§ MR. FLAVINTo ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the solicitor to the Congested Districts Board has written, by direction of the Board, to tenants on the Trieneragh portion of the Collis Sandes estate calling up, under threat of a writ, arrears of rent of over fifteen years standing, and never demanded by the late owner; whether the object of these threats is to force the tenants to buy their holdings from the Board at terms much higher than those paid by tenants on adjoining properties; and, seeing that the Congested Districts Board has spent no money on improvements in the district and in view of all the circumstances of the district, the Board will wipe out these old arrears of a rack rent.
(Answered by Mr. Birrell.) Only one tenant on Trieneragh has been written to by the solicitor to the Congested Districts Board. He declined to sign a purchase agreement on the basis arranged with the other tenants, and consequently remains in the position of a tenant. He has therefore been asked to repay the sum of £49 14s. 3d. paid by the Board to Mr. Collis Sandes for arrears on his two holdings, the united rents of which amount to £42 9s. The terms of resale arranged with the other tenants were eighteen and five-eighths years purchase of first-term rents, with the addition of a sum not exceeding in any case one year's rent for arrears.