§ MR. PINKERTON (Galway)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if county surveyors in Ireland have power, under any Act of Parliament, to fine contractors (without bringing them before any Court of Justice) for non-fulfilment of contract; if he is aware that, in the county of Londonderry, owing to the fines levied by the county surveyor, many contractors, or their sureties, have forfeited the full amounts of their bonds rather than submit to those exactions, and if the county surveyor has since altered the form of bond, and requires security to be given for double the amount of the contract; and if he can state the amount of fines levied, during the past three years, from contractors by the county surveyor of Londonderry without the defaulters being brought before any independent tribunal, or having any right of appeal?
§ THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,) Manchester, E.The reply to the inquiry in the first paragraph is, I am advised, in the negative. I have no official information with regard to the matters referred to in the remaining portion of the question, as they are not under the control of the Executive Government. But from a Report received from the county surveyor of Londonderry it appears that in no instance has he inflicted a fine, the practice being, in cases where contractors do not entirely fulfil their 351 contract, for the Grand Jury to deduct from the total amount of the contract the amount of the deficiency as calculated by the county surveyor. No contractor has, to the knowledge of the county surveyor, ever voluntarily forfeited the full amount of his bond in the manner suggested in the question. But in some cases contractors have been decreed in those amounts either in the Court of Quarter Sessions or a Superior Court. He states that no alteration has been made in the form of bond; but that the form of tender heretofore in use has been altered, under the advice of counsel, to amend a defect in the old form of which contractors had taken advantage to evade carrying out the terms of their contract. He reports that the amounts deducted for deficiencies in respect of all contracts during the years mentioned were as follows: Year ending Spring Assizes, 1888, £2,368; year ending Spring Assizes, 1889, £3,505; year ending Spring Assizes, 1890, £3,046.