§ COLONEL NOLANasked the President of the Local Government Board, If, on the 6th of February, the guardians of the Durham Union ordered the removal of James Leonard, aged 44, and his two children, aged 11 and 9, to the Tuam Union, in the county of Galway; if it appears by official documents and if it is a fact that the said James Leonard went to England at the age of twelve, and remained there over thirty years working in collieries until attacked about seven years ago by paralysis, when he 492 entered the workhouse hospital at Lanchester, where he remained until last January, when he left for Durham; and, if the conduct of the Durham Guardians was legal, and, if legal, will Her Majesty's Government introduce a Bill which will prevent the recurrence of a case in which a working man who has spent all his working days in England can be removed to Ireland, and to prevent also the forcible removal to Ireland of children of eleven years of age who have been born and reared in England?
MR. GEORGE RUSSELLSir, we have made inquiry of the Durham Guardians, and it appears that the facts are that, although James Leonard had been in England for more than 30 years, he had never resided in any one parish for three years without receiving relief, and consequently had not acquired a residential settlement. Neither had he acquired any other settlement in England. When he broke down in health he was residing in the Lanchester Union, and applied to the Guardians for relief. As he had resided in the Lanchester Union for more than one year without relief, he was irremovable from that Union, and was admitted into the workhouse, where he remained for about six years. He left the Lanchester Union in August last, and went to reside in the Durham Union; but he was there only about four weeks before he applied to the Durham Guardians for relief for himself and his children, and after they had been in the workhouse for about four months, an order for the removal to Ireland of the man and his two children was obtained. The Board see no reason to doubt that the pauper, not having acquired any settlement in England, was legally removable to Ireland, and that the warrant properly included his two children. The law contemplated that when in such a case the father is removed his children, when of such an age as those in this instance, should not be separated from the father, although they may have been born in England, but should be removed with him. It may be observed that if the man had been born in Cornwall, and had no other settlement but a birth settlement, he would, under such circumstances, have been removable to the place whore he was born, however long he might have been residing in the Durham colliery district. As regards 493 legislation, the Government introduced a Bill in 1882 which contained a clause under which a residential settlement might be acquired by one year's residence in a Union, instead of by three years' residence in one parish; and if this Bill had passed James Leonard would have acquired a settlement in the Lanchester Union. There is now before the House a Bill which contains a similar clause.