§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILL (Donegal, S.)To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been directed to the action of Alderman Corrigan against Mr. Edward R. Read, the chairman of the late National Assurance Company of Ireland, which was at hearing for twelve days in Dublin before Mr. Justice Andrews and a special jury, and resulted on Thursday, 26th June, in the verdict of the jury, who found that Alderman Corrigan had been induced to purchase 1,000 shares in the National Assurance Company by the representations made in the reports and speeches of the chairman and directors, that these 1212 representations were untrue, that the defendant knew them to be untrue, and that as a consequence the plaintiff lost over £6,500 by the transaction; whether he is aware that on the Bank of Ireland list of directors are no fewer than four directors of the expired National Assurance Company, and that the National Assurance Company was accommodated by overdrafts up to £90,000 by the Bank of Ireland, by which the directors were enabled to conceal its true position and to postpone its winding-up, to the ruin of the shareholders; and whether, having regard to the fact that the Government accounts are kept in the Bank of Ireland, and that the late Treasury Remembrancer in Dublin Castle became a director of the Bank of Ireland while still holding the office of Treasury Remembrancer, the Government contemplate, in view of to revelations in the case of Corrigan v. Read, and in the public interest, any, and, if so, what, change in their relations with the Bank of Ireland and their dealings with it in preference to other banking institutions in Ireland.
(Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) The Answer is in the negative.