§ MR. COGANsaid, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether his attention has been called to a Return presented to the House on the 3rd of May from the Poor Law Commissioners' Office in Dublin, from which it appears there are seventy-eight unions in Ireland in which a third meal is not jot allowed to the several classes of healthy inmates of the workhouse, and that there are fifty-five unions in which the workhouse inmates or certain classes of them are not provided with shoes and stockings, notwithstanding the strong remonstrances of the Poor Law Commissioners against the continuance of these practices as being calculated to be injurious to the health of the inmates; and, whether the Poor Law Commissioners intend to take any and what steps to secure a general uniform observance in the workhouses of their recommendations on the subject?
THE EARL OF MAYOsaid, in reply, that he really had little to add to the remarks he made a short time since in reply to the hon. Member for Waterford upon this subject. He stated on that occasion that the Poor Law Commissioners had made, and were making, great exertions to press upon the Boards of Guardians their opinions of the question of diet, and he believed with considerable success. When 1483 the right hon. Member (Mr. Cogan) complained that seventy-eight unions continued to give only two meals a day, he must remind him that a short time ago that was the general rule, except as regarded children and infirm persons. Considerable difference of opinion continued to exist with reference to the dietary in Irish workhouses, and he could only say that the Poor Law Commission would continue to use every exertion in their power to induce Boards of Guardians to adopt their views.