§ MR. KNOX (Cavan, W.)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that Bernard Reilly and other tenants holding lands at Lagan, on the Rag River, near Belturbet, agreed to purchase their lands under the Land Purchase Acts some years ago; what was the date of the agreement, who was the landlord, and who was his agent, and whether the agent was or had been a member of the Lough Erne Drainage Board; and whether the tenants or the Land Commission were made aware before the advance was sanctioned that a large charge will shortly fall on the owners of the land, under the Lough Erne Drainage Scheme, though the lands are not alleged by the Board of Works to have gained any present benefit by that scheme, and though the charge would, if the sale had not been carried out, have fallen on the landlord and not on the tenant?
§ SIR J. T. HIBBERTThe Land Commissioners state that six tenants on the townland of Lagan in the County of Cavan agreed in October, 1886, to purchase their holdings from the late Mr. John E. Vernon and Mr. Fane Vernon, who had no land agent. The existence of the Lough Erne Drainage Scheme was matter of common knowledge, and it was no part of the duty of the Board of Works to warn intending tenant-purchasers of their possible future liability, as the sale was not a matter of which they could be supposed to have cognizance.
§ SIR J. T. HIBBERTI can only say that the whole subject was inquired into 1385 by valuers sent down to the place by the Commissioners to hold an inquiry.