§ MR. J. F. X. O'BRIEN (Cork)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, having regard to the fact that, as deposed to by Dr. Moriarty and also by Governor Andrews at the recent inquest on Andrew Cull, at! Cork Prison, the doctor of a prison has the right to report to the Prisons Board that any prisoner suffering from ill-health should be discharged where the doctor believed further imprisonment would endanger the prisoner's life; whether, as also deposed to by the doctor, there were occasions when his recommendations for the discharge of prisoners because of ill-health were ignored by the Dublin Castle authorities; and will he cause inquiries to be made in this matter.
§ MR. G. W. BALFOURIt is the duty of the medical officer of a prison, when he considers a prisoner's life to be in danger by further confinement, to at once report his opinion to the Prisons Board. The medical officer of Cork Prison states he 798 has recommended the discharge of one or two prisoners, although the Lord Lieutenant did not consider there were sufficient grounds for acting upon the recommendation. As I have already stated, the exercise of the power to discharge a prisoner is vested in the Lord Lieutenant alone, and the question whether a recommendation of the medical officer in this respect should be acted upon is one entirely for his Excellency's decision. I see no reasons for directing any further inquiry in the matter.