§ MR. HOGAN (Tipperary, N.)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that three gentlemen, Messrs. John Flannery, Stephen Liffey, and Hugh Delaney, members of the Borisokane Rural District Council, have been summoned to the next petty sessions in the district for a surcharge of £9 5s. 4d., being the amount of a bill of costs paid in connection with the Labourers' Acts; is he aware that the auditor made the surcharge on the grounds that the bill of costs in question was not produced, the same not having been returned by the taxing master; and whether, seeing that the taxing master's certificate was produced at the audit and ignored by the auditor, he will cause the Local Government Board to stay proceedings whilst full inquiries are made into this transaction, and thus save further expense and confusion in the matter.
§ MR. BIRRELLThe facts are stated in the Question with substantial accuracy, 106 except that the persons surcharged gave, in their appeal to the Local Government Board, quite a different reason for their failure to produce the bill of costs, which was a necessary voucher for the payment. In their appeal they stated that the council were unable to procure the bill of costs from the solicitors who represented them at the taxation. The Local Government Board upheld the surcharge, as it would be quite irregular to allow the payment to pass without the production of the necessary vouchers.