MR. SWIFT MAC NEILL (Donegal, S.)To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware, having regard to the fact that in a recent notice of a vacancy in the office of drill gun instructor in the Hibernian Military School, Dublin, Lord Grenfell, in inviting applications for the appointment, stated that membership of the Church of England was a necessary qualification for candidature, that every post of emolument in that institution, from the position of commandant to that of gatekeeper, is filled by a member of the Church of England or some other Protestant communion, no member of the staff being a Catholic; 354 and what explanation, if any, has he to give for this exclusion of Catholics from positions in a school for the education of the sons of Irish soldiers, the great majority of whom are members of the Catholic faith.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) There are eighty-three appointments at the Royal Hibernian Military School which carry emoluments: of these forty-eight are held by Roman Catholics, twenty-eight by members of the Church of England, five by Presbyterians, and two by Wesleyans.