§ MR. MURPHY (Dublin, St. Patrick's)asked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether the Government would take steps to give effect to the following unanimous recommendation of the Royal Commission on Primary Education (Ireland), under the Presidency of Earl Powis, which reports in 1870—
That when these hare been in operation in any school district, or within any city or town for three years, two or more schools, of which one is under Protestant and one is under Roman Catholic management, having an average attendance of not less than twenty-five children, the National Board may, upon application from the patron or manager, adopt any such school, and award aid without requiring any regulation as to religion, other than a condition that no Catholic or Protestant, as the case may be, should be present at a school not of their own denomination during religious instruction?
§ THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH) (Strand, Westminster)The 367 Government have the subject of education in Ireland before them; but they cannot make fragmentary statements on matters of policy, or, in the present pressure of Public Business, come to hasty conclusions as to the proposals which successive Governments have left undecided for many years.