§ MR. GINNELL (Westmeath, N.)To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if it is within the province of the Local Government Board, or of any auditor or inspector of that Board, to ascertain whether local road authorities receive the full amounts due to them from railway companies for the maintenance of all the portions of roads altered in connection with the railways; have those amounts been revised or their accuracy tested since the introduction of local government; and will the Board assist any local road authority so desiring to test" and revise these amounts.
(Answered by Mr. Birrell.) There is no constant rule as to the liability of railway companies for the maintenance of portions of roads affected by the construction of railways, such liabilities, where they exist, being generally prescribed in the private Acts of the companies concerned. The auditors of the Local Government Board are, consequently, to a large extent dependent on the information supplied to them by the local authorities and their officers, on whom devolves the responsibility of obtaining from the companies their proper contributions. It is, however, the practice of the auditors to secure, so far as the facts within their knowledge enable them to do so, that all moneys receivable by the local authorities are duly recovered and brought into account. The auditors have drawn attention to such cases on various occasions both before and since the passing of the Local Government Act.