§ Mr. P. J. POWER (Waterford, E.)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland why was the notice of the inquiry which the Local Government Board of Ireland recently held, with reference to the proposed scheme for supplying water to the town of Dungarvan, only inserted in two Conservative papers, namely, the Waterford Standard and the Waterford Chronicle, which have no circulation in the neighbourhood of Dungarvan; whether the Local Government Board was aware when advertising this inquiry that not more than six copies of the papers they selected are sold per week in Dungarvan; can he explain why these advertisements were not inserted in the Waterford News and Munster Express; and will the Local Government Board in the future take care that advertisements relating to matters of local importance are inserted in the Nationalist newspapers which circulate most widely in the County of Waterford.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURThe notice referred to was inserted in the newspapers mentioned in the first paragraph for the reason that they circulate in the district concerned. The Local Government Board are not aware of the number of copies of these papers sold weekly. The insertion was withheld from the newspapers mentioned in the third paragraph because they both continue to violate the law. In the giving of Government advertisements care is taken to select those newspapers circulating most largely among the persons interested, provided that any such newspaper does not violate the law.