§ MR. MCFADDENTo ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he will direct the Board of Works in Ireland to supply the hon. Member for East Donegal, as the arbitrator appointed by the Donegal County Council, to sign the accounts of the amounts payable by the County Council in respect of the Letterkenny Railway guarantee, with a copy of the working agreement between the Board of Works and the Lough Swilly Railway Company as to the working of the Letterkenny Railway, in order that he may see that the terms of the agreement are carried out by the company, or what remedy the County Council and the public have in reference to the late repeated complaints made as to the working of this railway by the company.
(Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) The agreement made between the Board of Works and the Lough Swilly Railway Company will, of course, be accessible to the hon. Member in his capacity of arbitrator during the arbitration proceedings. It would be contrary to the invariable 1180 practice of the Board to communicate copies of such agreements, and it is undesirable on general grounds to create a precedent. I shall be prepared, however, if the hon. Member so desires, and without interfering with the liberty of action of the Board of Works in this respect, to lay a copy of the agreement on the Table of the House.