§ MR. JOHN REDMOND (Waterford)To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that at the present time Waterford prison, in addition to receiving prisoners from the county and city of Waterford, also receives them from Wexford, Carlow, Kilkenny, Queen's County, and the South Riding of Tipperary; whether his attention has been directed to the hardships inflicted on the ratepayers of the county and city of Waterford in having to support patients transferred from the Waterford prison natives of other counties, who remain insane at the expiration of their sentences; and whether he can take any steps to have such patients removed at the expiration of their sentences to the asylums of the districts from which they came.
(Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The fact is as stated in the first part of the Question. Under the Act, 1 and 2 Vic. cap. 27, persons who become insane while in prison are removed to the lunatic asylum of the district in which the prison is situate, and there is no power to transfer such persons on the expiration of their sentence to the asylums of the districts from which they come. There are, I understand, in all the district asylums in Ireland patients who belong primarily to other districts, and matters are therefore substantially equalised. Legislation on the subject would involve the introduction into Ireland of a law of settlement, and I am not at present prepared to say that the Government could undertake such legislation.