HC Deb 19 August 1889 vol 339 cc1649-50
MR. CAREW (Kildare, N.)

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether it is the fact that the Relieving Officer for the Clongorey district was on 6th August served with notices that five families on the Clongorey estate, against whom decrees for possession of their holdings were obtained at the Summer Assizes, are to be evicted; whether the evictions about to be enforced owe their origin to the non-payment of arrears of rent which accrued due before the fixing of judicial rents; whether Mr. Barrington, the valuer appointed by Judge Darling, the County Court Judge of County Kildare, reported recently that, in his opinion, the rents on the estate should be reduced by 29½ per cent; whether the original demand of the tenants was 30 per cent abatement, and the abatement offered by the landlord 10 per cent whether Judge Darling, acting on this Report of his Court valuer, asked the agent in open Court at the last Quarter Sessions at Naas to consent to grant the reductions recommended and "wipe out the arrears altogether," and, on his refusing to do so, whether the Judge stayed the execution of the decrees until May 1891; and, whether having regard to these facts, he will permit the forces of the Crown to be employed in carrying out these evictions?

THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (MR. A. J. BALFOUR, Manchester, E.)

I am informed that the answers to the first five paragraphs are in the affirmative, though I presume there would have been no arrears on non-judicial rents had the tenants taken full advantage of the Act of 1881. The evictions could not take place if the executions of the decrees were stayed.

MR. MAC NEILL (Donegal, S.)

Is the right hon. Gentleman going to use the forces of the Crown in carrying out these evictions?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Of course, the support of the Crown will be given wherever it is found necessary to carry out the law.