HC Deb 24 March 1881 vol 259 cc1799-800
MR. THOMASSON

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he can inform the House, if a statement made in Ireland on Sunday the 13th instant, by the honourable Member for Tipperary, that "5,000 families at least would be hurled out on the roadside" is likely to prove accurate; and, if so, whether the Government will consider the expediency of moving urgency for the Land Bill on its introduction?

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

Before the right hon. Gentleman answers that Question I should like to ask him another on the same subject, and if he is unable to reply to it now I shall be glad to give him Notice of it. It is, Whether seven families have not been evicted at Scotstown, in the County Monaghan, and permission refused to them to go back as caretakers; whether there have not been several evictions on the property of Mr. R. J. M'Gough; whether 70 ejectments have not been served on the tenants of Mr. Nolan Farrer, of Ballyhaunis; and, whether since the passing of the Coercion Act writs have not fallen through Galway and other counties like snowflakes on the tenant farmers?

MR. W. E. FORSTER

With reference to the Question of the hon. Member for Galway, I must ask him to give Notice of it for Monday or Tuesday. In reply to the Question of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, I beg to say that I have reason to believe, as well as to hope, that the statement to which he referred of the hon. Member for Tipperary is exaggerated. I have official means of information of the actual number of decrees for rent obtained; and I find that at the last sessions in the several counties proscribed under the Act there were only 73 ejectment decrees for nonpayment of rent granted, as against 788 for the same time last year. At the Michaelmas sessions there were but 215, as against 374 last year; but as to what number will be obtained at the next sessions I cannot say, and I have only to repeat my belief that the statement of the hon. Member for Tipperary is exaggerated.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

I beg to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has any record of the writs obtained in the Superior Courts, as those he has mentioned, I presume, were only in the Inferior Courts?

MR. W. E. FORSTER

These Returns do not include the writs in the Superior Court; but they are not large.