§ SIR JAMES HASLETT (Belfast, N.)To ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland whether, in view of the fact that Edmund B. Lester, a lunatic confined in the County Antrim Asylum at Belfast under an order of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and who formerly carried on business as a grocer in Belfast, has creditors to the extent of £350, while there are funds standing to the credit of the lunacy master amounting to £373 1s. 3d., as appears by the certificate of the Accountant-General, out of which and the income thereof the sum of £26 is paid by the Registrar in Lunacy to the asylum authorities for the maintenance of said lunatic, and that the Registrar in Lunacy has refused to apply this sum, or any part thereof, in liquidation of the debts due to the several creditors of the lunatic, he will explain why this person is not maintained in said asylum out of the rates as an ordinary pauper lunatic would be.
(Answered by Mr. Atkinson.) No application has been made to the Lord Chancellor regarding debts, and so long as there are funds in Court the maintenance of the lunatic is the first charge on them. It is not the province of the Registrar in Lunacy to make orders regarding the application of funds in Court.