§ MR. SEXTON (for Mr. DAWSON)asked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether, taking into consideration the great dissatisfaction which exists in Dublin as to the proposed site of, and plans for, the new Science and Art Museum and National Library, and, having in view that the opportunity afforded by the late Government
To constitute a separate department of Science and Art for Ireland analogous in its constitution to the existing Science and Art Department in London for the United Kingdom,was rejected by the Commission which sat in Dublin in 1868 without any consultation with the Parliamentary or Municipal Representatives of the capital, the present Government, in accordance with the policy of local self-government for Ireland, would issue a fresh Commission, which would include persons acquainted with Irish feeling with regard to the undertaking?
MR. COUETNEYThe present scheme of the Government has nearly reached a conclusion; and it was, in its essential features, published in 1880, and preferred by local public opinion to that which was, for Departmental reasons, the better one. On all grounds, the Government are not prepared to defer any longer a decision on the building question.