§ MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY (Limerick, W.)To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that Mrs. Margaret McDonnell, schoolmistress in the Rathkeale Workhouse, tendered her resignation after forty-two years service with an application for superannuation; that the workhouse school is under the Board of National Education, whose inspectors examine the children as in the national schools, but that the Board decline to superannuate her; and whether, under the circumstances, he will take steps to see that it does so.
(Answered by Mr. Bryce.) The fact is as stated in the first part of the Question. Mrs. McDonnell is entitled to a pension of £60 per annum, which is chargeable on union funds in pursuance of Section 118 388 of the Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898. The Board of Guardians have applied to the Commissioners of National Education to grant a pension to Mrs. McDonnell, but the Commissioners have no power to do so. Teachers of workhouse national schools receive no remuneration whatever from the funds for national education, and are therefore ineligible for pensions under the Teachers' Superannuation Act, 1879.