§ MR. J. MURPHYTo ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if the attention of the Commissioners of National Education has been drawn to the fact that in Section 1 of the Appendix to their 72nd Report, page 72, Mr. MacMillan says only 50 out of 135 schools, or 37 per cent., were considered good or better by that inspector, while in the Board's 73rd Report 62.7 per cent. of 339 all the schools in Ireland are reported as good or better; can the Board explain this discrepancy and also state if a similar result has followed this inspector in every circuit in which he has been placed; and what steps the Board will take to protect teachers from over-exacting inspectors.
(Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Commissioners of National Education inform me that a comparison cannot properly be instituted between the two statements mentioned in the Question, seeing that Mr. MacMillan's statement concerns but 135 schools and relates to the year 1905, while the statement in the Commissioners' Annual Report concerns all the schools in Ireland and relates to the year 1906. The Commissioners do not consider that it would be in the public interest or tend to the efficiency of their inspection staff to make any statement in reply to the remainder of the Question.