§ MR. FIELDTo ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland whether he is aware that the attention of the Department of Agriculture in Ireland has been directed by the Irish Cattle Traders and Stock Owners' Association to the unprotected loading banks for live stock at various stations in Ireland, thereby causing preventable suffering to the animals and loss to the owners; and whether the Department will take measures to compel the carrying companies to adopt a similar system of pens on cattle loading banks as at present in use on the Liverpool station of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway.
§ MR. FIELDTo ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been directed to the resolutions, passed at Irish Cattle Traders and Stock Owners' Association 12 last Thursday, complaining of the want of proper accommodation for live stock in railway transit, especially with regard to the defective condition of many loading banks; and whether he will communicate with the Department of Agriculture and cause inquiries to be made and improvements effected where necessary.
(Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) The Department have not within a recent period received representations from the Irish Cattle Traders and Stock Owners' Association respecting the alleged unprotected condition of the loading banks at more than one Irish station, and in that instance the matter is at present the subject of correspondence between the Department and the owning company. The association's resolutions referred to in the second Question have not yet reached the Department. It would appear, however, from the reports in the newspapers that complaint was made at the meeting of the association on Thursday last of the unprotected state of the loading banks for cattle at seventeen stations on two lines of railway. The Department learn from their transit staff that thirteen of these stations are provided with certain penning accommodation from which animals can be loaded into the trucks. This accommodation is in addition to the loading banks which are open platforms. The majority of these loading banks are used for general goods traffic as well as for animals, and might not be suitable for all the purposes required if protected in the way suggested, i.e., by erection along the banks of a series of gates or a special system of pens such as obtains at the Liverpool station mentioned. There are, however, certain Irish railway stations at which a plan of this kind has been adopted at the suggestion of the Department. If specific instances of injury to animals due to the condition of any of the loading banks are brought under the notice of the Department inquiry will be instituted, and where the complaint is well founded representations will be made to the company concerned as regards the provision of a remedy. But no case for general compulsory action is deemed to arise. The principal companies have within recent years spent large sums of money in the improvement of their. 13 arrangements for the cattle traffic, and further improvements are being made gradually as circumstances admit.