asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food the present status of the 87 former Land Commission staff who were engaged in farm tax classification; the work they are now doing; the payroll and other costs; and the plans for them.

The former land tax inspectors returned to my Department from the Department of Finance last month. Fifty-two of these officers have been assigned to the disposal of the 6,000 hectares of land still in the possession of the Land Commission and also to the division of commonages. Some of the remainder have chosen to take early retirement; the others are available for re-deployment. The estimated cost this year of salaries and travelling and subsistence expenses is £1.7 million. When all the land is disposed of, the 52 officers will also be available for re-deployment.

The Deputy will be aware also that arising from discussions at the recent European Council and the Council of Agriculture Ministers, I will be preparing a number of important structural measures. I intend to ensure that any resources available through the re-allocation of the staff will be utilised to optimise the benefits available to this country from these measures.

Does the Minister accept that the position of these employees, through no fault of their own, has taken on the proportions of a national scandal at a time when efforts are being made to contain expenditure? Would the Minister also accept that at a time when AFT are having the legs totally cut from under them it is an outrageous contradiction to have employees in the Department at a cost of £1.7 million who are not fully utilised, if at all? Will the Minister accept that there is serious public concern about this issue?

I am concerned to use, to the maximum extent, the personal resources of these people who have been returned to my Department. I hope the new measures that I refer to and which will be a major feature of policy — and I will discuss these openly in the House — will enable these men to be fully and gainfully employed in a very positive way.

Why was it that a full year elapsed with 90 to 100 of those inspectors literally looking up at the ceiling five days a week when there was very important work to be done on commonages and the redistribution of land that the State was getting no money from? How could this happen in this day and age?

I do not want to get into an argument but the Deputy will be aware, from consultations he had when he was Minister of State, that certain proposals he made were not adopted by the Government. If they had been these people could have been more gainfully employed. The Deputy should not blame me for the fact that his Government failed to take the necessary steps.

The Minister cannot blame Fine Gael for what happened in 1987.

The Minister stopped the land tax: that is a scandal.

In respect of the 6,000 hectares still to be disposed of by the Land Commission, has the Minister any idea of the timescale for doing this and what does he intend to do then with the 22 officials who are now engaged on this work?

I have certainly issued guidelines because the Land Commission are not, in every respect, under my authority. The land will be disposed of by sale to those immediately in the vicinity who are qualified smallholders or it will be disposed of in the normal traditional Land Commission way as quickly as possible. I hope that matter will be effected in all cases, certainly within the next 12 months.

I welcome the Minister's statement.

I cannot give much more information on this but there is a question that all the Deputies are interested in next in relation to the western package and I cannot answer it unless I have time to do so.

I am anxious that the question be dealt with but it is up to Deputies to help me to dispose of Questions.

In regard to the statement by the Minister that 52 of those officers are now re-deployed in his Department, I deplore the fact that those people were there for a whole 12 months with absolutely nothing to do. The Minister has stated that 52 of them are re-deployed in his Department. How was the decision taken as to which 52 were to be re-deployed in the Department and as to who would be offered a redundancy package?

It was available to those who wished to avail of it. There was no ministerial decision involved in achieving that.

The Minister indicated in his reply that we were to blame for those people having nothing to do in the last year. It was the Minister's Government who took the decision and that should be on the record of the House. The Minister's Government left those people with nothing to do.

The Deputy should ask a question.

The decision to abolish the Land Commission was taken by the previous Government——

The Minister is misleading the House.

——and they then failed to make adequate provision to keep these people in employment.