§ MR. D. SULLIVAN (Westmeath, S.)(for Mr. LEAHY) (Kildare, S.) asked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether Thomas Sweeney, the National School teacher, of Ballyroe Leinster Lodge, County Kildare, whose health has broken down with chronic bronchitis and asthma, has been ordered by the doctors to go to a warm climate, and to enable him to do so he has applied to the Commissioners of Education for a retiring gratuity instead of a pension, which application has been backed by the Reverend James Doyle, P.P., who knows the peculiar state of the case; whether, he being over 55 years of age, a Treasury Rule operates against this course; and, if he will take into consideration the necessity of relaxing this Rule, so as to grant him a sum sufficient to enable him to follow the doctor's advice, and the only way they think of saving his life?
§ THE SECRETARY (Mr. JACKSON) (Leeds, N.)I am sorry that nothing can be done by the Treasury to meet this distressing case; but the Teachers Pension Act of 1879 does not allow the grant of gratuities to male teachers retiring at 55 years of age and upwards; and the Treasury has no power to 523 alter the Rules laid down by that Act in favour of a particular teacher.