§ MR. D. MACALEESE (Monaghan, N.)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland—(1) if he is aware that the sanitary officer to the Castleblayney Union reported some months ago as to the insanitary condition of the houses of certain labourers in the Carrickalee division of that Union; (2) whether Mr. Agnew, Local Government Board Inspector, held an investigation and reported in favour of a scheme of cottages to replace those insanitary hovels; (3) did the Local Government Board of Ireland approve of and adopt Mr. Agnew's Report, and have any cottages been yet erected; and (4) will he have any objection to place Mr. Agnew's Report in this matter upon the Table of the House?
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURThe reply to the first and second paragraphs is in the affirmative. As regards the third paragraph, the Local Government Board recommended the Guardians to make a scheme in accordance with the Inspector's Report, namely, for the erection of twenty-one cottages in five electoral divisions, nine of these cottages to be in the electoral division mentioned in the question; no cottages have yet been built. Various preliminaries laid down by the Acts must first be gone through, and the Guardians some time since informed the Board that delay in this respect had been caused by the illness of some of the members of the Local Committees appointed to select sites for the cottages. The Board are at present in communication with the Guardians on the subject. In reply to the fourth paragraph, it would be contrary to the invariable practice to lay the Inspector's Report on the Table of the House.