MR. FIELDI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland will he explain why it is that, although there are 67 apprentices and 21 unskilled workers employed upon 1577 Government work in the Queen's Printing Office, the bulk of general printing for the Board of Intermediate Education in Ireland has been given without competition to a firm who do not employ the legitimate members of the printing, trade in Dublin; is he aware that 20 boys and four men are employed upon a certain newspaper in which a great number of advertisements for Governmental Departments appear; whether legitimate bookbinders are employed by the Queen's printers in Ireland; and what steps the Government propose to take to enforce the Resolution regarding fair wages and competent workmen in these establishments?
§ SIR J. T. HIBBERTI may be allowed, perhaps, to answer this. The bulk of the general printing for the Intermediate Education Bard is, I am informed, done under a contract, given after competition in the year 1890, and since extended, with a firm other than that of the Queen's printers. I have no information as to the staff employed by either firm, or of the matters contained in the second and third paragraphs of the question. As I stated last Thursday, steps have already been taken to secure compliance with the terms of the Resolution of the House of Commons on the 13th February, 1891, and I have seen no evidence that they have been infringed.