it.
Again, I might mention a point I made here some time ago on an Estimate for the Forestry Section. I suggest the grant should be payable, or a lesser scale of grant should be payable, in respect of planting smaller areas. There are comparatively few farmers who would have as large an area as an acre for planting or who would have the interest in forestry to plant an entire acre but there are many farmers who would be anxious to plant odd corners of wasteland, who would be anxious to plant boundaries between fields, and they should be assisted to plant in that fashion. In particular, they should be assisted to plant hardwoods. The balance as between hardwoods and evergreens is too lopsided. There is not sufficient planting now of hardwoods. We will never see the result of hardwood planting that is done now but some future generation may see it and, perhaps, would thank us who had the foresight to encourage it at this time. When we look at areas like the Phoenix Park or other areas of hardwood we give thanks to the generation of a century or more ago who had the foresight to engage in that type of planting.
Much of the country lacks hardwood cover. Hardwood is scenically nicer and ecologically desirable and should be encouraged by the Forestry Section. The encouragement may possibly have to take the form of some small grant for separate trees. If you depart from a grant based on an area of land you get down to difficulties of measurement. If a person is prepared to plant 12 or six or several dozen hardwood trees on waste spots on his farm he should be encouraged to do so. I should like to see a change of approach here. It is an environmental thing but that is one of the duties of the Forestry Section, a duty which, by and large, they have discharged with care for the country. It is something they would be pleased to encourage and if they did encourage it they would find a ready response on the part of farmers.
In regard to the planting of evergreen forests on hills and wasteland, I note from the Minister's speech that the rate of acquisition is encouraging and satisfactory and that a suitable land bank is being maintained. There was some doubt about that some time ago and I think it was due to the fact that the prices being paid were totally inadequate. I know the type of land being bought is not valuable but having regard to the way the speculators to whom I referred earlier have increased the farmer's notion of the value of his land, it may be difficult for the Forestry Section to get land at the old price.
The Minister used the expression "gross areas acquired". I do not know exactly what that means. The area secured in 1970-71 is 34,436 acres, whereas I understood that some time ago the area acquired around that time was 20,000 or 25,000 acres. I do not know what "gross" means in that context but the Minister, I assume, is happy with the amount of land being acquired and is satisfied that a land bank to meet future requirements is being maintained.
In connection with the planting of vast areas of hill, this is something that will have to be approached with care from the point of view of the change that it will make in the appearance of large areas of our countryside. Bare hills and vistas that can be opened up can be quite dramatic and are very Irish in their appearance but if mile upon mile of mountain is going to be covered by anonymous evergreens a lot of harm visually could be done to important tourist parts of our country and this is something that has to be very carefully considered at this stage by the Forestry Section in regard to future planting operations. There are many areas of no visual amenity where planting can go ahead apace but in the tourist areas of the country and in the mountainy tourist areas it is very important that some of the spectacular views of which we are justifiably proud should not be unwittingly cut off by forests. I noticed particularly in west Cork certain areas where young plantings had recently been sown. They were not impeding the view but there was no doubt that when they would reach maturity some very spectacular views would be obscured. Granted we have to balance the preservation of those views with the benefits to the economy of large forests but I would ask the Department in their planting policy to be very conscious for the need to maintain a balance.
I do not know if recruitment of professional foresters is satisfactory from the Minister's point of view. He did not mention it. He mentioned the question of foresters trained within the Department. I am talking of graduates and persons of that status. It is important that the numbers be maintained because of the growing importance of the forestry section not merely in the technical timber operation but in regard to its responsibility for wild life, for the development of forest parks and such things. Persons of the highest technical and professional qualifications should be recruited. It is important that there should be no shortage of staff to ensure that this country which is, in my opinion, physically the nicest in Europe will remain so and that the many physical attributes we have will be preserved and extended wherever the work of man can successfully do so.
I should like to congratulate the Minister and his Department on the wonderful job which has been done in the Rockingham estate outside Boyle. This is an amenity of tremendous value and of wonderful scenic beauty and much commonsense and sensitivity has been used in its planning. The one black mark is that the mansion is gone but I know there are arguments on both sides as to why that should be. I think there must be opportunities in other parts of the country to produce similar developments. They should be sought out and examined and brought into being as quickly as possible.
I should like to complain about the delay in bringing in the Wild Life Bill. As long ago as March 1970 it was indicated that the detailed outline of comprehensive legislation was in the course of completion. That was March, 1970, and this is December, 1972. It will soon be three years since that legislation was in the course of completion. I realise that the legislative programme which the Government have to bring before the House is varied and there are many demands on the Government's time but I do think that having regard to the importance of this piece of legislation to the future shape of our country, it is time it was brought in here, debated and became part of our law without any further delay. I would ask the Minister to do what he can to achieve that.
