FIELDTo ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether, seeing that the Comptroller and Auditor-General stated on two different occasions last year that the only duplicate books kept at the Audit Office were those relating to the Chancery Suitors' Fund Account (England), and that subsequently he admitted that duplicate books relating to Irish public accounts were also kept at the Audit Office, he will say why the latter information was suppressed on the first two occasions.
909 (Answered by Mr. Runciman.) If the hon. Member will refer to the Answer which I gave him on 30th July last, and to which, I presume, he alludes in the last past of his Question, he will find that I did not admit that the records kept by the Audit Office of the Dublin Education Department accounts were duplicate records. These records are the only statements of the accounts in question to which the Comptroller and Auditor-General has access, and from his point of view are not duplicates, inasmuch as he has no opportunity of seeing the originals. The case of the Chancery Suitors' Fund Account is different, as the Comptroller and Auditor-General has access to the original records in that case. It was for this reason that the Exchequer and Audit Department did not think it necessary to refer to the records of the Dublin Education Department in the Answers furnished to earlier Questions, and not, of course, from any intention of withholding information.