§ MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY (Limerick, W.)To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can say on what grounds the approval which the Commissioners of National Education gave by letter, on 20th December, 1905, to the proposal of the manager of the national schools at Kilmeedy, county Limerick, for a building grant, has not been sanctioned by the Treasury; and whether, in view of the fact that the manager and parents of the children procured building materials at considerable expense on receipt of the Commissioners' approval of their proposals, and also in view of the fact that the average attendance in the boys' school is over forty, and in the girls' nearly sixty, he will take steps to acquire the grant for them without making it a condition that the schools be amalgamated.
(Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Commissioners of the National Education inform me that this case was not submitted to the Treasury, nor did they inform the manager that it would be submitted to that Department. Under the Commissioners' rules, in the case of applications for building grants for adjoining boys' and girls' schools, grants for separate schools cannot be made unless there is an average attendance of at least fifty pupils in each school. This condition is not fulfilled in the case in question, and the Commissioners are, therefore, unable to sanction a building grant for a new school-house except on condition that the schools shall be amalgamated.