§ MR. GRAYasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether any copy of the Report of the Commissioners on the Collection of Rates in Dublin has been furnished to any non-official person having no connection with the Commission, or will be furnished prior to the issue of the Report to Members of the House generally; whether, pending the publication of the Report, any promise of an appointment to the Collector Generalship, in the event of a vacancy in consequence of the Report, has been or will be made; whether, in any such appointment, the views of the representatives of the ratepayers will be consulted?
§ MR. J. LOWTHERThere is at the present time, as the hon. Gentleman is no doubt aware, considerable disorganization existing among the printing establishments in Dublin, in consequence of which it has been, unfortunately, impossible to obtain copies of the Minutes of Evidence given before the Commission on the Collection of Rates in Dublin, or a sufficient number of copies of the Report to enable them to be as yet laid 1258 upon the Table of the House. The hon. Gentleman asks me whether any copy of the Report has been furnished to any non-official person not connected with the Commission? I am not aware that any copy has been so furnished. But, ascertaining that one of the Members for the City of Dublin was himself a Commissioner, and consequently acquainted with the contents of the Report, I felt it only right to take the earliest opportunity of allowing his Colleague in the representation of that City to peruse the only copy which I had in my possession, and which I retain in my own hands. The hon. Member further inquires whether any promise of an appointment to the Collectorship has been or will be made pending the publication of the Report. I have certainly never heard of any promise of an appointment having been made, especially as no vacancy has yet occurred; and I need hardly say that no such promise will be made until a vacancy does occur. He also asks me whether, in any such appointment, the views of the representatives of the ratepayers interested will be consulted? I may remind the House that the appointment is vested in the Lord Lieutenant, who intends to exercise the duty of filling up the appointment on his own responsibility. He will, of course, be glad to receive representations from ratepayers in their individual or collective capacities, and to give due weight to such representations. The responsibility, however, of the appointment rests with the Lord Lieutenant, and he does not intend to ask them to share it with him.