§ MR. REDMONDasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it is a fact that during the Chief Secretaryship of the Right honourable Member for Bradford, special police patrols were constantly on duty in the vicinity of the Viceregal Lodge in the Phœnix Park; whether such police patrols were maintained up to the morning of the day upon which the recent assassinations took place, when they were suddenly withdrawn; and, whether he will state who is responsible for their withdrawal, and what steps he has taken in the matter?
§ MR. TREVELYANIt is undesirable to make a public statement of the details of the protection afforded to Government officers in Ireland; but the lamented occurrence in Phœnix Park demands and has received a full investigation. The Lord Lieutenant has communicated his opinion to the Dublin Police authorities in a full and careful Minute. Whenever my right hon. Friend the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) was in Ireland adequate precautions were taken for his safety, often against his orders. When he left Ireland these precautions were discontinued. With regard to my lamented Predecessor, no precautions were taken at all. There are two considerations to which His Excellency attaches weight. In the first place, the very unexpected arrival in Ireland of Lord Frederick Cavendish was not notified to the police, and they were not aware of his coming there until he appeared in the procession and at the Privy Council in the Castle. They then looked upon him as one of the Lord Lieutenant's party, and did not take any special steps for his individual protection; and, in the next place, His Excellency takes fully into account the effect produced upon the police authorities by the fact that any special arrangements for their own protection were discouraged, and in one important particular even forbidden, by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bradford and the late equally brave and equally high-minded Mr. Burke.
§ MR. HEALYasked whether it was a fact that Captain Talbot, Chief of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, had habi- 1603 tually resided 14 or 15 miles outside Dublin; and whether he (Captain Talbot) was not informed of the murders in Phœnix Park until an aide-de-camp of the Lord Lieutenant had travelled to his residence at Shankhill with the information?
§ MR. REDMONDI may also be permitted, as this is a matter of importance to Captain Talbot, to press for an answer to the following portion of my Question:—If the Chief Secretary could inform the House whether the usual police patrols of the Viceregal Lodge were withdrawn on the morning of the lamentable occurrence in the Phœnix Park; and, if so, who was responsible?
§ MR. TREVELYANThese are Questions of which I should like to have Notice.