HC Deb 23 May 1906 vol 157 cc1252-3
MR. HAYDEN (Roscommon, S.)

To ask the secretary to the Treasury whether his attention has been drawn to the demand made by the Treasury on the County Council of Roscommon for the payment of a sum of £500, the expenses alleged to be incurred in connection with the trial of a local government election petition; whether he will state how this sum is made up, giving the items, and the principal or scale on which the payments were calculated; on what area the charge is made payable, and who fixed the area, and upon whose certificate the charge is sanctioned; and whether he is aware that the county council has made a protest against the payment of this demand, in view of the extraordinary length of the inquiry; and whether he proposes to take any notice of this protest.

(Answered by Mr. McKenna.) The Treasury has paid the sum of £544 13s. 4d. to the officers engaged on the trial of a petition arising out of an election to the Roscommon County Council.

The amount is made up of the following payments, viz.,:—

£ s. d.
To the Commissioner who tried the petition 252 0 0
To the registrar 85 14 10
To the crier 26 16 7
To the shorthand writer 117 1 11
To the representative of the Attorney-General 63 0 0
Total £544 13 4

The payments were calculated according to the scale prescribed by the Judges, with the approval of the Treasury, under Section 101 of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882. The money is advanced by the Treasury upon the certificate of the Commissioner who tried the petition as to the length of time occupied, and is repayable by the county council, out of the county fund or rate, under the above-mentioned Section 101, as applied by Section 75 of The Local Government Act, 1888, and Section 104 of The Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898. I am not aware that the county council has made any protest, but I may say that the Government has no option whatever in the matter nor any power of regulating the length of the inquiry.