§ MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY (Limerick, W.)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that poor rate collectors in the county of Limerick are required by the Local Government Board to execute a new bond with the county council, one of the clauses of which obliges the collectors at the end of each year to assume as a private debt any uncollected item of rates; can he state what is the necessity for the same in view of the fact that since the passing of the Local Government Act they executed a bond giving the necessary security; and will he direct the Local Government Board not to require the collectors to enter into this second bond.
§ MR. WYNDHAMThe question is based on a misapprehension. Under the County Poor Rate Collectors No. 2 Order a collector may be required by his council to enter into a bond to lodge, by a given date, the entire amount included in his warrant, whether collected or not. The form of the bond is not prescribed, but is submitted to the Local Government Board for approval as each case arises. Where a collector lodges the full 935 amount of his warrant, and has not collected certain items of rate, he can only recover these items as private debts, and consequently cannot distrain for them under his warrant. The Order was framed at the request of certain county councils, and has been very generally adopted by the councils in preference to the No. 1 Order, under which a collector only lodges rates actually collected by him.