§ MR. JOSEPH DEVLINI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been drawn to the correspondence between the Local Government Board for Ireland and the Belfast Board of Guardians with reference to the superannuation of Mr. J. C. Neeson, clerk of the union of Belfast, and to the fact that the Local Government Board has decided that Mr. Neeson's salary and emoluments of office amounted on an average of three years to £1,764 9s. 10d., and that as an existing officer under the Local Government Act of 1898 he was entitled to a retiring allowance of £1,145 18s. 4d., which was thirty-nine-sixtieths of £1,7649s. 10d.; whether he is aware that the actual amount paid to Mr. Neeson by the guardians was only £500 per annum, including £200 for the preparation of jurors' lists; that the difference, amounting to £1,264 9s. 10d. between that sum and the amount on which the Local Government Board has decided that his superannuation is to be calculated, was made up of sums of money paid to Mr. Neeson by the Belfast Corporation and the Belfast Harbour Board, and as registrar of births, deaths, and marriages, over which sum the guardians bad no control; and that the decision of the Local Government Board has been unanimously condemned by the guardians; and, if so, whether in view of the dissatisfaction felt by the ratepayers under the circumstances, steps will be taken to ensure that this whole matter shall be the subject of a fresh and more complete inquiry before a final decision has been given upon it.
§ MR. WYNDHAMThe guardians awarded Mr. Neeson a retiring allowance equal to thirty-nine-sixtieths of the salary and emoluments of his office. They subsequently asked the Local Government Board to state what was the amount of the salary and emoluments. The Board was advised that the duties performed by Mr. Neeson for the Corporation and Harbour Board were imposed upon him by statute as clerk of the union; that any sums received by him in respect of these duties were part of his emoluments as clerk, and pensionable by the guardians, and that the sums received by him as 494 registrar of births, deaths, and marriages were also pensionable by the guardians. The Board communicated this advice to the guardians; it did not fix the amount of the pensions. The question for decision is one of law, and upon this it is of course open to the guardians to take an independent legal opinion.