Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on a land Bill. When I look across at the Minister of State, Deputy Brendan Smith, I am reminded that it is over 20 years since I sat where he is sitting now. That was the beginning of the end for the Land Commission as we knew it. Some of us had great plans in terms of land acquisition but, unfortunately, for a variety of reasons that make no difference to anyone now, they did not work.

Many people regret the way events turned out. There was a reference to economic factors in the Minister's contribution with which I agree because that has nothing to do with whether one has the capability of farming or is a big, small, efficient or inefficient farmer. It depends entirely on the size of the cheque book and, unfortunately, much of the land being purchased now has nothing to do with providing a livelihood for anybody living and working on the land. It seems no one has the answer to that problem. I will return to that matter later.

I welcome, in principle, a number of aspects of the Bill. There are one or two provisions on which I am surprised the Minister of State did not go a little further, including those on annuities. A debt of approximately €1 million remains outstanding. There have been other write-offs through the years and I would have thought the people who drew up the Bill would have made a great effort to remove the Land Commission from the equation. While I do not know if the Minister of State had an input before he was appointed, someone like him would have understood the background to this issue. While I accept that money is legitimately owed to the Land Commission, people throughout Ireland were allocated land in the 1970s and 1980s which they desperately wanted but which was uneconomical to farm. A number of farming families will know exactly what I meant when I say they would have been better off if they had never seen it. At the time, if land was available on the other side of a boundary fence and the farming blood was any way right in one, one wanted it. I am sure the same blood runs in the veins of the Minister of State as runs in mine.

Times have changed and people's first consideration now is the economic value of land. There are many people who purchased extraordinarily expensive land from the Land Commission, which was not the fault of the body which had to pay the going rate for it. Many of those people have been left with very significant repayments to the Land Commission. I do not make the case that people should not have to meet their obligations and pay back what they owe, but while the 25% discount the Government seeks to provide is better than none, I would have thought it would have gone further. A 50% discount should be applied and people should be given sufficient time to get their affairs in order. Pressure could then be put on people who owe the Land Commission money and a great effort could be made to get over the problem for good.

Given the cost to the system of collecting the money owed, civil servants would be much better employed carrying out other functions. It is a waste of time. An incentive should be provided to get money into the Exchequer which could, in turn, be put to better use. I do not know if such proposals have been put to the Minister of State but it appears to be the action to take. There will always be people who refuse to pay a penny to anyone and I do not make a case for them. A 25% discount based on an already inflated bill levied on people in an uneconomical business will not encourage a response from the category of people who are in serious trouble and who constitute the greatest difficulty for the Land Commission. I am sure we will return to the matter on Committee Stage at which point the Bill's provisions should be re-examined fundamentally.

I have no idea of the exact figures but assume the Department has gone through them with a fine-tooth comb. While I assume also that the discount had to be approved by the Department of Finance, a fundamental mistake has been made. There is an opportunity to wipe out most of the debt within the next year or two. It has been questioned whether the €200 threshold below which outstanding debts will be written off should be raised to €300 or €400. I have not seen the figures involved and am not sure what it means. A little more imagination and courage should be applied. The Exchequer would be better served by using whatever funding accrued from a write-off at a higher level than proposed than by hanging around looking for money for the next 20 years.

I like the provisions on trustees although time does not permit me to address them fully. Given the great many rows and fights in rural Ireland about who was appointed as a trustee and failures to fill vacancies, whatever measures are introduced to finalise matters will constitute a fine day's work. Everybody will approve.

It is difficult to know why provisions have been made on powers of attachment and to understand how they will work in practice. If it turns out that a farmer is unable to meet debts to the Land Commission and there are no moneys to be paid to him or her through the Department, I understand it is possible to place a power of attachment on the manager of a local mart. In such a case, the cheque for a farmer who has sold cattle can be sent to the Department of Agriculture and Food. It should be clearly spelt out if this is the case. I do not like it. No more than the Minister of State, I have had many dealings with the Land Commission over the years and have always found its officials to be very fair and flexible where they encountered genuine cases. The power of attachment, on the other hand, is a blunt instrument.

Many deals have been made with farmers in which only half any premia payments in a given year were taken to allow them to live and rear their families. I have often seen repayments spread over four or five years with the result that indebtedness to the Land Commission could be cleared while the farmers in question could continue to make a living. If the Department uses the blunt instrument of power of attachment to clear a significant debt in one fell swoop when a farmer sells milk to a creamery or sheep or cattle at a mart, it will serve to put him or her out of business. Great care should be taken in this context.

Is there some confusion about the rota of speakers?

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