§ DR. TANNER (Cork Co., Mid.)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether Ballincollig Barracks, County Cork, are at present incapable of accommodating the cavalry regiment usually there stationed, numbers of soldiers being obliged to get quarters in the town; and whether, under the alleged circumstances, the enlargement of the barracks in question, affording the necessary housing for soldiers, might be soon undertaken?
§ MR. W. WOODALLThere is not accommodation in Ballincollig Barracks for a whole regiment of cavalry, and a portion of it is therefore stationed at Cork. The only men quartered in Ballincollig town are 17 married men, for whom quarters are not available in the barracks. There is no present intention of enlarging the barracks; but some of the houses on the ground lately held by Mr. Magner will be used for the married soldiers' quarters.
§ DR. TANNERI beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he is aware that a number of families are now threatened with eviction from the Government farm at Ballincollig, and that the heads of these families are employées in the Ballincollig Powder Mills; and whether, his attention having been directed to the impossibility of obtaining local house accommodation for these families, a reconsideration of the question might be favourably undertaken?
§ MR. W. WOODALLI am sorry that inconvenience should be caused to the six families referred to by the resumption of this War Department land for necessary military purposes. When the land was taken over in December from the tenant under whom they were subtenants, they were reinstated as caretakers on the understanding that the houses would be required to be given up on the 25th March for military purposes.