§ MR. MEEHAN (Queen's County, Leix)To ask the Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that Mr. Charles McGonagall, managing clerk, Roorkie workshops, was prematurely and ir-regularly retired from the public service; that Mr. McGonagall was, up to 1877, in permanent employment in the accounts branch of the Public Works Department, and was transferred, in the interests of the Government, as managing clerk in Roorkie workshop on the understanding that the appointment was permanent and pensionable like the one he was leaving; that in 1897 Mr. McGonagall was dismissed and the office abolished; that, after a considerable delay, he secured a pension of Rs. 129; and whether, seeing that, if his service had been allowed to continue and he had been retired in the ordinary way, his pension would be Rs. 250, and as, by his unexpected dismissal, he was deprived of the salary for the seven years necessary to complete his service and qualify him for full pension he lost Rs. 20,500, the Government will grant Mr. McGonagall full pension and refund to him the 1200 difference between what he has received, Rs. 129, and Rs. 250, which he would be entitled to but for his enforced retirement.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Morley.) In 1898 the Secretary of State for India in Council, on the recommendation of the Government of India, sanctioned the grant to Mr. McGonagall, from the date of his retirement, of the pension of Rs. 250 a month which the hon. Member now asks the Government to grant to him.