§ MR. TULLYI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state in detail the several amounts deducted from the Agricultural Grant as excluded charges in the county Roscommon, under the heading of Public Health Act charges, railway charges, Suck drainage charges, relief of distress charges, malicious injury charges, and navigation charges; whether he can give the same details as regards the county Leitrim; and whether, in the ease of the county Roscommon, allowance was made for the fact that in the standard year a sum of £614 for bank interest, and of £604 for dog tax, was placed to the credit of the rates.
§ MR. G. W. BALFOURI can forward to the hon. Member, if he desires it, the amounts taken as raised for excluded charges in the Counties of Leitrim and Roscommon in the standard year, but it would be impossible without elaborate calculations to state the amount of deduction from the Agricultural Grant in respect of each of these charges. The calculations by which the amount of the Grant has been arrived at are very complicated and numerous, and I cannot undertake to go into details in each case. In calculating the amount to be deemed as having been raised as county cess during the standard year the Local Government Board made use of the audited abstracts of the county accounts, and all receipts, apart from county cess, were duly credited in determining the amount. The entry for dog tax in the accounts was £447, not £604, and allowance was made for the former amount when calculating the Grant. It does not 1078 appear from the accounts that any interest was allowed to the county by their Treasurer.