§ MR. GINNELL (Westmeath, N.)To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that Colonel Malone's Baronstown estate comprises twenty-one uneconomic holdings ranging from 15s. to £5 in valuation, nine holdings of higher valuation but uneconomic owing to poverty of soil, and three grass farms of over 150 acres each not within the Land Acts; that all the tenants, except the users of the grass farms, have petitioned the Estates Commissioners to acquire these farms for the relief of the congestion; that the law, as interpretated in the Blake-Foster case, 1219 empowers the Commissioners to do this as a condition of declaring the property an estate; that the inspector, who gives them contrary advice, inspected before the present instructions came into force, and has been a landlord's valuer and agent; and if, in view of these facts and of the needs of the people, he will ask the Commissioners to reconsider the proposed sale of this estate.
(Answered by Mr. Bryce.) I have already, on several occasions, informed the hon. Member, on the authority of the Estates Commissioners, that the estate in question does not comprise any untenanted land; that the grass farms on the estate are held under leases or by yearly tenants; and that the Commissioners have no power to compel farms so held to be sold to them as untenanted land. In view of these facts, it does not appear that any useful purpose would be served by entering into the details referred to in the Question.