§ MR. SEXTON (Kerry, N.)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Irish Local Government Board have considered the Resolution adopted on the 4th instant by the District Board of Guardians, protesting against the Order of the Local 922 Government Board impounding rates of the Union to the amount of £600, being the balance of a loan to the Guardians of the Glin Union, under "The Seed Supply Act, 1890," for the benefit of certain electoral divisions of that Union, since amalgamated with the Union of Listowel; whether it is correctly stated by the Listowel Guardians that the rate for repayment of the advance could not legally be levied with the Poor Rates for 1891 in the Glin Union, as those rates were struck before the 1st of August; whether the rate for repayment of the loan has, in fact, been levied according to law with the Poor Rates of the Listowel Union struck last August, making the balance of the first instalment legally repayable to the Local Government Board next August; and whether, if the circumstances be as stated, the Order impounding the rates will be revoked?
MR. J. MORLEYThe loan obtained by the Guardians of the late Glin Union, under the Seeds Act of 1890, amounted to £1,170, payable in two instalments, the first falling due on August 1, 1892, and the second on August 1, 1893. The 6th section of the Act provides that the amount duo by the purchasers of seed shall be payable in two equal instalments, to be assessed along with the ordinary Poor Rate. At the first-named date no Poor Rate was made in the late Glin Union, and the first rate made after the amalgamation of that Union with the Listowel Union was in 1892, when the first assessment was made on the purchasers in the Glin Division of the Union. When the first instalment became payable by the Guardians the Irish Government, in view of the above fact, and on the recommendation of the Local Government Board, and with the consent of the Treasury, postponed the date for the payment until the 31st of last December, and the Guardians were thus afforded an opportunity of collecting the rate between August and December. The debt was not paid at the latter date, and on the 11th April the Commissioners of Public Works certified to the Local Government Board that a sum of £587 13s. 9d. remained due, and the Local Government Board issued an Order assessing the amount on the division concerned, as the money had to be paid to the Board of Works. Under all the 923 circumstances, I am inclined to think that a considerable indulgence was shown by the Local Government Board in postponing the issue of the impounding Order to so late a date.