§ MR. BLAKEsaid, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether that portion of the Act 5th Geo. IV. c. 64 s. 9, which empowers the Lord Lieutenant— 915
To apply a sum not exceeding five hundred pounds in any one year in providing materials for the repairs of boats of poor fishermen at such ports and places where quays and piers are or shall be built.Under the provisions of the said Act, is not still in force, and whether he can state when the last grant was made under the Act. It was his (Mr. Blake's) belief that the sum of five hundred pounds per annum was still legally available for the purpose for which it was originally intended, and complained that it was not so applied. He also urged the necessity of placing the Fishery Department in Dublin in a more efficient state.
MR. PEELsaid, his own opinion, after taking some pains to examine into the question, was that there was no power in the Act to which the hon. Member had referred, or in any other Act, to authorize the payment of a sum of £500 per annum towards the assistance of poor fishermen in Ireland. An Act was passed in the year 1819 which gave the Lord Lieutenant the power of issuing to the Commissioners of Fisheries in Ireland an annual sum of £5,000 for the construction of fishing piers and harbours; but that Act was only to be in force for five years from the end of the next Session of Parliament, and it accordingly expired in the year 1825. It was then renewed until the year 1830; when, under a new arrangement, a body was created, called the "Directors of Inland Navigation." The Lord Lieutenant by the Act of 1830 was authorized to issue to the Directors of Inland Navigation for the completion of piers which had already been commenced a sum of £13,000, which was to be expended in a period extending over five years; and since the expiration of those five years the Lord Lieutenant had no money at his disposal which he could devote to that object.