§ MR. BIGGAR (Cavan, W.)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether the gentleman appointed this year by the Commissioners of Intermediate Education to select Examination Halls for the Belfast centres, and to receive and distribute the signature rolls and boxes containing the examination packets and stationery to the Centre Superintendents of Belfast and the North of Ireland, had thereby, unavoidably, an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the centre numbers, the names of the students attending the centres, and the schools or Colleges at which such students studied; whether the gentleman referred to acted also as General Superintendent at Belfast, visiting from time to time the different centres in that town, and also acted as one of the examiners in English of the junior and senior grade, and was able to identify a student as belonging to a particular school or College in Belfast, or the North of Ireland, by means of the centre number written on the back of each student's envelope enclosing the answer books; and, whether he will consider of devising a system by which the name of the student and the place of education will be unknown to the examiner?
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN) (Dublin University)(who replied) said: The Assistant Education Commissioners inform me that under the system of the Intermediate Education Board the students examined are known to the examiners by their examination numbers only. It is true that one of the examiners in the present year also acted as supervisor generally of the conduct of the examinations in Belfast. In the latter capacity the gentleman in question received from the office and distributed certain signature rolls which contained the numbers and names of students, but not their school or College addresses; and there is no reason to suppose that he 308 made use of his position for the purpose of identifying any of the candidates whose papers he subsequently examined.