§ MR. GINNELLI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will explain the nature of the Report a Government auditor in Ireland makes to the authority appointing him; in what manner, if at all, it brings under that authority's notice unusual, obscure, or dubious practices, and enables the appointing authority to form an opinion of the regularity of the accounting body and the efficiency of the auditor; and how it happens that alleged payments in fact never made, and unvouched, are constantly passed by those auditors as correct, and that while some local governing bodies have been for years getting their legal work done by contract, and some by a mixed system with the risk of overlapping and double payments, the Local Government Board declare they do not know that the legal work can be done in that way, and that they have no information as to the practice.
§ MR. BIRRELLIn reporting on the accounts of a local body, an auditor certifies as to payments being duly authorised and vouched, makes surcharges or disallowances in cases of irregularity or illegality, and calls attention to any practice likely to lead to irregularity. The auditors' reports are furnished to the local authorities in all cases. The Local Government Board are not aware that any irregular or unvouched payments are passed by auditors, and they have no knowledge of the declaration attributed to them.
§ MR. GINNELLI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether it is within the duty of an auditor to detect and report to the 250 Local Government Board illegitimate methods used to procure contracts from local administrative bodies; what action that Board take on such a Report; what action, if any, have they taken in the recent case in which a governor of Mullingar District Lunatic Asylum was the real contractor for supplying certain goods to that institution while the nominal contractor was a pauper in Mullingar Workhouse; and why the Board do not, in the interest of the ratepayers, permanently preclude from contracting a person who makes such practices his profession.
§ MR. BIRRELLLocal Government Board auditors report matters of the kind referred to in the first part of the Question when they come officially under their notice. The auditors' reports are communicated to the local authorities concerned, who are required to publish them for the information of the ratepayers. No evidence as to the case referred to in the Question has come under the notice of the Local Government Board, and that Board have no power to act as suggested.