HC Deb 18 December 1902 vol 116 cc1630-1
MR. M'GOVERN

To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been directed to the fact that the Privy Council rejected the application of the Oldcastle Rural District Council No. 2 to give additional allotments to six labourers in occupation of cottages in that district, on the grounds that the proposed plots were on the opposite side of the road and detached from the plots attached to the labourers' cottages; and, seeing that the Local Government Board Inspector approved of these additional plots, and in view of the practice in England, will the Local Government Board take steps to get this decision set aside or to amend the Labourers' (Ireland) Acts.

(Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) There has been no such application before the Privy Council from the District Council mentioned in the Question, but the Privy Council recently decided in a case from Limerick that the additional half-acre must immediately adjoin the existing half-acre, and this decision will govern all future schemes of the kind. I am unable to speak as to the English practice, but the law on the subject is very different in the two countries.