Evicted Tenants (Ireland) Act, 1907

Power to acquire land compulsorily.

1.(1) If it appears to the Estates Commissioners that it is expedient to acquire any land for the purposes of this Act, and if they have offered to the person appearing to them to be the owner of the land a price which appears to them to represent the value thereof, and he has not within the prescribed time accepted the offer, they may, subject to the provisions as to appeal contained in this Act, acquire that land compulsorily for those purposes in accordance with the provisions of this Act, and shall declare any land so acquired to be an estate.

(2) The expression “the purposes of this Act” means the provision of parcels of land for—

(a) evicted tenants to whom this Act applies, that is to say, persons mentioned in paragraph (d) of subsection one of section two of the Act of 1903, who, or whose predecessors, were evicted from their holdings before the passing of the said Act in consequence of proceedings taken by or on behalf of their landlords, and who made application to the Estates Commissioners before the first day of May nineteen hundred and seven to be put in occupation of holdings, and whom those Commissioners consider to be fit and proper persons to become purchasers under the Land Purchase Acts, not exceeding two thousand in all; and

(b) new tenants to whom this Act applies, that is to say, tenants, and persons nominated by the Estates Commissioners as personal representatives of tenants, of holdings formerly occupied by evicted tenants to whom this Act applies.

(3) No tenanted land shall be acquired compulsorily unless it is in the occupation of a new tenant to whom this Act applies, and unless the Estates Commissioners, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, holding, and district, and to the cost involved, consider it expedient that the evicted tenant should be reinstated as a purchaser of that land: Provided that no tenanted land shall be acquired compulsorily which is in the possession or occupation of a bonâ fide tenant using or cultivating the same as an ordinary farmer in accordance with proper methods of husbandry.

(4) No land shall be acquired compulsorily which is subject to an annuity for the repayment of an advance under the Land Purchase Acts.

(5) For the purposes of this enactment a person shall be deemed to be a tenant notwithstanding that he may have agreed to purchase his holding, if the agreement was entered into after the first day of May nineteen hundred and seven, and if the holding has not become vested in him as a purchaser under the Land Purchase Acts.