COLONEL NOLANI beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland if, when property in Ireland is sold to tenants 706 under the Purchase Acts, the Crown institutes inquiries to find if it can revive old claims for quit rents, tithes, or rent charges against such properties; if the sums so recovered are small and productive of expense and delay; and if he could, by expediting or dispensing with such inquiries, facilitate purchases and tempt more landowners to sell.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON,) Londonderry, N.As the sale to tenants frees the land sold from liability to quit rent, it is necessary that inquiries should be made and claims put forward for the redemption of the quit rent out of the purchase money. The certificates for the amount of the redemption money are generally lodged in ample time. In a small number of cases old claims for small sums have been made, but in very few of these has complaint of delay been received. All departments are only too anxious to facilitate the purchase by tenants of their holdings now proceeding at a very rapid rate, and if my attention be drawn to any specific instance of delay I shall have the matter inquired into.