MR. O'CONNOR POWERasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, If he will inform the House on what principle certain lands are held to be town parks under the Land Law Act, thereby excluding the tenants of those lands from the benefits of that measure; whether it is possible, in defining a town park, to determine what is a town; whether lands adjacent to villages or small places having no town board or other local public authority, and with a population of less than 3,000 persons, ought to be included in the category of town parks; and, whether the Government intend to propose any amendment of the Land Law Act for the purpose of removing the uncertainty in which the Law in respect of this matter is involved?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)In reply to the first inquiry in this Question, four conditions must be fulfilled in order that a holding should be a town park within the 2nd sub-section of the 58th section of the Land Act of 1881. (1.) It must be of that character which is ordinarily termed a town park. (2.) It must adjoin or be near a city or town. (3.) It must bear an increased value as accommodation land above its ordinary letting value if occupied as a farm. (4.) It must be occupied by a person residing in the city or town or its suburbs for the accommodation of his residence there. In reply to the second inquiry, what constitutes a town within the Act is a circumstance to be determined by the facts of each case; and I doubt whether a hard-and-fast definition would not be open to considerable difficulty. In reply to the third inquiry, if the town is under Commissioners or other municipal body, there is no difficulty in concluding that it is a town within the Act; but calling a place a town will not make it a town, and, as a general rule, I should say that holdings adjoining or near villages or small places are not town parks within the Act. As a matter of opinion merely, I should doubt the prudence of a statutory definition that no place is a town if its population does not exceed 2,999, which is, I take it, the gist of this inquiry. As to the last inquiry, it is a matter of policy, and should be addressed to the Prime Mi- 13 nister; but, so far as I have seen, the Act is working smoothly in this respect. The small holdings adjoining the city of Limerick, some of which are within the borough boundary, were held not to be town parks, because they did not answer the whole four conditions I have mentioned; and in another place the attempt to turn a village into a town, by getting up a market or fair, so as to call the adjoining holdings town parks, and exclude them from the Act, was rejected by the Sub-Commissioners, who held that, by such contrivance, the place did not become a town, or the holdings town parks.
MR. O'CONNOR POWERsaid, he was very much obliged to the Attorney General for Ireland for the answer he had given; and he would now give Notice that, if the opportunity presented itself on Monday, he would call attention to the subject.
§ MR. HEALYasked if it was not a fact that the right hon. and learned Gentleman had been unable last year to give any Return of the exact amount of acreage in Ireland covered by town parks?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)said, such was the case. They had tried to get the Return, but found it was impracticable to do so.