I want to thank the Minister for having provided us with such a useful document. We do not seem to realise that the cost of paying salaries and wages in the Minister's Department and the Land Commission is in excess of £5 million and this sum is only for nine months. I should like to compliment the Minister on the amount of work he is doing in his Department. I have always found the Minister, his officials, and the officials in the Land Commission, very helpful when I had occasion to approach them in relation to the division of land.
The Forestry Division of the Minister's Department are doing a great job. At Rockingham, outside Boyle in County Roscommon, this division developed a magnificent park which is visited by people throughout the year. I believe the numbers who frequent this park are beyond the expectations of the Minister. It is a real show-piece where every facility is available for the family on picnic. I have not visited this park but friends who have done so have spoken in glowing terms of the facilities and the scenery there.
I have spoken on many occasions about the staff in the Department of Lands and in particular in Land Commission offices. I am glad the position has improved somewhat. I have had occasion to visit Land Commission offices in Sligo and Carrick-on-Shannon to find the staff there over-burdened with work—one active Deputy could keep the entire staff busy—and as a result the staff were unable to carry out outdoor duties. In passing I should like to compliment the staff on doing their work under very difficult circumstances. I am glad to see that additional staff will be appointed in these offices.
While we may find fault with some of the staff it should be stated that they are always in a position to give us a genuine answer to our queries. It should be remembered that they suffer many setbacks in the course of their negotiations to purchase land. Legal problems can arise regarding title or a friend who has not been heard of for many years may suddenly appear on the horizon to upset all the negotiations. It takes them a long time to get everything in order before they can make the final transfer.
I have always expressed my disappointment that it takes so long from the time the Land Commission decide to acquire land until they are in a position to divide it. Deputies are so accustomed to the situation that they take it for granted that it will be some years before the land is disposed of.
The precautions taken before land is taken over should be sufficient to enable the Land Commission to dispose of it without much delay. However, land is being reset for many years with the result that bad feelings are created among neighbours. When the land eventually is put up for public auction neighbours bid against each other and finish up on bad terms. People in my area have complained that they were robbed over the price they were asked to pay for land which they had held from the Land Commission for many years. These people felt that because they had the grazing rights for many years they held some title to the land. The Minister should do everything possible to speed up land division.
The Minister has explained where the money derived from sales goes. I was glad to hear this explanation because we have trouble explaining this to our constituents. Some people think that the Land Commission are making a fortune on the sale of land because they hear of large sums being paid for the land. It is wrong that land should be in the hands of the Land Commission for upwards of ten years and not divided. However, I know the Minister will investigate this position with a view to rectifying it.
Before the Land Commission acquire land they make sure that an adjoining farmer is entitled to it and for this reason it should not be a great problem to dispose of it. In cases they must wait until they have a pool of land before putting a holding on the market but that does not always apply. Some farms lie idle for years.
I should now like to refer to the purchase of land by non-nationals. I had hoped to have a word with the Minister before I received a document concerning this matter. Due to pressure in my constituency I have had occasion to discuss with the Minister questions of dividing holdings for the benefit of small farmers. There is nothing more disappointing for three or four small farmers who have been waiting for a farm for years to be taken over by the Land Commission than to discover they are not going to get it. Due to the rise in the price of cattle and the high cost of living people are more interested in land than they have been for years previously. Most public representatives have been in the position of making representations through every channel in order to have land taken over, and we hope the Minister and the Land Commission will do their utmost to provide holdings for the small farmers in a locality where land is being divided.
I must congratulate the Minister on making available a sum of £2,250,000 for the purchase of land for cash. This will solve a lot of thorny problems for the Land Commission and the Department. I have known the Land Commission for years to be trying to negotiate and reach agreement with people who have farms to dispose of and then they discover that a widow had disposed of her farm unknown to them. The Land Commission do not like to be harsh, and this provision will save many headaches. This sum will pay for quite a substantial amount of land and will make it much easier on the Minister's staff who will be working from various offices throughout the country. It was a job to convince people that bonds could be sold and sold well. It was only a piece of paper as far as the farmers were concerned. The greater the use of cash as a means of payment for land acquired by voluntary process, the less will be the need for compulsory acquisition. Everybody knows about the long delays involved in compulsory acquisition, the trouble that leads to Land Commission courts presided over by men from Dublin. Payment of cash means that even relatives who are away from home will be quite happy to know that their parents are selling under satisfactory conditions. The Minister said in his speech:
Purchases for cash are, of course, now treated as a capital item and the provision is being made by way of grant-in-aid under a separate subhead G.1 a procedure which will enable any part of the money issued but unexpended to be used in the following year. This will facilitate forward planning and the orderly regulation of transactions.
The Minister goes on to refer to subhead G.2 which provides £180,000 for the life annuities which will be set up and the premiums which will fall for payment in the period ending 31st December, 1974, under the new retirement scheme introduced recently. I can assure the Minister this scheme will meet with a very good reception throughout the country, but there are many people who do not know much about it. Where people rent a farm for 12 years it would be as well to let them know who has to pay the rent for those 12 years. I know the scheme will get the necessary publicity from those people who will be going around to meet applicants. It is a scheme that will be very much availed of when people learn more about it. Further on in his speech the Minister said:
Deputies will expect me to comment on subhead I under which provision is made for the money required to erect houses and outoffices and to construct fences, roads, drains, and so on, found necessary in the course of estate improvement work.
A sum of £700,000 is allocated for these works. This will go a long way towards supplementing the grants from the Department of Local Government. The Minister said:
The scheme under which advances are made to farmers to supplement grants from the Department of Local Government for the erection of new houses and for reconstruction work on existing houses is also financed under Subhead I and loans amounting to £41,486 were authorised during the year.
The Minister went on:
On the acquisition side, the aggregate area inspected during the year was 36,267 acres while the total intake of land amounted to about 20,400 acres. The total area in the acquisition machine at 31st March, 1974, amounted to some 79,500 acres.
This indicates the amount of work the Land Commission have in hands during each year, the number of farms they have to inspect and negotiate on and which they might still not succeed in acquiring. They do an enormous amount of work without much reward.
I should like to repeat a statement I have made several times. Along the western coast from Galway, through Mayo, Sligo to Donegal there are thousands of small holdings suitable for acquisition and subsequent vesting. We are told by the Land Commission that they do not take land to give to one person but these holdings are so small that it would not be viable from any point of view to divide them among neighbouring smallholders. I suggest that where two or three such holdings fall to be acquired they should be given to one person who could then with hard work make them into an economic proposition. The Minister should seriously consider revising earlier ideas in this regard.
On the question of land settlement the Minister said:
As regards land settlement for the year, the total area allotted amongst 1,946 allottees was about 35,600 acres. The acreage distributed included the provision of 49 fully-equipped holdings comprising 3,493 acres for migrants and the rearrangement of 473 fragmented holdings. In all, 52 new dwelling-houses and 61 new outoffices were provided for tenants and allottees during the year.
We must congratulate the Minister on these achievements. A lot of new homes have been provided for people who needed them. I know the efforts in this regard are appreciated in Sligo and in Leitrim. I spoke earlier about the pooling of land. In this scheme the Land Commission have provided many fine holdings and homes. The existing pool of land is due to be divided among people who are anxious for extra land and who are living adjacent to the estates concerned.
The Minister referred to the new retirement scheme and stated:
I need scarcely say that the future operations of the Land Commission will be governed to a large extent by the success or otherwise of the EEC Retirement Scheme. Deputies, especially those from rural constituencies, will be aware that on 1st May last I announced that I had made regulations introducing the new farmers' retirement scheme for the implementation of EEC Directive 160 on encouragement to leave farming.
He explained the objective of the scheme:
The objective of the scheme is to enable farmers, particularly those in the elderly age group—over 55— who for one reason or another are not happily or profitably engaged in agriculture and who wish to give up farming, to retire in dignity and financial security. It is a fact that in modern society most workers can retire at a certain age and enjoy a pension which will keep them in reasonable comfort for the rest of their lives.
That would place any farmer in the same position as a worker in industry or an official in the public service. He would be able to go on pension and continue to have the home he had previously. The Minister explained:
For the first time in our history a farmer who wishes to retire can do so with a guaranteed income for the rest of his life provided he satisfies the necessary conditions. In this way land will be made available to neighbouring farmers determined to advance their agricultural operations under the modernisation scheme being implemented by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.
The Minister will have no problem in getting people to sign that agreement because they will be financially comfortable at that stage and they will not have any occasion to break the rule. He has gone further to say that he is not holding these people completely to the rules of the EEC. He has stated if they wish to go out and work with a farmer they can do so, with certain conditions. The conditions are much easier than those laid down by the EEC.
The Minister has stated that if the retiring farmer wishes he can keep the dwellinghouse he has lived in and up to two acres around it. This is an important consideration for the status and the emotional well-being of the farmer concerned as it means he has not to break with the friends and neighbours with whom he has lived all his life. That is very useful information to have because at that stage in life people who worked on the land and lived among good neighbours do not like to move away from them. They do not like to move into a new village and live in a new neighbourhood where they know very few people. The same could apply to any of us. It is very useful to those people to know they can remain in their own homes which they have repaired, or perhaps reconstructed, instead of going into new houses.
There is another benefit of considerable significance. The Minister stated:
A retiring farmer can continue to work in agriculture either permanently or casually provided, of course, that he does not engage in commercial farming in his own right. The directive lays down that a farmer who avails of the benefits of the scheme should cease all agricultural activity. For myself I regarded this as an unreasonable provision; it would mean that a retired farmer could not even help a neighbouring farmer in times of seasonal pressure. Such a restriction would be bad both for the psychological well-being of the person in question and for the agricultural economy in general where there is often a dearth of labour. I arranged that this point be presented strongly to the Commission in Brussels and I am glad to report that they accepted our case.
This means that this man of 55 or 60 years of age is free to go to a neighbour and help him. If he wishes to earn some money he is free to do so. This new scheme prepared by the Minister gives all the encouragement that is required. The Minister went on to deal with some aspects of the scheme which have given rise to misunderstanding. He stated:
One of these is the question of priority access to land made available under the scheme. The position here is that, as required by the EEC Directive 160, farmers with development plans approved under the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries modernisation scheme will have priority on lands made available by the retirement scheme where their plans confirm that extra land is needed. The retirement scheme and the farm modernisation scheme are very closely interlinked and arrangements have been made both at local and at headquarter levels to ensure the closest liaison in the administration of the two schemes. A certain amount of anxiety has been expressed throughout the country about the position of a class of farmers now designed as transitional farmers.
I believe that farmers in a very short time will know enough about this scheme because the Minister has told me that the Land Commission inspectors will be only too glad to go out and interview those people. This scheme will give great satisfaction to many people.
I would now like to say a few words about the Forestry Division of the Department of Lands. This is one of the most efficient sections of any Department. The staff are trained from the time they become forestry employees. We were often disappointed when a forestry job was carried out in our own areas that local employees were not taken on. We afterwards discovered that the Forestry Division were right and we were wrong. They sent a group of men perhaps ten miles to make sure that their staff were in constant employment and also because they knew those were skilled workers and very little supervision was needed. There is a lot to be said for that.
The Department pay the forestry workers well but I can assure the Minister they are a very hard-working group of men. We can often be critical of the Forestry Division but everywhere we go we see the fruits of their work. There are huge forests all over the country. We see trucks fully laden with timber and we see sawmills supplied from our local forests. We also see men employed all the year round by the Forestry Division.
The Minister mentioned that his Department were finding it difficult to purchase land now. I did not agree with the reason he gave. I believe the difficulty is because the price of cattle increased in recent years. They were very valuable before our present setback. Everybody knows if this winter were over and we got back to normal sales and export trade the price of cattle would increase. That is why the Minister and the Department have found it difficult to purchase land and I think they will find it difficult to get land in future. The flow of emigration has decreased. Many school leavers now go to work on the family farm because up to six or eight months ago they got money for it; cattle prices were excellent.
Others became interested in land due to the rising cost of living. They decided they would have to work more and grow more on the land. I think the time is coming when many of us will have to work harder on the land. Hitherto it was a matter of getting ready money with less work but now we shall all have to do more work on the land.
As I have said previously, I do not like the Forestry Division buying good land while they do not like buying bad land. That is understandable. The Forestry Division will say truthfully that if you buy bad land you must have a fair proportion of good land. But in many cases the Land Commission have not taken over land for division among four or five small farmers and the Forestry Division have moved in and bought land that could have made comfortable holdings for local people. That is another reason why the Minister finds it difficult to get land. As he said:
The difficulty in reaching price agreement for the purchase of land for State forestry and the trend towards a slower rate of closing of sales referred to by me in my speech on the Estimate for last year have become even more acute. These adverse trends are due mainly to unsettled conditions in the general market for land as well as to a hesitancy on the part of owners in offering lands at all for forestry: owners are obviously reluctant to sell until a clearer picture emerges of the effects of the various EEC directives in the area of agriculture.
That is what I have been trying to say—that reluctance to sell is due to the unsettled situation of agriculture at present. I have no doubt that this crisis has been due mainly to the very bad harvest and that when the effects of this disappear we shall have no trouble in getting back to good prices and the Minister will have a problem in getting land. The Minister continued:
In these conditions it is very difficult to predict future acquisition prospects. Deputies may rest assured, however, that no effort is being spared on our endeavour to attain our acquisition targets.
The Department should consider establishing some type of factory where forestry has been successful in the west. There are thousands of acres of forest there from which timber must be hauled from 60 to 100 miles across the country while if a factory existed there, the timber could be utilised without breaking up our roads and wasting time and money on haulage. We proposed in Leitrim County Council that some industry should be started that would absorb forestry timber and the proposal was put to the Department but it was turned down and timber had to be sent from the lower end of Leitrim down to County Clare. The same applies in Sligo where there is very successful forestry. Very high haulage expenses are involved without any local benefit while if a factory were established local employment could be provided by the same money instead of spending it on long journeys to some chipboard factory in County Clare. The Department should therefore consider establishing an industry that would absorb much of this timber.
A very useful return is being obtained from forestry at present and I must congratulate the forestry workers on the job they are doing. As the Minister said:
Forest Development and Management, at £4,830,000 is the main expenditure subhead in this Vote. The major provisions in the subhead relate to the raising of nursery stock in the State forest nurseries, the establishment costs of all new plantations including ground preparation and fencing, road and bridge construction, the development of facilities for public recreation in our forests, the purchase and maintenance of forest machinery and the hire of suitable machinery from outside sources....
This is very necessary today because without modern machinery progress was very slow. Today, men and machinery can move in and do a very successful job in a few months that would otherwise take years. I congratulate the Minister on having allocated so much money to that subhead. A very substantial sum is being spent in giving employment, on the purchase and hire of machinery and the purchase of land.
The total provision for the current year, at £4,830,000 is the equivalent of a sum of £6,332,000 for a full year, which would represent an increase of £805,000 on a provision of £5,527,000 for 1973-74.
