§ MR. DUFFYTo ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the tenants on the Wakely estate, Scariff, county Clare, are being pressed by the owners of the estate to sign purchase agreements, including the payment of a sum of money for each tenant over and above the price to be fixed by the Estates Commissioners; and whether, in view of the number of small holdings on this property, steps will be taken by the Estates Commissioners to protect them against pressure by ordering an inspection of their holdings.
§ MR. DUFFYTo ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, if the attention of the Estates Commissioners has been directed to a number of new tenancies created on the Wakely estate, Scariff, county Clare; whether he has any official information showing that this was done in anticipation of the Estates Commissioners purchasing the grazing lands in the interest of the small tenants on the property; and whether the Commissioners will institute immediate inquiry into the matter before the agreements to purchase signed by the non-residential grazing tenants are sanctioned.
(Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Estates Commissioners inform me that proceedings for the sale of the estate referred 391 to in these two Questions have not up to the present been instituted before them. In the event of proceedings, the Commissioners will after due inquiry give full consideration to the matters of fact alleged in the Questions.