§ MR. M'FADDENI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant 1187 of Ireland whether his attention has been drawn to a resolution of the Roman Catholic archbishops and bishops of Ireland, passed at a recent meeting held at Maynooth, to the effect that the claim of the training colleges at Belfast, Limerick, and Waterford, under the national system of education to free homes, as granted to the Dublin colleges, which do similar work subject to precisely the same conditions, is just and reasonable, and, in the interests of primary education throughout the country almost necessary, inasmuch as the payment of the annuity on their building loan is such a tax on their income as to make it almost impossible for them to bring the training of their students up to a proper standard of excellence or meet the requirements of modern education; and whether he will take steps to put the training colleges at Belfast, Limerick, and Waterford on the same footing as the Dublin colleges.
§ MR. ATKINSONThe resolution referred to does not appear to have beer received. There is no power under the existing rules to make free building grants in the cases of the training colleges at Belfast, Limerick, and Waterford The case of the colleges in Dublin was exceptional, and the object of the decision arrived at by the Government in 1890 to provide the cost of these buildings was to place the Dublin colleges on an equality with the undenominational college there. The Government can hold out no hope in the direction suggested in the second paragraph.
§ MR. T. W. RUSSELLwas understood to ask if the Government proposed to take any steps with regard to recent representations as to the dangerous condition of the residences in some of these training colleges.
§ MR. ATKINSONI am not in a position to reply to a supplementary question.