MR. PATRICK O'BRIENI beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland whether he is aware that in the case of the dispensary doctor of Ballivor full fees were paid by the litigant in whose interest he attended court, and the union was charged with the payment of his substitute; and, if so, what action he proposes to take to relieve the rates of Trim Union of such payments.
§ MR. ATKINSONI have no information as to whether the doctor was paid his fees or not. I have already, in reply to a question of the hon. Member, informed him that the Local Government Board have been advised that a doctor who is compelled under subpœna to attend a court of justice is temporarily incapacitated from performing his duties within the meaning of the Relief Act, and that the Board of Guardians were bound, therefore, to make provision for the care of the sick poor during his absence by employing and paying a temporary substitute. I also stated that the doctor, if obliged to pay his substitute out of the expenses he receives as a witness, must be out of pocket by reason of his obedience to the subpœna. My answer on this latter point is not correctly reported in the Parliamentary Debates of the 1st instant.