§ MR. SLOAN (Belfast, S.)To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that of the ninety-one infants on the roll of Waveney Applicant School, Ballymena, in December last, thirty-three were never at school before, thirty-five were withdrawn from an overcrowded school, Guy's Infants (accommodation for 155—average attendance for year, with Waveney School in operation, 156), and a number came from other schools outside Ballymena; and will lie explain, in view of the fact that the Commissioners of National Education have given a grant to the new Cloncore School, where the average attendance for quarter ending 3lst March was fifty-seven, and fifty-six of the pupils in attendance were withdrawn from other schools in which more than sufficient accommodation already existed, on what grounds the grant is withheld from Waveney School.
(Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) The number of pupils enrolled as infants in the Waveney School on the occasion of the chief inspector's visit in December last was seventy-seven. Of these thirty-three had not previously been at school. Thirty-five pupils on rolls had been withdrawn from Guy's Infants School; but if 590 the parents and guardians of these pupils were dissatisfied with the accommodation afforded in that school ample accommodation could have been found in existing national schools. The reasons which influenced the Commissioners in declining to grant aid to the Waveney School were stated in reply to the hon. Member's Question of the 3rd instant†.