§ COLONEL NOLAN (for Mr. HEALY)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Is he aware of 42 the inconvenience, and even hardship, which the present system for repayment of the Board of Works' advances, made under the National School Teachers' Residence Act, entails on managers and teachers who have been induced to adopt the provisions of the Act; and, is it the case that the half-yearly repayments required are about equal to two-thirds the quarterly salary of these teachers; whether the proper authorities can arrange that the Commissioners of National Education, who now recoup at convenience one-half the amount of each instalment paid the Board of Works, may in future, on receiving the usual half-yearly certificate that the residence is in bonâ fide occupation of the teacher, and kept in due repair, transmit to the manager within the month allowed for the payment of instalment a money order payable to the Board of Works for amount of the Commissioners' contribution; or, whether the Government will provide some other means whereby the teachers may be relieved from the obligation of parting with, almost as soon as received, so large a portion of their scanty salary in every alternate quarter, in order to discharge a liability amounting to double the sum legally claimable as rent for the occupancy of dwellings under the National School Teachers' Residence Act; and, whether it could be provided for that the cost of residences under the National School Teachers' Residence Act might not so largely fall upon the present generation of teachers by an amendment of the Act extending the period of repayment from thirty-five to fifty years?
§ MR. COURTNEYreplied: This Question discloses the fact that some managers, contrary to both the letter and spirit of the Rules of the Education Commissioners, have stopped the whole of the rent-charge for the residences from the teachers' salaries. They have no right in any case to provide more than one-half the charge in this way, and they ought not to charge any part on the teachers. The Government is not responsible for such misconduct on the part of managers; but, in order to diminish their temptation to it, we will arrange that in future the half of the rent-charge which is repaid from the Education Vote should not pass through their hands at all, but, subject to the regulations being complied with, should 43 be paid over by the Education Commissioners direct to the Board of Works. Thirty-five years seems a fully sufficient period for the repayment of loans for such a purpose as a teacher's house.