MR. MACARTNEYasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether it has been finally determined by Government that a Commission shall issue to direct a local inquiry as to the propriety of reducing the number of workhouses in Ireland; and, if such local Commission is to be appointed, whether the scope of its inquiry will be extended to the advisability of utilizing for the accommodation of harmless lunatics and idiots any workhouses which may be deemed superfluous and unnecessary, and also into the advisability of reviewing and re-arranging the present inconvenient limits and boundaries of dispensary districts in Irish Poor Law Unions?
§ SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHIt has been decided that this subject should be locally inquired into by a 1516 Commission, and their attention will be directed to the following points:— Whether, having due regard to the extent and population of the present Poor Law Unions, the necessities of the sick and destitute poor therein, and the proper administration of the Poor Law, any Unions can be dissolved and amalgamated with adjoining Unions; and whether it would be necessary in carrying out such changes to re-arrange any of the present dispensary districts. Whether, without altering the boundaries of Poor Law Unions, any existing workhouse could be wholly or in part dispensed with, and accommodation provided in other adjacent workhouses for the whole or for any class of the sick or destitute poor of the Union, the workhouse of which is dispensed with; and whether any workhouse that may be dispensed with might be used for the reception of the lunatic poor or for any other purposes.