§ MR. BIGGARasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether, in the appointment of centre superintendents to conduct the examinations for the Board of Intermediate Education in Ireland, preference is given to gentlemen from Trinity College and others wholly unconnected with intermediate education, nominated by individual members of the Board, or pressed on their notice by external influence, to the exclusion of the assistants in the intermediate schools and colleges of Ireland; whether a clerk in the Registry of Deeds Office, in Dublin, was appointed in 1882; in consequence of the numerous applications, have the Board reduced the remuneration of superintendents from twenty to fifteen pounds, and have they given notice of their intention to reduce it still further; and, in extension of this principle of economy, has the reduction of the salaries of the two assistant commissioners from a thousand pounds per annum to any less amount been recommended?
§ MR. TREVELYANThe Assistant Commissioners inform me that, in selecting the centre superintendents of examinations, preference is not given to gentle- 1838 men from Trinity College and others wholly unconnected with intermediate education; but that the Board appoint only those persons whom they consider best qualified, and, if possible, those who have had experience in such work. A gentleman who was temporarily employed in the Registry of Deeds Office was one of the persons appointed in the year before last. The Board have reduced the remuneration for this class of service, in conformity with the recommendations of a Committee which recently inquired into the administrative arrangements of the Department. A reduction of the amount of remuneration given to persons temporarily employed for a purely occasional duty would afford no reason for reducing the salaries granted to permanent officials at the time of their appointment.