§ MR. P. MEEHANI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, whether he can give the date on which the Estate Commissioners paid Lord Lansdowne the agreed price for the Luggacurran untenanted land purchased by them; how long did the Estates Commissioners retain these lands before distribution; what did the expenses of management and payment of local rates and taxes amount to, if any; on what date or dates did the evicted tenants receive their vesting orders; whether he can say what has been done with the one-quarter per cent. difference between interest and purchase annuity paid pending receipt of the vesting order; has it been credited to the buyer; and, if not, will he say why this was not done.
§ MR. BIRRELLThe Land Commission inform me that the purchase money in this case was paid to the vender on the 15th December 1905. The evicted tenants had been put into possession on 11th July, 1905, and the lands were in most cases vested in them on the 5th April 1906. An exception was necessarily made in those cases in which the Commissioners had sanctioned advances for improvements repayable as part of the tenants' annuities. In such cases the lands were not vested until the expenditure on improvements was complete, otherwise the tenants would have been paying annuities calculated on advances which had not been fully made, instead of which they were charged interest to the date of vesting on the price of the lands only. No payments have been made by the Commissioners in respect of management or of local rates and taxes in the case of this particular estate. As regards the concluding portion of the Question, I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to the Question asked by the hon. Member for South Kildare on the 30th November.