§ MR. P. O'BRIEN (Monaghan, N.)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he is aware that Her Majesty's Inspectors of Asylums for the Poor in Ireland, in their Annual Report, dated March 9, 1886, of the Monaghan District Lunatic Asylum, state—
The ceilings in many parts of the establishment require repair, and some of the corridors on the ground would be improved if boarded, as the female patients undress in them previous to going to bed. This the resident physician will have attended to by bringing the subject before the Board at their next meeting.With reference to water closets and means of personal ablution, much improvement is requisite which, I think, will be fully carried out before the existing building contract will have terminated;whether the dividing walls between the several departments are not carried up to the roof, as is required in all public institutions in England, as a check on the spread of fire; whether diphtheria has recently broken out in the asylum; whether the resident medical officer and Visiting Committee have frequently urged the Board to carry out the Inspector's recommendations; whether it 54 is a fact that these alterations have net yet been made; and, will he take steps to compel the Board of Governors to carry out the Inspector's recommendations without further delay?
§ THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER SECRETARY (Colonel KING-HARMAN) (Kent, Isle of Thanet)(who replied) said: Arrangements are being made to have the necessary improvements carried out at the Monaghan District Lunatic Asylum. Diphtheria has not, it appears, recently broken out; and one of the Inspectors who visited the asylum towards the end of last March found the sanitary condition of the patients so satisfactory that only four out of the entire number of 485 were confined to bed.