§ MR. DELANY (Queen's County, Ossory)To ask the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) whether he can state the reasons which weighed with the Department of Agriculture and the Treasury when granting increases of salary to the higher officials 380 of the veterinary branch, seeing that in three cases alone these increases involve an additional expenditure of £350 a year, viz., £150 extra to the chief clerk, £100 to the chief inspector, and two-sums, one of £25 and another of £75, to the senior staff clerk; whether he can further state the reasons that have influenced the Department in withholding at the same time admittance to the Second Division in the case of the gentlemen of fourteen years' service in the same branch; and whether he has sanctioned the action of these officials.
(Answered by Mr. T. W. Russell.) I would refer to my reply to the hon. Member's Question of 17th June, to which I have nothing to add.