§ MR. W. J. CORBET(for Sir THOMAS ESMONDE) (Dublin Co., S.)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, How many clerks are employed in Dublin in the office of the Collector General of Rates; if the head clerk received last year, in addition to his salary of £400, £100 as acting collector general, and over £200 for extra work done; if the other clerks were paid for extra work in the same proportion; what was the nature of the extra work, and whether it could not have been easily performed in the ordinary office hours; what is the amount paid to the clerks in the Collector General of Rates Office, in salaries, allowances, and extras respectively, in 1885 and 1886; and, if there is any work being performed in the office now?
§ THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER SECRETARY (Colonel KING-HARMAN) (Kent, Isle of Thanet)(who replied) said: The staff of clerks in the Collector General of Rates Office is a chief clerk and nine other clerks. The chief clerk received in 1886, in addition to his salary a sum of £100, which was awarded to him by the late Government for the extra trouble and responsibility thrown upon him during the serious illness of the Collector General. He also received a sum of £77, not over £200 as alleged, for extra work outside office hours. The other clerks who took extra work, received also sums in proportion to their salaries. The extra work done is the preparation of the rate books, ledgers, and collecting book for the new year, the making out of lists of arrears, vacancies, and insolvencies. The Collector General reports that those are duties which must be performed in a limited time, when the office work is most pressing; and that they could not be performed during office hours, if for no other reason than that the books are in full use throughout those hours. The work was never done in any other way. The payments referred to have been as follows:—In 1885, salaries £2,819, scrivenry £302; in 1886, salaries £2,861, scrivenry £320. There is no extra work being performed in the office now; but a temporary extra clerk has been employed for two months at 1881 £2 a-week in preparation for the annual audit.