§ MR. O'DOHERTY (Donegal, N.)To ask the Secretary of State for the Home 1232 Department if he will state upon whose information the Inspector of Explosives states in his Twenty-eight Annual Report, at page 63 thereof, that the explosion at Rosemount Police Barracks, Londonderry, on 17th March, 1903. was an impudent method of celebrating the national festival; and whether, seeing that the explosion was caused by a local Orangeman well known to the police, who was afterwards prosecuted therefor, and that this explosion has never been attributed by the authorities to the celebrants of St. Patrick's Day, he will take care that in future similar reports are truthfully given by His Majesty's Inspector of Explosives.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas.) The man who was arrested on the charge of having caused this explosion, to whom I presume the hon. Member refers, was, as a fact, discharged by the magistrates, as the boy who was the only witness against him swore that the deposition which he had himself made was false. That incident does not, therefore, afford any ground for doubting the accuracy of the Inspector's Report, which merely stated what appeared on a review of all the circumstances, and in the opinion, as I am informed, of the local police, to be the probable origin of the explosion.