asked the Minister for Lands and Fisheries if he is aware that many farmers in the Saorstát have been financially crippled as a result of seizures for arrears of land annuities, and if he will now consent to accept payment of arrears of land annuities extended over a period of five years.

It is not possible to fall in with the Deputy's suggestion. If land purchase annuities are not paid as they fall due they become, pending their recovery, a charge on the Guarantee Fund, in other words, on the ratepayers of the country.

It is, however, the practice of the Land Commission to consider sympathetically on their merits proposals by land purchase annuitants who are in arrears with their annuities to pay their arrears by instalments over a reasonable period, together with their current annuities.

Are we to take it from the Parliamentary Secretary that the Land Commission are therefore taking into consideration the present circumstances of tenants when they are sending out processes and sheriffs, and that these cases will be reasonably considered?

Whenever a reasonable case is put up to the Land Commission they consider it sympathetically.