MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether any steps will be taken to remove the inequality in the Intermediate Education Board in Ireland, where there are three Catholic Members, and four who are not Catholic; whether one necessary result of the existing condition of things is that if a member, not a Catholic, is absent through illness or other causes, both sides are equal, whereas if a Catholic is absent the result is four against two; whether this was not actually the case during a long time in consequence of the failing health of the late Lord O'Hagan; whether it is a fact that whereas there are a Protestant clergyman and a Presbyterian minister on the Board, there is no Roman Catholic clergymen; and, whether the great majority of the students examined, and the successful students, are Catholics from Catholic schools?
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANThe Board of Intermediate Education in Ireland is a mixed Board, consisting of three Roman Catholics, two Protestant Episcopalians, and two Presbyterians. The majority of the students examined, and of the successful students, are, I understand, Roman Catholics. Assum- 866 ing, for the moment, what I regard as most unlikely—namely, that this Board, which deals with no religious questions, always divides as Catholics and non-Catholics, no doubt the results would be, as stated in the Question, if a member of one side or the other were absent, and all the other members were present; and theoretical contingencies of the kind may be almost indefinitely multiplied; but the defect—if it is one—is not peculiar to the Intermediate Board. The true test is the practical result; and the Government have no reason to suppose that the existing arrangement does not work well, or that the public are dissatisfied with it. It is true that hitherto there has been no Roman Catholic clergyman on the Board; but this will no longer be the case, as His Excellency has just appointed the Rev. John Egan, D.D., a Fellow of the Royal University, and at one time Principal of the Ennis Diocesan Training College, to the seat rendered vacant by the death of Lord O'Hagan.