§ MR. BODKIN (Roscommon, N.)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that, as is reported in the local newspapers of the 23rd of February, the Local Government Board rejected a site for a labourer's cottage in Tullamore Union, chosen on a grazier's land, named M'Phelan, solely on the grounds that M'Phelan's farm was a grass farm, and that the supply of water was inconvenient, and the site at too great a distance from the road; under what section of any of the Labourers' Dwellings Acts do the Local Government Board hold that sites should not be chosen on grazing farms; with regard to the convenient water supply, what is the maximum distance allowed by the Local Government Board; with regard to the accommodation of a "public road," do they insist on a county road, or is any road open to the public sufficient; and did the landlord as 768 well as the tenant in the above case object?
MR. J. MORLEYThe Local Government Board inform me that the application referred to was opposed at the inquiry by both landlord and tenant on the ground that the person for whom the cottage was intended was not an agricultural labourer; that there were already two cottages on the farm; that the farm was a grass farm, and additional labourers were not required there; and that an application for a cottage on this farm had been rejected at a previous inquiry. It does not appear that objection was raised as to the distance of the site from a water supply, or as to its not adjoining a public road. The Local Government Board do not consider that grazing farms are exempt from the provisions of the Labourers' Acts. The Board have not prescribed any distance as a maximum, nor do they insist upon the road being one under Grand Jury presentment. They consider that any road over which a public right of way exists is sufficient.