§ MR. NANNETTI (Dublin, College Green)To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the Report from the Home Office for 1904 showing that during last year active operations were carried on in 568 mines and quarries in Ireland, that the number of persons employed in connection with those mines and quarries was 5,504, and that the output was represented by 1,290,595 tons, and, in view of the fact that the officials for the due inspection of these mines and quarries live and have their offices either in Manchester or Wigan, he will consider the advisability of arranging that Ireland, as an inspection district, should be separated from Manchester, with a view to the establishment of an independent district in Ireland with a resident staff, comprising a chief inspector, assistant inspectors, and a secretary to the board of examination.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas) I do not think the scale on which the mining and quarrying industries are carried on in Ireland is large enough to justify the creation of a separate inspection district for Ireland with a separate staff and examining board. The Report to which the hon. Member refers shows that last year there were at work in Ireland only fifty-eight mines and 510 quarries, as compared with 4,006 mines and 7,507 quarries in the whole country; that the number of persons employed in them was 5,504 out of a total of 974,634; the number of tons of mineral raised 1,275,336 out of a total of over 294,000,000; and the number of deaths from accident six out of a total of 1,202.