HC Deb 19 June 1882 vol 270 cc1603-5
MR. HEALY

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, By whose orders the patrols were withdrawn from Phoenix Park on May 6th, and in what way the Government have noticed the conduct of the person responsible?

MR. TREVELYAN

Sir, there were no police patrols withdrawn from the Phœnix Park on the 6th of May. I have answered the general purport of this Question before, and I am sorry to have to revert to it again.

MR. HEALY

said, he had listened with the greatest care to all the right hon. Gentleman's replies on this subject. His Question, to which he had not yet received a distinct answer, was, Whether there were ever, at any time, police patrols placed in Phoenix Park before the assassinations; whether those police patrols were withdrawn; and, if so, by whose authority they were withdrawn?

MR. TREVELYAN

This is a matter in which the feelings of others are involved. I thought I had answered it fully before. Practically, the protection was withdrawn at the time my right hon. Friend the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) left Ireland. The effective protection was withdrawn then. I am sorry to have to repeat that which, I think, I indicated in a longer answer.

MR. O'KELLY

The right hon. Gentleman has not answered the question—Who was responsible?

MR. DILLON

said, the subject was one which excited a good deal of interest in Dublin. It was not a question of general effective protection. But it was generally stated in Dublin that on the morning of that deplorable occurrence the police were removed from the Phoenix Park—that the Park was absolutely stripped of police to an extent previously unknown. What they wanted to know was, who ordered the police on that fatal morning to leave the Park?

MR. TREVELYAN

I have made a careful inquiry into that point, and such was not the case. The police who were withdrawn were the police for the protection of the late Chief Secretary, while my right hon. Friend (Mr. W. E. Forster) was in Dublin; and, as I explained to the House, my late lamented Predecessor had not sufficient protection taken for his safety. I gave two reasons, which weighed with the Lord Lieutenant in his consideration of this subject.

MR. PARNELL

May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, whether the late Mr. Burke, late Under Secretary, was also under special protection, and whether his special protection was also withdrawn; and, if so, by whose orders was the special protection withdrawn which had been given to the right hon. Member for Bradford?

MR. TREVELYAN

The late lamented Mr. Burke was under special protection, or what he considered sufficient special protection, at the time of his death. I do not know what word to use; but he had escaped the protection of the police, who walked behind him, by his taking a car. The policeman who ought to have met him was diverted from his duty by a drunken person who came across his path. That drunken person has been traced, and it has been ascertained that he could not have been connected with the persons associated with the murder. Mr. Burke would have had a policeman walking behind him if he had not taken a car at the point he did. When at the Gough Memorial he got off, and joined Lord Frederick Cavendish.