§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILL (Donegal, S.)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury on what grounds two-thirds only of one year's salary was awarded to Mr. John Austin, warrant officer for the last eight and a half years in the office of the late Collector General of Rates, Dublin, as compensation for the loss of his office, regard being had to the circumstance that, under the provisions of the Irish Local Government Act, pensions in the proportion of two-thirds of a salary are to be awarded to every person employed in the office on the 31st March, 1898, or remaining in that employment till the abolition of the post; and on what grounds has Mr. Austin been debarred from a pension or commensurate compensation for the loss of his office, having regard to the fact that pensions on a generous scale have been awarded to the other officers in the Department of the Collector General of Rates, Dublin.
§ MR. G. W. BALFOURMr. John Curtin, not Austin, as erroneously stated in the question, was one of four police pensioners who were employed in the Department of the Collector General of Rates, and who were not entitled to any further pension on retirement from that Department, being, as already stated, in receipt of police pensions. The cases of these men were dealt with by the grant to them of a gratuity equivalent to two-thirds of one year's salary.