§ MR. SEXTONasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether, in September last, Mr. Doyle, principal teacher of the Ballymote (county Sligo) National School, having been selected, with the approval of the Commissioners of National Education, to attend a course of lectures at South Kensington, the manager of the school, the Very Rev. Canon M'Dermot, applied to the Commissioners for leave to appoint a substitute during the absence of. Mr. Doyle; but they refused, and suggested that Mr. Doyle should resign, and a new principal be appointed by 1142 the manager; whether, accordingly, Mr. Doyle resigned, and the manager appointed Mr. Cunningham principal on the 2Cth October; whether, after a period of less than three months, namely, on the 9th January last, Mr. Cunningham resigned, and the Commissioners paid him his salary for the time he had served as principal; whether, thereupon, the manager, having no option but to close the school till Mr. Doyle's return from London or appoint a new principal ad interim, appointed Mr. Bernard Cogan, monitor of the school, to be principal during the interval; whether, on the return of Mr. Doyle to the school on the 16th February, Mr. Cogan vacated the principalship, Mr. Doyle was re-appointed to that post, and Mr. Cogan was appointed assistant teacher; whether, about two months after the return of Mr. Doyle, and subsequent to their allowance of Mr. Cunningham as principal from 26th October to 9th January, the Commissioners refused to recognize Mr. Cogan as principal from the 9th January to the 16th February, not upon any question of character or general qualification (as specified in Rule 110), but upon the plea that Mr. Cogan having been in January a paid monitor, serving for a fixed course, his appointment as principal was a breach of service, and salary would not be allowed; how the Commissioners reconcile this view with their allowance of the appointment of Mr. Cogan to be assistant teacher on the Kith February, his "fixed course" still being unexpired; whether the Commissioners insist that Mr. Cogan was locum tenens, though there was no other principal while he held the post, and whether they endeavour so to apply the three months' notice Rule (111) as to prevent a manager from appointing a teacher for a less time than three months, even with the assent of the teacher, and to meet an educational emergency, and after the Commissioners had themselves recognized and paid salary, in the case of the same school, to a principal whose term had not reached throe months; whether one effect of the course adopted by the Commissioners will be to nullify the annual results examination in this school, and cut away a main part of the income of the teachers, by excluding from the account of the attendances of 1143 pupils during the year all the attendances made during the period of five weeks in which Mr. Cogan was principal; and, whether the case will he reviewed as to its effect on the next annual results examination in the school, and in its bearing upon the right of managers to appoint a teacher, with his assent, for a limited period, in circumstances of urgency?
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANThe facts as regards Mr. Doyle are substantially as stated. The cases of the other two teachers, Messrs. Cunningham and Cogan, differ in this material respect—that in the one an agreement was made between the manager and the teacher, which was in accordance with the Commissioners' Rules, and which there is legal power to enforce if it has been broken; while in the other the agreement entered into, or appointment made, was totally at variance with those Rules. The points have been very clearly explained by the Commissioners to the manager of the school, and I see no cause for any review of the case.