§ MR. THOMAS O'DONNELLI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that salary has been withheld from the third assistant in the Killorglin male national school, county Kerry, because the attendance for the year ended 31st December, 1900, fell below the required average, which had been occasioned by an epidemic of whooping cough and influenza in the first quarter of that year; that this one quarter has been the cause of the low average for the calendar year; that this school maintained an average for three assistants during the past seventeen years; that the average for each of three quarters of the year 1900 was above the required standard, 1182 and that the average is at present above the required standard; and, seeing that the assistant is about to leave in consequence of salary being withheld, which may tend to lower the average in this school and lessen its educational value, to require two assistants to teach a school where the present average warrants three, and that several managers of schools are in correspondence with the Board regarding similar cases, whether the Commissioners can devise a rule to meet exceptional declines of this sort, and so prevent a permanent injury to the education of districts so circumstanced.
§ MR. ATKINSONI am informed by the Commissioners that full allowance in accordance with the rules was made for the prevalence of an epidemic in the neighbourhood of the Killorglin male national school, and that salary was paid to the third assistant for four successive yearly periods, in each of which the average attendance was below the required minimum. It is not the view of the Commissioners that the present rules fail to provide for an exceptional decline in the attendance.
§ MR. THOMAS O'DONNELLIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that the average attendance for the whole year was over the standard?
§ MR. ATKINSONI have no further information.