§ MR. P. MEEHANI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether he is aware that seventy-three evicted tenants on the Landsdowne Luggacunnan Estate, Queen's County, applied for reinstatement, and that the claims of twenty-one evicted tenants were rejected, and can he say on what grounds they have been rejected; whether he is aware that these twenty-one evicted tenants are in poverty, some in absolute want; whether he is aware that Mr. Byrne, who was evicted from Tully Castle farm of 203 acres has had to enter Athy union hospital, and that his sister, who was also evicted, has as the only means of support what she can earn by needlework, and will he state what amount of public money has been advanced to the planter, Tarleton for the purchase of Byrne's property; whether these twenty-one evicted tenants have been deprived of the benefits of the Act of 1903 by the action of the inspector, on whose reports the Estate Commissioners acted; and whether he will order these twenty-one cases to be 760 re-considered with a view of reinstatement in their own or equivalent holdings.
§ MR. BIRRELLThe Estates Commissioners have decided, for one or other of the reasons mentioned in paragraph 20 of their Special Report as to evicted tenants, not to take any action in reference to twenty of the applications for re-instatement on this estate. Hugh Byrne's application for reinstatement in a holding purchased by Tarleton in 1892 by means of an advance of £2,700 under the Land Purchase Acts, is one of those in which the Commissioners have decided to take no action. I have no power to interfere with their exercise of the discretion vested in them.