MR. FIELD (Dublin, St. Patrick)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the attention of the Local Government Board has been drawn to the fact that the wife of Dr. Hartigan, the medical officer to the Croom Union Dispensary, is a member of the Croom District Council and Board of Guardians, and whether that fact disqualifies her as a district councillor according to the disqualifying provisions of the Local Government Application of Enactments Order, 1898.
§ MR. G. W. BALFOURA person named Mrs. Hartigan appears on the
✶ See The Parliamentary Debates [Fourth Series], Vol. lxxxi., page 327.942 list of members of the Croom Rural District Council, but I am unable to say whether she is the wife of the medical officer of the dispensary district. The question as to alleged disqualification of Mrs. Hartigan is a matter of law, depending on the construction of the Local Government Act, which any of the parties interested can have determined for themselves in a proper manner, namely, in a court of law. Any legal opinion I might give Mould not be binding on any person.