: Amendment No. 1 has been ruled out of order as it involves a potential charge on the Exchequer.
Land Bond Bill, 1978: Committee and Final Stages .
SECTION 1.
Question proposed: "That section 1 stand part of the Bill."
(Cavan-Monaghan): This section proposes that the total amount of land bonds created and issued under this Bill shall not exceed £80 million. That is an increase of £20 million if, as I understand it, the present limit is £60 million. We all know that land bonds are a controversial method of paying for land acquired by the Land Commission. That controversy is due to the history of land bonds. I recall that when I qualified as a solicitor land bonds were standing on the Stock Exchange over par. People in those days were taking out insurance policies against the redemption of land bonds because on redemption they were losing up to £5, £7 or £10 per £100. That situation changed considerably with the changes in the value of money and the drift started against land bonds until they fell on the market and were worth only about half their face value. From then on they became a very controversial and objectionable method of paying for land acquired from people against their will.
Cash is the ideal method of paying for land which people are forced to sell to the Land Commission. I am sure I am not disclosing any State secret when I say that during my time as Minister for Lands I was very hopeful of being able to substitute cash for land bonds. However, the recession to which the Minister of State at the Department of Finance referred a moment ago occurred and it was then impossible for me to go ahead with my proposal. But I would have expected the Government in their early days of affluence to have abolished land bonds and to have substituted cash payments. When we are considering the payment for land acquired by the Land Commission in a way that may be less valuable than cash we are talking of taking land from people against their will. In these circumstances one would have expected the Government on resuming office to have made a top priority the payment in cash for land acquired, especially having regard to their ability to find money to allow them abolish wealth tax, to abolish car tax, to abolish rates and so on although the benefit accruing from the abolition of rates has not manifested itself in the pockets of the people who had been paying rates.
On the face of it the Government might have felt it was not urgent to abolish land bonds. If that is the case it is because during the term of office of the National Coalition for the first time land bonds bore a proper rate of interest. I am very glad it was in my term as Minister for Lands that the 16 per cent land bond was issued. It has now reached £120 on the Stock Exchange. During my term also the 15 per cent land bond was issued, which is still standing at an attractive price on the Stock Exchange. I also believe it was during the term of office of the National Coalition that the 14¾ per cent land bond was issued, which is also standing at a reasonable price on the Stock Exchange.
I want an assurance from the Minister, who is putting this Bill through the House, that future issues of land bonds will bear a rate of interest that will ensure that as far as possible they will maintain their value. He should inform the Department of Finance that they should err on the side of generosity in fixing a rate of interest for land bonds to ensure that when they are issued at £100 they will not fall to £50 and £40 in value, as has happened in the past. I know it is not in order for me to try to argue amendments which have been ruled out of order or to question why they have been ruled out of order, but Deputy D'Arcy and Deputy Bruton had what I think is a very original idea of providing that the rate of interest of existing land bonds should be revised from time to time. This would ensure that the land bonds which are given in exchange for something as precious as land will maintain their value and will be marketable.
That amendment has been ruled out of order but I suggest it was a reasonable way of ensuring that land bonds maintain their value. People have been left destitute in former years by holding on to land bonds they got in exchange for their land and the bottom fell out of the land bonds. We see in the paper that 8 per cent land bonds are standing at £60.50, 9½ per cent are standing at 80.25p and other 9½ per cent bonds are standing at 74.25p. We all know that there are 7 per cent, 6 per cent and 5 per cent land bonds standing at much lower figures. It was only during the term of office of the National Coalition that reasonable rates of interest of 16 per cent, 15 per cent and 14¾ per cent rates of interest were fixed on land bonds. Those bonds are still holding their value.
People still do not like land bonds. They object to taking them because their fingers, their ancestors' and their neighbours' fingers were burned in the past and it is a job to sell them even though they are better than cash at the moment. I want the Minister to give a guarantee that he will ensure that generous rates of interest are fixed for land bonds. What does he think of the suggestion of writing into the Bill that the rates of interest on land bonds issued from now on will be revised from time to time? The object of issuing land bonds is to pay for land which in the future will be acquired from the land owners. Have the Land Commission justified the necessity for asking for an increase in the amount of land bonds they want available to them? It is fashionable to say that there is no necessity for the Land Commission now and that they are not doing any useful work. There is certainly plenty of work for them to do. The Minister should justify the necessity for asking for an increase of £20 million in land bonds by telling us what the Land Commission propose to do with it. There has never been such unfair competition for land as there is at the moment. Small farmers who want to bring their acreage up to a viable workable unit have no chance of competing with the speculators, the non-farmers and the big farmers. In today's Irish Independent we see that 80 acres of land in Kildare have been sold at £246,000.
: I am giving the Deputy a lot of latitude. I am prepared to give the Deputies a fair amount of latitude on this but we are getting wide of the little Bill before the House, which only deals with an increase in the amount being provided for land bonds. It does not deal with interest or anything else. I understand that the interest is actually fixed by another Bill. I ask Deputy Fitzpatrick to stay with the section which is be-fore us. We discussed land structure and everything else on the Second Stage but we will not do it on this Stage.
(Cavan-Monaghan): Good goods often come in small parcels. One can develop that and say that effective goods can come in small parcels.
: I agree. We could discuss the whole Depart-ment of Agriculture under this Bill if the Chair were inclined to go asleep for a while. Deputy Fitzpatrick on the section.
(Cavan-Monaghan): The fact that it is a one section Bill does not mean that it is not fairly wide in its scope. It seeks £20 million worth of land bonds from the taxpayers. I am only asking the Minister what he proposes to do with that £20 million and I am only telling him what I think he should do with it. I cannot think, with due respect, of anything which is more relevant than what will be done with this £20 million.
I am not going to encroach on the Adjournment Debate by making a lengthy speech but there are a few things to be said which I think I should say. Never before in my pro-fessional or public life have I seen such a snatch-and-grab raid for land. Small farmers are anxious to increase their acreage. There is no way they can do that by buying land on the open market. Today's Irish Independent shows that 80 acres of land in Kildare, including a house with no bathroom or toilet, was sold for £246,000, or £3,075 per acre. In my own county, the land of a farmer who recently got 16 acres from the Land Commission adjoins a farm of less than 20 acres— that will give you an idea of the sort of farmer he is. As he wanted further land, he talked to me about the possibility of getting the Land Commission to acquire it. I told him I did not know whether they would acquire it or whether he would be in a position to get it if they did acquire it. That man, with approximately 45 acres, in order to get less than 20 acres of non-residential land had to pay £38,500 for it in County Cavan, almost £2,000 per acre.
That is the sort of situation in which small farmers find themselves. They are at the mercy of everybody who thinks it is fashionable, safe and a good investment to buy land. That is the case of the speculator, the pro-fessional man, the businessman and the big farmer. These are the people who would not look across a ditch not so many years ago never mind working land. These are the people who were laughing at the farmers during the economic war. These are the people who would not bother with land during the time of compulsory tillage. Now they want to squeeze out the man who stayed on the land during that time and who is now entitled to increase his acreage.
I am not satisfied that the Land Commission are working as hard as they should and I begrudge them the £20 million in land bonds because they are not protecting the small farmer. It now takes a row to get the Land Commission to serve a notice under the Land Act to freeze land. It has come to the stage where the Land Commission could be said to be discriminating.
: What we are discussing now would be relevant to the Estimate but it is not relevant to this small section. I have given the Deputy latitude but he is really going to town on it.
(Cavan-Monaghan): It could be said that the Land Commission are acquiring land in a discriminatory fashion. I am not saying that they are behaving in a biased or dishonest way but they are operating in a hit-and-miss fashion. If there is a very active politician in the area a notice will be served. The Land Commission should operate in such a way that the inspectors will keep a fatherly eye on what is going on. It should not have to wait until a TD, a deputation or the land league kick up a row. That is unfair and discrim-inates in favour of some people and against others. It is operating in favour of the powerful or the man who is prepared to kick up a row.
Before I left the Department of Lands a committee was set up to advise the Minister. It consisted of representatives from the Departments of Lands, Finance and Agriculture——
: The Deputy is moving away from the Bill. The Deputy might get away with his speech on Second Stage but this section only deals with the provision of an additional £20 million to buy land bonds. The administration of the Land Commission cannot be discussed on a small section like that.
(Cavan-Monaghan): I want to know what is going to be done with that money. This House will adjourn next week for four months. If I do not urge the De-partment to do something about the matter many farmers in my constituency and in Deputy Callanan's constituency will be invaded by speculators and land robbers of all descriptions during those four months. Thousands of acres of land will be out of the reach of the people who want it if the Land Commission do not get busy.
We are awaiting the final report of the inter-departmental committee. There was enough advice in the first report to protect the small farmer if the Land Commission would do it. There is a suggestion that a priority register should be established and that the people on it should have prior access to land.
: We are now dealing with land structure and the policy of the Land Commission, even the policy that has not been accepted by the Land Commission. Deputy Fitzpatrick will have every opportunity to raise those matters during another debate. Deputy Fitzpatrick knows as well as the Chair does that he is not in order.
(Cavan-Monaghan): I do not want to fight with the Chair. I would be prepared to debate the matter with the Chair.
: The Deputy cannot debate the matter with the Chair in this House.
(Cavan-Monaghan): I appreciate that, but I would be prepared to debate in some place the relevancy of my questioning the spending of this £20 million worth of land bonds.
We know that the Minister for Agriculture made a speech recently in which he outlined elaborate plans for protecting the small farmer. He pro-poses to introduce legislation, we are told, towards the end of the year. Those of us who have had experience in office know that the end of the year might mean the end of next year. While we await the legislation, whether it is the result of this inquiry or the result of the Minister for Agriculture's own views, the small farmers will remain at the mercy of the world and thousands of acres will pass out of their reach and into the hands of people who can pay over £3,000 an acre for it in Kildare and £2,000 an acre in Cavan. I do not want the Land Commission to mark time with the £20 million, as the Department of Finance want them to, but to remain active and exercise their existing powers of serving notices where they should be served. They should not wait for Deputies or Senators to come to them with a deputation or kicking up a row. I want the Land Commission to commit themselves to spending this £20 million operating the machinery they have now.
We all know that when a new policy is being introduced, the old policy is allowed to slow down. Indeed, it has come to a halt. The Minister of State comes from a constituency where land is very precious and where it is even a bigger problem than it is in my constituency. He knows the machinery is there if the Department of Finance take off the brakes and allow the Land Commission to serve these notices and hold up sales to the wrong people. Even after the sales have taken place, if it transpires that a non-farmer, or somebody who already has far too much land, is the purchaser, what is wrong with putting on a freeze notice? What is wrong with holding it up for three months and renewing the notice for another three months under the statute until the matter is inquired into?
Land is not mobile. Once it passes into the wrong hands and remains there for some time, it is a big job to get it out of them. I would have spoken on Second Stage but for the fact that the Bill came into the House quite quickly.
: That is no reason why the Deputy should make a Second Stage speech on this Stage. The Deputy knows quite well he is making a Second Stage speech.
(Cavan-Monaghan): On this type of Bill, there is no difference between a Second Stage and a Committee Stage speech.
: There is, of course, and nobody knows that better than the Deputy.
(Cavan-Monaghan): With the knowledge I have of the working of the Land Com-mission, and the knowledge I have of rural Ireland, I would be failing in my duty if I did not say what I am saying now. It is nothing less than a public and a national disgrace that the 30 acre and the 40 acre farmer is being thrown to the wolves and neglected. The Department of Finance are refusing to allow the Land Commission to serve statutory notices. This is certainly a case of fiddling while Rome burns and standing by and marking time while small farmers are being devoured by wolves.
We need viable farms and we need many farmers in the 50 acre to 70 acre category. We could have many more of those people if the Land Commission were allowed by the Department of Finance to exercise their existing powers. There is supposed to be no recession now. Perhaps we were affluent from June 1977 to June 1978 only, and we are now back into a recession, but this is a necessary priority. It cannot wait, because damage is being done and small farmers are becoming very angry. I do not think they will put up with it much longer. I never believed in boycotts, or writing on walls, or writing on roads, or attending auctions carrying placards, but the people I am talking about are becoming very frustrated and very annoyed. There is no use in talking about machinery next year or the year after. Now is the time we want action, and now is the time the people I am talking about want protection.
: I agree with about 50 per cent of what Deputy Fitzpatrick said. I do not see why we should have any objection to this increase from £60 to £80 million for land bonds if we are to do what Deputy Fitzpatrick rightly says should be done.
(Cavan-Monaghan): I am not objecting to that.
: I thought the Deputy was objecting to the provision in the Bill which increases the amount available for land bonds from £60 million to £80 million.
: And nothing else. That is what I have been trying to say for the past 15 minutes. The Deputy is quite in order.
: It is very important that this £80 million should be avail-able to the Land Commission. I agree with what Deputy Fitzpatrick said about orders on land sales. Let the purchasers wait for three months while the Land Commission find out whether they are the right type of people to buy land. I should like to see that done across the board by the Land Commission. I have been a Member of this House for some years and I have always pressed to have this done.
I was here when Deputy Fitzpatrick introduced a Lond Bonds Bill and I told him what I thought about land bonds. At the time he pointed out to me, and rightly so, that we could afford to pay for land through land bonds only. I said the interest should not remain static. Land bonds at 7, 8 and 9 per cent were useless to the people who got them. If they were reviewed periodically, even every two years, they would not stink as much as they do. I hope the House will excuse me for using that expression. I complimented Deputy Fitzpatrick on the fact that in his Bill they were redeemable in 26 years. If I am wrong, the Deputy will contradict me.
(Cavan-Monaghan): I think it was 27 years.
: I understand an amendment has been put down to make them redeemable in ten years. I would like to see that done if we can afford it. Even at 16 per cent, nobody likes land bonds. The fact is that the only way we can afford to pay for land is through land bonds. This has been accepted on all sides of the House.
The Land Commission are now getting an extra £20 million. For the past three years, when it was even suggested that there might be some control over the sale of land, there have been wholesale sales of land. I agree with what Deputy Fitzpatrick said about fiddling while Rome burns. I should like to see an order right across the board on all land sales until the Land Commission investigate them. I have been pressing for this for a long time. I am a bit fed up by the fact that pressure has to be put on. It is a pity in this day and age that people should have to write on the walls or stand with placards outside auctions to get their rights.
I support the Bill. The Land Commission have money, not necessarily in ready cash but in the bonds. When this new land authority is proposed to be set up I will have a lot to say on it. We will need to be careful when we dismiss the Land Commission. Maybe we do not agree with everything they did, but when local committees decide who goes on a panel we could have severe trouble and get into deep water. A lot of blood has been spilled over land and that could happen again. I am sorry, I am straying from the Bill.
: The Deputy is following Deputy Fitzpatrick's bad example.
: I will conclude. I followed him because he is an ex-Minister.
: This can be discussed on another occasion.
: I never disobeyed the Chair but I have as much right to do so as have ex-Ministers. I will have a lot to say on the new authority, but in the meantime we want to check, to put on the reins.
(Cavan-Monaghan): Hear, hear.
: I have been talking about that since I came in here. I do not change my colours for one side of the House or the other when I am talk-ing about land. I was the one man who did not agree. The man in charge of agriculture here has too much to do at the moment. He is a Brussels man, and has to be in order to look after the business. I was a minority of one.
: What is the Chair to do? I will have to rule the whole debate out of order.
: You will not have to rule me out. I will not be ordered out.
: There is no fear of that.
: I am pleased to hear Deputy Callanan in full voice again. He must have felt extremely frustrated since the change of Government. He disagrees with most of what the Government are doing and he cannot come in here and express his views as he should. I know what he said in Opposition and how he must feel now.
(Interruptions.)
: Deputy Clinton on the little section before us, please.
: I agree entirely with Deputy Fitzpatrick when he says that when we are discussing this little one section we are discussing the entire Bill. This one section is all that is in the Bill. The Minister for Agriculture is coming into this House seeking the permission of the House to create an extra £20 million for land bonds. Every Deputy in the House has a right to be concerned about a number of things. He has a right to be concerned about how this £20 million of bonds is going to be used. He has also a right to be concerned about the quality of this thing called land bonds that is used in substitution for money. Deputy Fitzpatrick and Deputy Callanan have a perfect right to be concerned about those small-holders who are anxious to make their holdings viable by getting an extra piece of land, but I am also concerned about the small farmer who could happen to be selling land because he is unable to work it because he has grown old or feeble. It could be a widow who would be in this position. The land is not being worked and it is an obvious thing for the Land Commission to move in and seek to get this land so that it can be properly used and perhaps make an adjoining holding viable. The Land Commission should be the most attractive purchaser of land, not the least attractive. The majority of people, particularly small people who are contemplating selling land, are frightened by land bonds and the history of land bonds gives them every right to feel like that.
The value of the bonds diminished over the years in so many instances. There should be some guarantee that the bonds used in lieu of money should be guaranteed throughout the period that those bonds are held by the person who obtained them in the first instance and was compelled to accept them. It should be possible to guarantee the value to the extent that sterling holds its value so that it would be the same for those people as if they had cash in their pockets. That is not unreasonable.
It has been said in this House on many occasions that the Government's bank would not accept land bonds as collateral because they knew the dangers of so doing. Naturally we should be concerned about both the buyer and the seller if we are going to have anything like equity in the purchase of land by the Land Commission. The Land Commission must become active, and I am pleased to see them coming in here looking for the permission of the House to create this additional amount of bonds. I am sorry that it is not cash. If it were cash you would get sellers much more readily and you would be much more likely to have land passing into the hands of people who should get it.
: We expected to get the cash from the EEC and we did not get it.
: There is a difficulty about cash, and I have yet to see the time when we will not have difficulty about cash. As has been said already, the Government have misused the cash they got and they now have to find ways and means of substituting something else for cash. It would be very desirable if this could be done, and the Land Commission would be pleased if they could get cash instead of bonds. I remember a previous Fianna Fáil Minister for Lands criticising the system he had to operate, and that will be well remembered by people who were in the House at the time. We all regret that the system must be operated in this way.
The concern expressed may have seemed a bit wide of this little section, as the Leas-Cheann Comhairle has said, but this little section is the entire Bill. If we talk about the Bill we talk about the section and vice-versa. I hope that the Minister when he gets to his feet to discuss this sec-tion will be able to give the House some sort of undertaking that the value of these land bonds will be guaranteed to whoever receives them and that the bonds when they are created will be used for paying for the activities of the Land Commission. Buying has been more or less dormant in the Land Commission for the last 12 months.
: Three years.
: Not three years. Up to 40,000 acres of land were acquired in the last year of the previous Government. Therefore there is no point in saying that that Government were idle over that period, but there was a definite policy to cease acquiring land and to get on with the division of the land they had. I see nothing wrong with getting on with a division of the land they had, but there should be no question of ceasing the acquisition of land when it can be used to increase holdings of small farmers and bring them up to a viable level.
I conclude by saying that I am very anxious to come in here and express my support for the creation of these bonds. I hope that the Land Commission will become active again in the acquisition of land and that when they acquire the land they do not sit on it for years. I know of a case where a man was told that he could sell his own house and give an exchange. There was a question of 30 acres of land. It has been set since and the man has sold his house. He bought a plot beside the other plot and built a house on it and still there is no decision. Then he was told that the local Land Commission agent told him this and that it was not a top level decision. This sort of thing should not be allowed to go on. It is misuse of State money and State bonds. That is another reason why Members should be concerned about the use to which this additional £20 million is put to and about the quality of the bonds and the value of the guarantee of the bonds in the long term.
: My contribution to this Bill was more or less put down in the amendments which were ruled out of order. These amendments were put down to help rather than to hinder and it is a pity they were ruled out.
The only real change in the Land Commission over the past four or five years is that it has been brought under the Department of Agriculture. This was a necessary step but I am sorry to see that there has been no new thinking since then. To operate properly the Land Commission need new thinking in relation to a lot of issues relating to land bonds. Several cases were cited as to what is occuring in different counties. The question of selling land for land bonds is a serious question for the vendor.
A new development in my county is that when property is offered for sale there is a huge amount of agitation by the locals, the Land Commission are contacted and they rush out and inspect the place and the result of all the pressure is that few people wish to purchase the land. A price below the actual value of the land is set and the Land Commission move in. This is very unfair and it has occurred in several places. I know of an area where at least five meetings were held and there was a desperate amount of agitation and aggravation to the extent that the price of the land was ruined. To eliminate this many changes would have to be made at land bond level.
Since 1934, approximately £60 million have been issued in land bonds. I accept that up to 1960 money was difficult to acquire but since then new thinking in relation to buying land for cash should have operated in the Land Commission. Will the Minister of State tell me what amount of land the Land Commission have on hands at the moment and the cash value of it? Without wishing to criticise the Land Commission officials whose policies are dictated by the attitude of the Government, I must say that they divide land at a snail's pace. Land has been held for 10, 12 or 14 years. In order to create a pool of money for purchasing land it is essential that the land be offered for cash to prospective purchasers within three or four years. The Land Commission are not alone offering to act as an agent for acquiring land but are money lenders as well. This is not their role. That is the role of the commercial banks and the ACC, who should make money available for buying land with cash, thereby creating a situation where a Land Commission representative is welcomed by a farmer who wishes to sell land. At present they are not welcome because they pay for land in very low interest rates and these have depreciated very considerably. This is creating a climate against the Land Commission and land bonds. We are asked to give another issue of £20 million. I am not against it because if we do not issue this it will hold up the purchase of land across the country. We cannot do that, but we can try to persuade the powers that be to change the system to make it more effective. The system will have to be changed. There were two cases in Wexford recently that went to the courts. The Land Commission lost one of the cases and I believe will lose the other. The people are watching the progress of the cases through the courts and will use the courts to beat the Land Commission.
How much land has been purchased in the last 12 months up to the end of April? Deputy Clinton said that he believed that the Land Commission were slowing up in the purchase of land. Are they slowing up?
In relation to the interest rate, the rate given by the Minister the last day was about 12½ per cent. It should be at least 1½ per cent above the current interest rates in the commercial banks for people paid with land bonds in order to satisfy the people and to create a climate where Land Commission representatives will be welcomed on farms. I am sure the Minister of State knows that when the Land Commission go to purchase land on a farm the people immediately go to their local TD to see if anything can be done about it. It should be the other way around. The representative should be welcomed and he should be prepared to give them the economic price, or the price appertaining for land on the public market at the time. That is the way land should be bought.
Delay in the purchase of land is also a serious matter. If the Land Commission are forced through their own courts and through the law courts available to the ordinary public it can take up to four years—provided one wins the case—before one can actually purchase the land, which must be very frustrating for everybody concerned. Surely a scheme carrying such problems cannot be a success. The Land Commission are the people who are equipped, who have the personnel and know-how to purchase such land for the small farmers of this nation. Never before were the farmers so much in need of somebody with the right kind of power, policy and approach to guarantee them some hope of making their holdings viable.
: The Chair has been very flexible this morning in allowing Deputies to engage in a full dress debate on this Bill.
The purpose of the Bill is to raise from £60 million to £80 million the total amount of land bonds which may be created to pay for land acquired by the Land Commission. There has been a lot of debate on this issue over the years in which I participated at various times on the Estimate for the Department of Lands and so on.
We all appreciate that it would be much more acceptable to substitute cash for land bonds. Deputy Fitzpatrick will know, from his own experience as Minister, and indeed Deputy Clinton also, that it would not be possible for him. Probably the Minister for Agriculture himself would have the same problem at present getting money from the Department of Finance to pay for land purchase in cash. If we did not have land bonds at present possibly the acreage purchased by the Land Commission would be a lot smaller than it is.
Deputy Fitzpatrick mentioned the price paid for land in County Kildare, as quoted in today's Irish Independent. It is a regular feature of auctions at present that land goes anything from £2,000 to say, £4,000 an acre. I believe it fetches £4,000 in some parts of Cork at present. At a price of £2,000 per acre—which is not the top of the current price range by any means— that would represent an annuity of £250. If one calculates it at £4,000 per acre it would represent an annuity of £500. I do not think the Department of Finance or any government could be expected to finance that kind of enterprise. Even though we do not agree with land bonds, do not like them and have spoken against them they constitute a necessary part of land purchase at present.
I shall not dwell on the issues raised by Deputies opposite. I understand their feelings in this respect. The Minister has said already that the Government are not committing themselves to an indefinite continuation of existing land policy. They have indicated already that they propose to reform land policy. To this end they have indicated that they propose to establish a new Land Authority responsible for structural reform. Possibly at that stage there will be plenty of scope for Deputies on both sides of the House to air their views on how this authority will operate and so on. No doubt we will all have plenty to say on it.
Regarding the revision of rate of interest on existing land bonds this would involve also a revision of resale annuities based on those bonds and would be entirely impractical. Furthermore, revision of the land bond rate of interest would have to be both upwards and downwards. Therefore it is not as easy a problem as one might expect.
Deputy D'Arcy asked for the acreage of land on hand by the Land Commission at present. I understand it is 74,000 acres. I cannot put a market value on that for the Deputy.
(Cavan-Monaghan): I think Deputy D'Arcy asked the Minister the amount of land acquired last year, the last full year.
: Up to the end of April.
: We might have a figure on that but the Land Commission have 74,000 acres on hand at present.
While this is a short Bill the Minister, in introducing Second Stage, may have encouraged Deputies to broaden the scope of the discussion because he did so in his brief. Deputies will have ample opportunity for discussing Land Commission problems and land struc-tural reform in the legislation that is promised to be introduced towards the end of the year. At present I have nothing further to say on it.
(Cavan-Monaghan): As I have said in this House on a few occasions mathematics are not my long suit. On looking at what is involved here I begin to ask myself: are the Land Commission about to fold up? I should like to ask the Minister two or three ques-tions. First of all, perhaps the Minister could tell me—and I think it is relevant—the amount of land acquired by the Land Commission for the last available year. The next question I should like to ask him is how much of the £20 million is committed already? What value of old land bonds is available? There seems to be a certain urgency about this Bill. It appears to me as if some of this £20 million is already committed. The Minister has taken £2,000 per acre as being the current value of land. It is at least that because we know that in the more fertile counties, with better land, it is way above £3,000 per acre.
Let us take a figure of £2,000. Am I correct in thinking that £20 million worth of land bonds will pay for only 10,000 acres of land? If my mathematics are correct that is the position. If that is so, if the Land Commission are doing anything at all, that such represent less than four months intake of land. Therefore, what we are having a debate about here is really giving the Land Commission authority to remain in operation for four months longer. The Land Commission are doing nothing if they are not acquiring in the neighbourhood of 40,000 acres of land a year. At £2,000 per acre this Bill represents 10,000 acres of land. I put it to the Minister and to the House that that—I will go down now and say the very minimum that they ever did was 30,000 acres a year, although I have reason to believe that they did not do 30,000 acres last year and I would like the Minister to tell me—assuming they did do 30,000 acres, 10,000 is a third of that and represents only four months work. Is that what we are talking about here? Is that the reason the Bill was introduced? Is it an indication that the operations of the Land Commission are coming to a halt? Is it an indication that the Land Commission will take no steps between now and the end of the year to serve notices, to protect the small farmers of the west, of Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal, and the small farmers of the other areas of the country where there is acute congestion, such as Kerry, Cork, parts of Limerick, Clare, every county practically? Is that the position—that we are only going to vote four months work to the Land Commission?
I should like the Minister to deal with those points because they are very relevant.
: First of all I should like to answer the question regarding the intake of land last year. The total intake was 29,000 acres. Purchases for bonds amounted to almost 15,000 acres.
(Cavan-Monaghan): Does that include the farmers?
: Yes. most of the £20 million here is to pay for lands at different stages of acquisition. They are lands in the pipeline for which the Land Commission have been negotiat-ing and this money is needed to pay for them. The price was agreed and fixed some time ago. I cannot say for what length of time this £20 million will last, but the recent average price would be around £700 to £800 per acre. That probably is not the price obtaining at the moment but that was the recent average price.
(Cavan-Monaghan): That must have been land in the snipe grass country.
: Am I right in think-ing that with 74,000 acres at approximately £2,000 an acre the land acquired by the Land Commission would be obtained at a very low price? The Minister of State talked about £700 to £800 an acre. Is it not possible to use this money to speed up the division of land? I presume the land is not given to the tenant at the price at which it was purchased. The price is adjusted. Could the Minister of State give us some idea of how the price is adjusted from the time the land was bought until the time it is allotted to the tenant?
(Cavan-Monaghan): The information we have now got from the Minister of State is really quite alarming. It appears the Land Commission acquired only 15,000 acres last year. I thought we were doing badly when we acquired 35,00 acres.
: 25,000 acres last year.
(Cavan-Monaghan): But for land bonds only 15,000 acres. In my time the Land Commission would have been doing well when it acquired 35,000 acres. It is obvious now the Department of Finance has called a halt and directed the Department of Agriculture to stop acquiring land. Surely this is not made a very valid point when he said made a very valid point when he said the snatch and grab raid is now on. There is a rumour of measures being taken to protect the small man. These measures should have been taken six months or a year ago. In the interim the speculators have become as busy as beavers buying land. We will adjourn the House for the next four months and we are not giving the Land Commission enough money to carry on during those four months. The Land Commission has been idle for the last 12 months if it acquired only 15,000 acres. This is a national dis-grace. Small farmers are being exexploited. They are being prevented from getting land. It is a serious business.
Complaints have been made over the years but I want to go on record now as saying things have never been so bad as they have been in the last 12 months. The speculative price is far in excess of £2,000 in the Minister's county, in Deputy Callanan's county and Deputy White's county and it is £3,000 an acre elsewhere. That is not good enough. It is something that would nearly demand this House remaining in session in order to protect the small farmers. It is no use locking the stable door after the horse has gone. Acres of land are being bought up every day of the week. The Mini-ster for Agriculture is alleged to have a scheme in mind. I hope he has and that he will bring it in without delay. I hope the scheme will work and that those who have been speculating in land will be prevented from doing still more damage. The Minister of State must know more about the problems of congestion, the fragmentation of holdings and the difficulties of small farmers than anybody else. I want a promise from him now that section 40 will be used energetically to preserve the status quo and stop the wolves being let loose between now and legislation to protect the small farmers.
Like Deputy Clinton, I do not want to confiscate land. I want the vendors to get a proper price for their land. It was the Minister for Agriculture in a Coalition Government, Deputy Dillon, who was responsible for giving the farmer the value of his land. Prior to that there was an artificial value. The farmer got a price that would be fair to him, fair to the Land Commission and fair to the tenant. It was a Coalition Government that put market value on the statute book. I am really worried about the plight of small farmers between now and next year because the speculators may have got a warning. It is equivalent to telling someone six months prior to the budget that the price of cigarettes will be increased, the price of drink and the price of some other consumable commodity. We all know what happens. There is stockpiling. That is what may well happen here. I do not want to use extravagant language, but the position is unjust and unfair. It is certainly not in the national interest and not in accordance with the pious hope expressed in the Constitution that as many as possible should be settled and maintained on the land. A lousy £20 million is being voted here, four months' work for the Land Commission. I never heard worse. Will the Minister give us some assurance that he will talk to his colleagues about what will happen now?
: The situation is not nearly as bad as Deputy Fitzpatrick would have us believe. Remember the intake over the last few years: In 1973-74 the total acreage acquired was 17,957; in 1974 the intake went up to 21,374; in 1975 it was 27,481; in 1976 it went over 31,000 and in 1977, 29,816.
(Cavan-Monaghan): I was Minister for Lands then.
: Would Deputy Fitzpatrick please allow the Minister to speak?
: All I am asking the House to do is to provide money for the very thing the Deputy is talking about. This £20 million will allow the Land Commission to continue their programme over the next two years and if, at the end of that time, more money is required I am sure the Mini-ster responsible will be here looking for more money. There is nothing to be alarmed about. The Minister for Agriculture has already indicated that he hopes to bring in legislation before the end of the year. That is a guarantee that the Government realise the importance of doing something about land purchase, land resale and land resettlement. I am sure we can wait for that legislation and have a full scale debate then.
(Cavan-Monaghan): I appeal to Fianna Fáil backbenchers to save the small farmers. They cannot trust the Depart-ment of Finance when Fianna Fáil are in power. We heard that in 1973 there were only 17,000 acres of land acquired and when we left office the acquisition was over 30,000 acres. That figure is going down again. When Fianna Fáil are in power the Land Commission are throttled and stifled by the Department of Finance. Unless there is a row in the Fianna Fáil Party rooms, these farmers will be robbed. There is the evidence. I do not blame the Land Commission. I know the officers in the commission are dedicated men prepared to do the work. I was there long enough to know how the Department of Finance operate.
I repeat, in 1972-73 there were 17,000 acres and in 1976 that figure had increased to over 30,000 acres, and we were not satisfied with that. Fianna Fáil have been in power only one year and that figure is down again. The rural Fianna Fáil Deputies will have to stand up and protect the farmers because they are being sold out to big business, speculators——
: Deputy Fitzpatrick is repeating what he has said four times already.
(Cavan-Monaghan): I would rather be put out of this House——
: We are having nothing but repetition. I am putting the section.
: I asked a question and I would like an answer.
: We have been having repetition for the last half hour and the Chair cannot take any more.
(Cavan-Monaghan): We are getting——
: Deputy Fitzpatrick is making life impossible for the Chair this morning. It is not good enough. I am putting the section.
: I did not get an answer to the question I asked earlier. How is the rent versus the purchase price of the land calculated?
: This is done by the commission.
: The Minister said that the average price of land this year was £700 per acre, but the commission have land for the last seven or eight years which must have cost £200 to £300 and land held by the commission will appreciate.
: That is a reserve func-tion of the Land Commissioners.
: What is? How the rent was calculated?
: How to fix the resale price of land.
: Has the Minister any say in that whatsoever?
: No.
Question put and agreed to.
: The amendments to section 2 were ruled out of order.
Section 2 agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported without amendment.
Agreed to take Fifth Stage today.
Question proposed: "That the Bill do now pass."
(Cavan-Monaghan): On this Stage I am con-fined to talking about what is in the Bill. This Bill proposes to extend the power of the Department to increase the issue of land bonds from £60 million to £80 million. That is a mere bagatelle having regard to the price of land at the present time. We know from the Minister of State that many of these bonds are already committed. It is obvious that, even if the full amount of this £20 million were available, it only represents four months' work for the Land Commission at a moderate speed. I hope the information we got today—that the intake of land by compulsory acquisition by the Land Commission has fallen from over 30,000 acres when we were in office to 15,000 acres—will shock the country and the Fianna Fáil backbenches into doing something.
The £20 million voted in this Bill is an indication that the Land Commission are not going to be allowed to do anything. This is a tidying up operation to pay for odds and ends of land on hands at the moment, and nothing more. It is like something that would be voted to a business to allow it to wind up decently and go out of business. That is what is at stake here and it is right that the country and the small farmers should know it. This is being done in anticipation of the inter-departmental committee's activities and of the scheme outlined by the Minister for Agriculture when opening this debate.
We know from him that the legislation will not be introduced until the end of the year. Those of us who were in power know that, if there is anything of a critical nature in the line of legislation in the Land Commission, it has to go through the Land Commission, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Finance. It will be at least two years before there is any worth-while protection for our small farmers. In the meantime we are here after much noise, some of it created by myself——
: I am afraid so.
(Cavan-Monaghan): All we are doing is giving a paltry £20 million to buy 10,000 acres of land for the farmers of the Twenty-six Counties. That is alarming. It is frightening. I hope more will be said about this on the Adjournment Debate. I do not think the House should adjourn until it gets an undertaking from the Department that they propose to do something about it. What I am talking about now is infinitely more important than all the guess work and bob-a-job activity contained in the Green Paper.
Question put and agreed to.
: This Bill is certified a Money Bill in accordance with Article 22 of the Constitution.