MR. O'BRIENasked the Secretary to the Treasury, How many of the Civil Service Examiners in each of the following departments are selected from Ireland and the professional staff of Irish schools or colleges, viz. English Language and Literature, Scripture, Greek and Latin Languages, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Hindustani, Sanskrit, Mathematics, Chemistry and Experimental Physics, Botany and Zoology, Moral Science, Law and Constitutional History, and Bookkeeping?
§ MR. COURTNEYThe Civil Service Commissioners inform me that they select as Examiners the best men they can secure, irrespective of their places of birth or education. A list of the gentlemen so employed will be found at pages 12 and 13 of the last Report of the Commissioners.
MR. O'BRIENsaid, that only three or four out of 50 or 60 Examiners were Irishmen. These Examiners were Professors of English Colleges, and prepared students in the subjects in which they afterwards examined them, thereby handicapping Irish students, who got no such assistance, unfairly, especially in Political Economy and Jurisprudence, in which no special course was laid down.