§ MR. SEXTONasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, What is the reason of the delay which has taken place in filling up the vacancy in the medical officership of the Cashel and Grange Dispensary districts (county Tipperary), to which, notwithstanding articles 17, 18, and 20 of the general dispensary regulations (whereby it is positively ordered that each vacancy must be filled up within 18 days by the appointment of a person possessing certain defined qualifications), no duly qualified medical officer has yet, after a delay of four months, been appointed; why the Local Government Board have allowed an illegal appointment to said dispensaries, made so far back as the 14th of February, to remain as yet un-quashed, though they have no power to sanction such appointment, and though the district remains in the charge of a "locum tenens" who is, by reason of his holding two other dispensaries, placed in circumstances which the Local Government Board themselves have in the case of the Athlone Dispensary districts expressly laid down as wholly unfitting him to discharge the duties of such a post; and, whether he will direct the Local Government Board to use the powers conferred on them by section 8 of 14 and 15 Vic. c. 68?
§ MR. TREVELYANThe Local Government Board inform me that there is no order in force prescribing that such vacancies shall be filled within 18 days. They further report that in the case of the appointment which was made at Cashel on the 14th February, the usual particulars as to age and qualification were not transmitted to them until the 3rd of this month, although the honorary secretary to the Dispensary Committee was pressed to forward them without delay. On receiving the particulars the Board found that the gentleman selected had not reached the prescribed age, and they accordingly refused to sanction his appointment, and instructed the Committee to proceed to a new election. The Local Government Board have no power, under the circumstances described, to take the ap- 624 pointment into their own hands under Section 8 of 14 & 15 Vict. c. 68.