§ MR. HEALY (for Mr. REDMOND)asked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Whether it is a fact that letters written by Mr. Abrahams on the 28th of April, the 1st of May, and the 8th of May, were detained by the authorities of Limerick Prison; whether Mr. Eagar, Governor of Limerick Prison, informed him no letter whatever written by Mr. Abrahams had been detained; and, whether prisoners are informed of the objectionable passages in letters that are detained, and are allowed to score out such passages?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)In reply to the first Question of the hon. 1791 Member, Mr. Abraham's letters of those dates were detained by the Governor of Limerick Prison. In reply to the second Question, what occurred was this. The hon. Member for New Ross (Mr. Redmond) asked me on the 19th of May whether the Governor had recently detained several letters written by Mr. Abrahams without informing him of the fact. Having received the following telegram from the Prison Board:—
Governor of Limerick Prison telegrams there is no truth in statement regarding Mr. Abraham's letters,I replied on this telegram that no letters had been detained, which appeared to me to be the gist of the question, and, therefore, governed by the telegram; but it appears that the meaning of the telegram was, that they had not been detained without informing Mr. Abrahams of the fact. The misapprehension arose from the conciseness of the telegram. To the third Question of the hon. Member the answer is, "Yes."
§ MR. HEALYinquired, further, whether a Report of the recent inquiry into Mr. Eagar's conduct would be laid on the Table of the House?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)said, he was not in a position to answer the Question; but even if the Report were submitted it would serve no practical end, as he ascertained when in Dublin that Limerick Prison was now, or would very shortly be, without any "suspects."