§ MR. CHARLES CRAIG (Antrim, S.)To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that the Central Midwives Board of England have refused to place upon the roll of certified midwives nurses trained at the Belfast Maternity Hospital Previous to March 31st, 1905, while; hey have placed on this roll nurses; rained under similar conditions and to the same date at the Dublin Maternity Hospitals, at the Cork Maternity Hospital, and at the maternity hospital at Limerick; if he can say what are the grounds for the action of the Central Midwives Board in the matter; and if he will take steps to have; he nurses in question placed in the same position as other nurses of similar training.
(Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) The Central Midwives Board is constituted 1319 under the Midwives Act, 1902, and the rules of the Board are subject to the approval of the Privy Council for England. The Irish Government have no functions in this matter, but I have been furnished by the Lord President of the Council with a statement on the question which has been prepared by the Central Midwives Board. I gather from this statement that the purpose for which certain hospitals in Ireland were recognised, and the Belfast Maternity Hospital was not so recognised owing to its failure to apply in time, ceased to exist on the 1st April last, when the temporary provision (Section 2) of the Act, relating to existing mid-wives, expired.