§ MR. O'DOWDI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to a resolution unanimously adopted by the Tobercurry (County Sligo) Board of Guardians at their 362 meeting on 25th instant, wherein it is stated that the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction in Ireland refuse to give any portion of their grant to that union; whether he can explain why the Agricultural Department arrived at this decision, seeing that a portion of Tobercurry Union is scheduled under the Congested Districts Board and that the ratepayers contribute towards technical and agricultural education in the county Sligo; and whether, under these circumstances, he will see that Tobercurry Union gets its share of this grant.
§ MR. WYNDHAMThe Department has received this resolution. Owing to the desirability of not requiring certain county councils to raise rates for the purposes of the Act of 1899, it was suggested that the county councils might omit from the live stock schemes for 1901 rural districts wholly or largely congested. The Tobercurry district belongs to this latter category, and the Live Stock Committee of the Sligo County Council accordingly decided to omit it from the live stock schemes for this year. The non-congested portions of rural districts thus omitted, however, will not be precluded from obtaining the benefits of the Act in respect of other schemes, as the Department will take into consideration the special circumstances under which the local contribution of such districts has been affected by the foregoing arrangement.