§ MR. GINNELL (Westmeath, N.)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if it is the practice of the Land Judge's Court in Ireland to sell estates and order the advance of public money to the owners or mortgagees without any official inspection for value or for security; if, in some of these cases, the purchasers are non-judicial tenants who have been excluded from the Land Courts by reason of holding on court leases at rents never judicially revised; and, if it is in the power of the Irish Executive to have estates sold in that court officially valued before the money is advanced, will he have this done in the interests of the purchasers and of the State.
§ MR. BIRRELLThe hon. Member is under a misapprehension. The Land Judge has no jurisdiction to order advances under the Land Purchase Acts. Every intending purchaser in the Land Judge's Court has to make application to the Land Commission for an advance, and when the applicant is a non-judicial tenant, it is, I understand, the practice of the Commissioners to have the holding inspected before sanctioning the advance.