§ MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland when the new standard plans and specifications for national school buildings in Ireland will be ready; and whether he will, in the meantime, make public the principles which have been agreed upon, and the correspondence which has taken place on the subject between the National Board, the Irish Government, and the Treasury, so that the Irish people may have some opportunity of considering the matter and letting their views be known.
§ MR. BIRRELLA conference will be held as soon as possible between representatives of the Commissioners of National Education and of the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland for the purpose of preparing sketch plans is carrying out the principles which have been agreed upon. To work out detailed plans similar to those now in use, to lithograph them, and to prepare and print the corresponding specification will occupy some months, but urgent cases, I am informed, could be dealt with by means of specially adapted copies of the sketch plans to be prepared. The main principles that have been agreed upon are that the floor space to be provided shall be ten square feet upon the mean between the number in average attendance and the number on the rolls, and that there is to be a separate room for each adult 879 teacher provided, according to circumstances, by means of movable partitions or by the building of actually separate rooms. Apart from the general objections to publishing inter-departmental correspondence, I do not think that the publication of the letters would give the Irish people an opportunity of considering the matter, inasmuch as the most important of the discussions which preceded the settlement arrived at took place at personal interviews.