By the 1980s, just before its reform, the Land Commission was a body responsible to the Department of Agriculture. In 1983, the Commission ceased acquiring land; this signified the start of the end of the Commission's reform of Irish land ownership, though freehold transfers of farmland still had to be signed off by the Commission into the 1990s. The Lands Section of the Department of Agriculture was seen as an overgrown entity, employing 750 people in 1983; its budget of IR£15m included IR£8m for administration costs and only IR£7m for actual land purchase or division. Further purchases were suspended that year by Paul Connaughton, Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture. Civil servants working for the Land Commission were reassigned to work on related matters. The Irish Land Commission (Dissolution) Act 1992 gave the Minister for Agriculture the power to formally dissolve the Commission. In proposing this legislation, Minister Michael O'Kennedy explained the bill's provisions: