§ MR. GINNELLI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that an approved scheme for labourers' cottages with plots, promoted by the Devlin District Council, comprised three for James Ward, Michael Fagan, and Patrick Morgan, on the part of Windtown ranch nearest to Castlepollard and to these men's usual place of work; that no opposition was offered to these sites at the inquiry and that they were duly mapped; that afterwards the Local Government Board, without consulting either the district council or the labourers, cancelled the sites that had been chosen without opposition and offered sites on the other side of the ranch, where they cannot be accepted, there being no work available there for the men, the place being a mile and a half further away from their place of work and the district council being unwilling to erect cottages there; and, in view of the hardship to those men, all of whom are paying for lodgings and two of whom have families, whether he will ask the Board to reconsider the matter and have the cottages erected forthwith on the sites regularly selected.
§ MR. BIRRELLThe Devlin Rural District Council proposed to provide three cottages as stated. No opposition was offered at the local inquiry, but the inspector did not consider that the necessity for the cottages was established, and he therefore excluded them from his Order. The Local Government Board did not intervene. Certain other sites at Windtown were disallowed by the inspector, as the taking of them would have injured the farm for the purposes of sale. A tract of land in lieu of the sites so disallowed has now been offered 476 by the Estates Commissioners to the council and accepted. It will be dealt with in a further scheme. The Local Government Board have no power to reconsider the matter, or to have the cottages erected on the original sites.