§ MR. THOMAS O'DONNELL (Kerry, W.)To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland what steps have been taken by the Estates Commissioners on estates where sales are completed and the lands vested in the tenants to secure that labourers having houses and plots of their own, or labourers living in district council cottages on those estates, get portions of the common bog in each of those estates; and whether, to secure that those labourers shall in future get turf on the bog of the estate in which their houses are situate, he will request the Estates Commissioners to 1050 issue a new rule, insisting that all labourers shall get a share of the common bog on each estate.
(Answered by Mr. Birrell.) Where an advance is made to trustees under Section 4 of the Irish Land Act, 1903, for the purchase of land containing turbary, the land is vested in the trustees subject to a scheme framed in accordance with Section 20 of the Act. Under such schemes the trustees have power, when the reasonable requirements of the purchasing tenants have been provided for, to permit other persons in the neighbourhood to cut turf on the land on such conditions as to payment as the trustees may prescribe. The case of the sale of an estate where portion of the holding consists of bog, on which the purchaser had not an exclusive right of turbary, is provided for by Section 21 of the Act of 1903, as amended by Section 24 of the Labourers (Ireland) Act, 1906. No alteration in the existing practice appears to be necessary.