§ MR. ROCHEI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a technical school for boys was built at Mount Bellew, county Galway, by Very Rev. Canon Ronayne, partly by aid of a grant from the Education Board, partly from local resources, and partly by moneys provided by himself; that the county committee, at the end of the year 1902–3, voted a sum of £32 for equipment purposes, which was set down in the scheme for 1903–4 with sanction of the Department; that this school has been visited by the inspector, and no exception taken to the equipment; that the county committee have repeatedly reminded the Department of their recommendation to sanction the payment of the equipment provided; and whether, in view of these facts, the Department will now sanction the payment of the money expanded.
§ MR. WYNDHAMThe facts are substantially as stated, except that the school is a national, not a technical one, and that the scheme contained a statement that the proposal to spend £32 on equipment would be considered after a visit and report by an inspector. There is no need to equip this school as a fixed centre of technical instruction, as the county committee supply the itinerant teachers, by whom the classes have been taught, with the necessary requisites for class instruction. The Department is not prepared, in the circumstances, to sanction the expenditure.