§ Mr. O'DOWDasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he can state the number of appeals submitted to the Local Government Board by the pension officers, acting under the Old Age Pensions Act, in the various sub-districts in the county Sligo during the first six months' operation of the Act; and, if so, will he give the number of cases in which the decisions of local committees have been upheld?
§ The ATTORNEY-GENERAL for IRELAND (Mr. Cherry)The files relating to appeals are returned by the Local Government Board to the pension officers as soon as the cases have been decided. As the hon. Member has already been informed in reply to the question asked by him on 26th July, the Board have not classified appeals in their register by counties or districts, and they are not therefore in a position to give the required information. It might, of course, be possible for the pension officers to extract the information from the files, but they are already fully occupied, and the preparation of such returns would cause delay in dealing with fresh applications.