HC Deb 13 June 1899 vol 72 cc1071-2
MR. J. P. FARRELL

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland will he explain why the Local Government Board have written to the Longford County Council that, unless they appoint one Jones to be a collector (he being an existing officer), any other person appointed by the council will have no power to collect rates, and any remuneration to him will be surcharged; whether he is aware that it is competent to the Council to retire Jones, according to the compensation scale laid down in the seventh schedule of the Act; and whether he will lay the whole correspondence upon the Table of the House.

MR. G. W. BALFOUR

The secretary to the County Council, in a letter to the Local Government Board, asked what would be the result should the Council decline to appoint Mr. W. Jones (an existing officer willing to serve), and if they were to fill the vacancy by appointing an outsider. It was in reply to this inquiry that the Board stated that— If the council appoint a person as collector contrary to the provisions of Section 115, Subsection 10 of the Local Government Act, 1898, the appointment would be invalid, and the person appointed would have no legal authority to collect the rates, and any payments made to him would be surcharged. This enactment provides that the scheme of a county council for the collection of the poor-rate shall not authorise the employment of officers not transferred to, or previously employed by, the council if sufficient existing officers have expressed their willingness to serve, and is not over-ridden by the 12th sub-section, which regulates the compensation to the existing officers who cannot be provided for in the schemes. The correspondence is not of sufficient importance to lay on the Table of the House, but I will he happy to supply the hon. Member with a copy of it, should he so desire.