§ MR. JAMES O'KELLY (Roscommon, N.)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the fact that in November, 1903, terms of purchase were agreed upon between the vendor of the King-Harman estate situated in the counties of Roscommon and Sligo, and the tenants on the same; that one of the conditions agreed to by the vendor was that the Estates Commissioners be requested to purchase the whole estate with a view to secure the turbary for the tenants; that previous to the sale the landlord exercised the power of letting the turbary rights to the tenants, even where the bogs upon the estate were within the boundaries of the farms of certain individual tenants, charging the latter with rent for cutting turf in the bogs on their own farms in 1095 the same way as he charged rent to the occupiers of outlying farms in the district that the Estates Commissioners at the time of the sale recognised the rights of the occupiers as a body to turbary rights on the estate by vesting the bogs which had been held direct by the landlord in trustees for the benefit of the said occupiers; that one of the former tenants upon whose holding there was a large tract of bog which, previous to the sale, had been, according to the custom of the estate, let off as turbary from year to year to a number of tenants in the district, denied all access after the sale to the bog in question to the former users, save at enormous rentals; and whether, seeing that this action causes loss and inconvenience to about 200 families resident in the district, and that a decision in favour of the former users was given by the Judicial Commissioners, but was reversed upon a technical point by the Court of Appeal in February of this year, he will, in his amending Act, introduce a clause restoring to the 200 occupiers in question their former rights of turbary and making the Act of 1903 clear upon the point involved in this case.
§ MR. BIRRELLThis estate was purchased by the Estates Commissioners in 1905. The landlord had in his own hands certain bogs, containing in all 1,308 acres, and these have been vested in trustees for the benefit of the tenant purchasers. He also had the right to empower persons to take turf, on payment to him of a bog rent, from other bogs lying within the boundaries of certain holdings on the estate, the tenants of these holdings having the right of turbary for their own use only. The Commissioners were asked to make regulations authorising the taking of turf on these bogs, but the Court of Appeal decided that the Commissioners had no power to make such regulations, as the holdings had been vested in the purchasers without any reservation of turbary. I do not think it would be possible to introduce a clause into the Land Bill for the purpose suggested in the last paragraph of the Question.