§ MR. O'DRISCOLL (Monaghan, S.)On behalf of the hon. and learned Member for North Louth, I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if his attention has been called to the fact that early on last Tuesday Mr. Hobson, Sub-Sheriff, accompanied by Mr. Roe, solicitor, Dublin, and Dr. Newell, Baggot Street, Dublin, and an escort of police visited for the fourth time for possession the house of Mr. Noonan, who was admitted as caretaker after his eviction by Mrs. Elizabeth Gladstone in February, 1893; that they found Mrs. Noonan dangerously ill, and a certificate from Dr. Fitzgerald was handed to Mr. Hobson that Mrs. Noonan was unfit to be removed; that her husband protested against her removal, and Mr. Hobson stayed the eviction until another doctor could arrive, but Mr. Roe, although requested by the Sheriff to wait a short time, ordered his two emergency men to remove the dying woman from her bed, and they did remove her, and left her at the side of a ditch; and that scarcely was this work performed when Noonan returned and brought two other doctors, who examined the patient, and pronounced her unfit to be removed, whereupon the Sheriff ordered her to be taken back into the house again, where she has been since in a dying state; is it obligatory on the Government to grant police protection to emergency men engaged in such work, when the Sheriff is apparently not a consenting party; and, as the evicted tenant has constantly offered to leave his case to arbitration, will the Local Authorities be instructed to represent to the agent the undesirability, for the sake 676 of the peace of the district, of such proceedings?
MR. J. MORLEYThe proceedings referred to in the first paragraph of the question took place on the 15th, not the 29th, of May, and the visit of the Sub-Sheriff on the former date was his third, not fourth, visit, as suggested; but in other respects the statements are in substance correct. I understand, however, that Mrs. Noonan was not actually removed from her bed on the occasion in question; she was conveyed outside the house on a feather mattress on which she had been lying, and the day was exceptionally fine and warm. In a few minutes afterwards she was taken back to the house and the eviction was abandoned. The police have no information as to her condition since the date mentioned. The caretakers of the agent in removing Mrs. Noonan from the house acted, I am informed, under the orders of the Sub-Sheriff, and the Government had no alternative but to afford protection to the-Sub-Sheriff in proceeding on this duty.