§ MR. GEORGE CLARKI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the official statistics of cases of firing at the person or firing into dwellings afford no indication of the number of shots which are ascertained by the police on investigation to have been fired either by a single individual or by numbers of armed assailants; and will he quote this information in respect of the cases so recorded during the past three months.
§ MR. BIRRELLThe official statistics do not contain the particulars referred to in the first part of the Question. In some cases it is reported to the police that more shots than one have been fired, but the information usually obtainable on the subject is not sufficiently trustworthy to be embodied in statistics. It is to be remembered that most of the offences of this kind are committed at night, and that the assailants are not seen.