§ MR. HOOPER (Cork, S.E.)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, How many counties in Ireland are charged for the expenses of extra police; whether in the last fiscal year this extra cost charged to the County of Cork was £7,000; whether he can state how many policemen so charged for to the counties as extra men have up to the present been brought to London as witnesses for The Times; and, whether, at the termination of the Special Commission, he will take steps to have the counties relieved of the cost of the extra men so brought to London for the time they were absent from service in their respective counties?
THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN)(who replied) said (Dublin University)The Constabulary Authorities report that the number of counties, in addition to the boroughs of Belfast and Londonderry, chargeable with an extra force of police, is 19. The charge for extra police in the County of Cork (both Ridings combined) was, in the year ended the 31st of March, 1888, £7,733 14s. 2d. As regards the inquiry in the third paragraph, it is not practicable to distinguish between the free quota and extra force of a county whose establishment consists of forces of both classes; nor can the steps suggested in the latter part of the Question be followed, inasmuch as the absence of men from their county under subpoena in order to give evidence in a Court of Justice is, in the nature of the case, a contingency to which every Police Force is liable, and does not create a vacancy in the county concerned.
§ THE LORD MAYOR OF DUBLIN (Mr. SEXTON) (Belfast, W.)asked, was a county to pay extra for the policemen who were attending an inquiry over in London for weeks together on the 232 ground that they were extra men employed in Ireland?
§ MR. MADDENrepeated that the two forces were not to be kept distinct as regarded payment, and that attendance in Court on subpoena was simply an ordinary contingency.