§ MR. RICHARD POWER (Waterford)I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the memorial of the trustees of the Munster Friends' School to the Lords of Her Majesty's Treasury, dated 18th April, 1887, with reference to their loss by the operation of the Landed Estates Courts Act, has been brought under his attention; whether this loss arose from the blunder of an official, paid out of public funds, to prevent such losses; whether he is aware that a guarantee fund is provided by the Bills of the Solicitor General for Ireland relating to Irish title and assurances, to meet such cases; and, whether, considering the extreme rarity of such blunders, and in this case the deserving character of the charity injured, the Government can see its way to make compensation to the trustees of the school, and to institute a guarantee fund, as in other countries, to meet similar contingencies?
§ * THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. Smith, Strand, Westminster)I regret to say that the 1145 trustees of the Munster Friends' School have incurred a loss through the oversight in 1881 of an official of the Irish Land Court. The case has been carefully considered by the Treasury, but they are not prepared to admit the liability of the Exchequer to make good losses caused by the errors of the Courts of Law.