Mary Upton (Dublin South Central, Labour)
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I welcome the Land Bill 2004 and its provisions to modernise the legislation on land that was held under the auspices of the former Land Commission. The Land Commission was originally established in 1881 to fix rents. It later became the Tenant Purchase Agency and bought land for tenants. Because many of the tenants were unable to buy the land, the principle of a land annuity was introduced. The capital which was provided to the purchaser by the Land Commission was repaid over a number of years as an annuity. That system facilitated the tenant purchasers to buy their own land over a period, thus easing the burden of repayment as a capital sum. Of its time it was a good idea but the carry-over from that has left a number of farmers carrying on with that annuity, and times have changed significantly.

Irish land law is characterised by its complexity and the archaic nature of some of its provisions. The purpose of the Bill is to simplify the procedures as they apply to agricultural land held under the tenant purchase scheme of 1881.

I broadly welcome the provisions of the Bill to discharge land held under low annuities and provide a mechanism to encourage farmers to clear their annuities at a discount. The outcome of that should be a reduction in the bureaucracy involved in dealing with the annuities and a general tidy up operation of the land annuities.

The level of the annuity to be written off, however, is a very modest €200. That will be welcomed but the level should be increased to €400 as suggested by many of the farming organisations. Increasing the level to €400 would benefit more than 5,000 farmers. Indeed, the cost of collecting an annuity of less than €400 would be greater than the financial gain to be had from retaining the level at €200. That is a financial consideration that should be worked out in terms of raising the level from €200 to €400.

The timescale within which the offer is available is very short. I ask the Minister to consider that in light of difficulties farmers may experience in accessing funding and arranging loans to deal with that. This point was raised by Deputy Naughten previously and it was also raised in the Seanad. Many farmers may not be in a position to avail of the offer within a short timeframe but they may be able to do so over a longer period. They should be given the opportunity to put in place some provisions whereby they could raise the necessary finance to avail of the offer.

Concern has been expressed that the Bill will give rights to the Department to offset other payments due from the Department in lieu of land annuities owed. That is a major point that must be addressed on behalf of farmers. It could cause considerable problems and should be taken into account by the Minister because safeguards are needed to ensure farmers do not become victims of the system and find themselves in further financial difficulty without being given an opportunity to restructure their repayments to allow them to be better able to make the annuity payments in the future. For example, in the case of a farmer not receiving EU payments, the Department will be given authority to seek attachment of moneys due to a farmer from a purchaser of foreign produce. The implications of that for a farmer could be very significant. That point must be addressed.

I welcome the simplification provisions in respect of the transfer and change of ownership of land in trust. That will benefit sporting organisations. It will benefit a number of GAA clubs in particular and allow for investment in their lands within their current use. That is welcome. In light of the recent welcome decisions by the GAA on other fronts, it is appropriate that it should be given the scope and the opportunity to invest. There should be significant community benefit from this measure and in allowing sporting clubs, particularly the GAA, to make this investment, there should be a knock-on effect of benefit to the community. I would welcome that and I hope it happens.

I welcome the abolition of section 45 of the Land Act 1965. I was surprised to find that 300 to 400 applications are still made on an annual basis by persons held to be non-qualified under the 1965 Act and that they have to obtain the consent of the Minister to acquire an interest in agricultural land. The original section 45 was intended to restrict ownership of agricultural land by non-Irish persons and corporate bodies. Whatever the historical reasons for this provision, they are now outdated. We cannot discriminate against EU nationals and, therefore, many people would count as qualified persons. Furthermore, I would be reluctant to uphold a provision that seeks to regulate ownership per se as opposed to use. My colleague, Deputy Naughten, was somewhat concerned that people from Dublin who had land in the country would be put off by the smell of slurry, for instance. I would not have any such concerns. I was not sure what point he was making about qualified persons——

Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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Deputy Upton will always be welcome.

Mary Upton (Dublin South Central, Labour)
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——but I assure him that the people of Dublin South-Central would not have any such qualms or reservations about heading down to the country. They would be very familiar and comfortable with it.

The Irish Land Commission (Dissolution) Act of 1992 abolished the Land Commission and transferred its property and powers to the Minister for Agriculture and Food. One section refers to moneys owed by the Department. I would like the Minister to consider whether it is appropriate to refer to her Department rather than her office. That is a technical point and one I will raise again on Committee Stage.

The Bill seeks to regularise technical inaccuracies and omissions in the 1992 Act. That is welcome and points to the extremely technical and complex nature of this area. I will table amendments on Committee Stage that seek to avoid the same pitfalls as those in the 2004 Bill. I look forward to addressing those on Committee Stage.

I welcome any provisions that will reduce the level of bureaucracy for farmers and indeed the officials who have to manage the bureaucratic system. Farmers are already burdened with enough bureaucracy and anything we can do to lighten that load is to be welcomed. The final outcome is that farmers who have land purchase annuities will finally have ownership of their own land with all the benefits full ownership entails.

In broad terms I welcome the Bill and look forward to addressing on Committee Stage some of the specific points I raised.

Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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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?

Jerry Cowley (Mayo, Independent)
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Yes. As the scheduled speakers have not come to the Chamber, the Deputy is speaking in the Technical Group slot.

Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I am sorry about that. I had no intention of doing so. I was told to be here. I will wind up in that case. I thought it was a Fine Gael slot. Will the Chair advise me as to what happens next?

Jerry Cowley (Mayo, Independent)
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As the Deputy has possession, it is his prerogative.

Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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I had no intention of taking someone else's slot. I will conclude. While I had a great many other matters I wished to address, the Minister of State has been given the drift of my arguments. I am sorry someone like him did not have an input into the provisions in the Finance Act on fragmented farms to ensure a group approach was taken. Fragmentation tends to involve more than one farmer and it is regrettable the provisions of the Finance Bill did not take that into account.

Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)
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Ba mhaith liom mo chuid ama a roinnt leis an Teachta Finian McGrath.

Jerry Cowley (Mayo, Independent)
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Is that agreed? Agreed.

Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)
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Cuirim fáilte roimh an mBille. Ar bhealach, is Bille teicniúil é, ach ag an am céanna, tá sé an-stairiúil chomh maith. Mar a bhí daoine eile á rá, baineann sé le Coimisiún na Talún agus go leor feirmeoirí agus gluaiseachtaí i stair na tíre seo. Tá sé tráthúil chomh maith go bhfuilimid ag caint anseo ar an mBille Talún 2004, mar, díreach 70 bliain ó shin, cuireadh comhluadar d'fheirmeoirí ar bun i gContae na Mí, nach bhfuil ró-fhada uaimse i mBaile Brigín i dtuaisceart Chontae Átha Cliath. Sa lá atá inniu ann, tá an comhluadar sin fós beo agus ag dul ó neart go neart. Tá Gaeltacht ann anois sa cheantar idir Ráth Chairn agus Baile Ghib. Ag an am céanna, is trua liom a rá nach bhfuil an méid céanna feirmeoireachta ar siúl sa cheantar is a bhí 70 bliain ó shin. Tá an chuid is mó de na daoine a lonnaíodh ann le breis is 20 acra an duine ag brath ar fhostaíocht eile anois seachas feirmeoireacht. Tá feirmeoirí ann fós, cé nach leor 20 acra a thuilleadh chun slí bheatha a bhaint amach. Is mar sin a bhíonn rudaí, agus tá sé stairiúil ag an am céanna.

While the Land Bill deals with ownership we must take into account that straightforward ownership is no longer sufficient in terms of this legislation. We should also take into account that the virtual ownership of land must be considered in terms of the predatory policies of the GM companies. For example, in legal terms a land owner is the actual owner of the land but, increasingly in law in other countries where GM food is grown, the GM company is in many ways the franchise holder of that land. Once land has gone into GM production it is no longer possible to grow organically on it. Conventional crops are effectively compromised because of the GM history of the land.

The Department must take into account the more complex nature of land ownership in the future. I hope we will not have to countenance GM crops. Many farmers would not like to be faced with that compromise situation and are resisting it. Some farmers in Tipperary are taking the initiative and producing their own GM-free farm signs which they sell to landowners, including farmers, so that they can make a strong case that their land is to be GM free.

The longer-term investment in land ownership also changes the nature of what is being discussed in the Land Bill. For example, it would be more fruitful if forestry grants were fully restored and if the potential of forestry was realised. That would be of benefit not only to farmers in respect of long-term income but also in terms of biodiversity and tourism.

The Bill is all the more important because of the potential for many farmers to get involved in energy production, which is one of the challenges we will face. We must work with farmers to devise ways in which land can be best utilised. Traditionally, food production has been a primary land use but, increasingly, energy and building materials are becoming necessary crops. I accept there has been movement on anaerobic digestion and biomass. There was an excellent biofuel conference yesterday in Carlow, which was organised by the Green Party to try to provide a positive option for many of the sugar beet growers who are currently faced with a bleak future due to the closure of the Carlow sugar factory. I welcome the Bill which provides an opportunity for us to reflect on the nature of land use.

Finian McGrath (Dublin North Central, Independent)
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The debate on the Land Bill is an important one. Land is an intrinsic part of our history and culture. Before I go into the detail of the legislation I wish to remember the great Michael Davitt and the Land League, a movement which focused on rights for tenants and respect for people and their communities. Davitt's views are still relevant and we can learn lessons from him. He made a significant contribution to the development of the State in terms of land and tenants. We could also learn something from his approach that would assist in the peace process in Northern Ireland. He promoted inclusiveness, respect for people and their diversity and a move to democratic principles. There is an excellent opportunity for us to use this tradition to help us in the peace process.

It is important when dealing with a land issue to focus on speculators and the housing crisis. Up to 100,000 people on local authority waiting lists are directly affected. There is a connection between the price of land and affordable housing. It is important that we look at these issues and keep the focus on quality planning.

Ground rents are another matter of concern. I regret that successive Governments have not tackled this issue. I have long been a supporter of the National Association of Tenants Organisation, NATO, and the Association of Combined Residents Associations. I commend them on their work on ground rents in the past 20 years. In particular, I pay tribute to Tony O'Toole who was involved in ACRA when I began my political career. He did a great deal of work on ground rents. I wish to put on record my total support for the ACRA campaign.

The Land Commission was originally set up in 1881 as a rent-fixing body under the Land Law (Ireland) Act of that year. It subsequently developed by law into a tenant-purchase agency and assisted with the purchase by tenants of 13.5 million acres of land. Ultimately the commission embarked on a countrywide programme of land structural reform and became a great purchaser and distributor of land. Acquisition of land ceased in 1983. The Irish Land Commission (Dissolution) Act 1992, which came into operation on 31 March 1999, transferred the property of the Land Commission and functions of the lay commissioners to the Minister for Agriculture and Food.

The matters dealt with in the Land Bill concern land purchase-land reclamation annuities, the simplification of transfer of ownership and amendments to various Land Acts for simpler and more efficient administration. I welcome these provisions. The Bill proposes to discharge all land purchase annuities-land reclamation annuities amounting to €200 or less per annum, including arrears. It also provides for a land annuities-land reclamation annuities buy-out scheme for amounts greater than €200 per annum which would allow farmers to clear their existing land annuities at a discount of 25% subject to all outstanding arrears being paid in full.

These are important sections in the legislation. Section 10 provides legal authority for previous Government decisions to write-off small land purchase and land reclamation annuities.