§ DR. TANNER (Cork Co., Mid)I wish to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether any inquiry is being made into the assault upon a poor woman and her husband, named Sullivan, who were waylaid and dreadfully beaten near, Millstreet, County Cork, on Tuesday night last the 3rd instant, on their way home, and, after being attacked and wounded, struggled into the house of a postboy named Back-ley, who, in consequence, was stoned by the gang; whether he is aware that the Sullivans were medically treated in the Millstreet Union Hospital by Dr. Leader, who refused to give a certificate to the effect that Sullivan's life was out of danger; whether many similar assaults have taken place near Millstreet during the past year; whether the police have arrested and brought to justice any of the gang notoriously implicated in this and other similar recent outrages; and whether steps will be immediately taken to ascertain who are the employers of the gang? I also wish to ask whether this is a gang of emergency men in the employment of a local Magistrate?
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURThe Constabulary Authorities report that Sullivan and his wife were assaulted on the night of the 2nd inst. Buckley also states that a stone was thrown at him on the occasion. The doctor did not refuse to give the certificate referred to in the question. Four persons were arrested by the police in connection with the assault. The assault appears to have arisen from a feud between the party of Sullivan and that of a man named Moynihan. Both these men had taken an active part in moonlighting. On the release of the latter from prison after completion of a sentence of penal servitude a large sum of money was collected for him. He believes Sullivan, in conjunction with another man, to have misappropriated the greater part of this money, hence the strained relations between the two. So far as the police are aware, on two previous occasions assaults were committed between these two parties—on October 1, 1889, when both sides were summoned to Petty Sessions and punishment inflicted by the Magistrates, and on April 14 last, when an attack was made by Sullivan's party 520 on that of Moynihan. Summonses were-also issued in this case against both sides, and punishment inflicted by the Magistrates.
§ DR. TANNERIs it not a fact that Moynihan is a friend and protegé of Mr. Jeremiah Hagarty, recently advanced to be a Justice of the Peace? How is it that Moynihan has been left alone by the police, while the other man has been prosecuted?
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURIn the answer I have just given I have stated that both of these parties were punished for the assaults they committed.
§ MR. FLYNN (Cork, N.)Is there any grounds for the belief in the locality that favouritism is shown to the emergency men guilty of misconduct on account of being connected with Mr. Hagarty?
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI should think there is no foundation for it.
§ DR. TANNERWill the right hon. Gentleman take steps to prevent any further outrages and demonstrations of this kind on the part of his political friends?