§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILLTo ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the receiver on the estate of Joseph Byrne, situate near Ballyshannon, commonly known as the Teenan Estate, obtained ejectment decrees against some forty tenants at the March quarter sessions for county Donegal, and that caretaker notices have since been served on those tenants, notwithstanding the fact that the great majority of them had paid a year's rent, and some two years rent, part harvest rent; that thirty-five civil bill decrees and six ejectment decrees have been obtained at the present quarter sessions against all the remaining tenants; and whether, having regard to the fact that the tenants were and are anxious to purchase their holdings, but are unable to do so owing to the circumstance that a portion of the proceedings were in another Court, whereof the receiver has been appointed by the Land Judge, what steps will be taken to enable the tenants to purchase their holdings, and, pending the purchase and so long as the current 1371 rent is paid, to stay proceedings for their eviction and the destruction of their interest in their holdings.
(Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) I am not aware that the statements in the first part of the Question are accurate. The Land Purchase Acts contain ample provisions enabling tenants to become proprietors of their holdings, and I cannot admit the accuracy of the statement that they are unable to purchase in the present instance. The Executive has no power to intervene in the manner suggested at the conclusion of the Question.