§ MR. JAMES DALY (Monaghan, S.)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether he is aware that an Order has been issued by the Local Government Board directing that only paid nurses shall take charge of the sick poor in Irish workhouses in future, which will entail heavy expense on the ratepayers; whether Boards of Guardians in Ireland were consulted before the Order was issued; and whether, seeing that nurses in Scotch workhouses have the half of their salaries paid out of the Imperial Exchequer, he will advise the Government to act similarly towards nurses in Irish workhouses?
§ THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELANDThe substitution of paid trained nurses for pauper assistants, while perhaps entailing some additional expense, will undoubtedly result in increased efficiency in the management of the Union hospitals, and in the treatment of the patients therein. For many years the Local Government Board have continually impressed upon Boards of Guardians the necessity of providing trained or experienced nurses in workhouse infirmaries and fever hospitals, and it was in consequence of the unwillingness of some Boards of Guardians to carry out the recommendations of the Local Government Board to appoint qualified persons as nurses that the Order in question, which is practically to the same effect 888 as the English Order, has been issued. Boards of Guardians were not consulted as to the issue of the Order.