§ Mr. JAMES O'KELLYasked the Chief Secretary whether he was aware that Head Constable Gilhooly and Acting Sergeant Nestor had frequently of late stopped respectable inhabitants of Elphin, some of them young ladies, going about their ordinary business, at nine and 10 o'clock at night to ask for their names and the business on which they were abroad; whether he could say if these police officers have any special instructions, and for any, and, if so, what, special reasons to thus interfere with and annoy respectable residents well known to them; and whether he would give instructions that this action on their part should cease?
§ Mr. BIRRELLI am informed by the constabulary authorities that, on the occasion to which the hon. Member appears to refer, the two policemen named in the question, hearing a noise in some bushes near the Convent, and having received complaints of damage done to the Convent grounds, examined the bushes and found two persons there who refused to give their names. The head constable lit a match in order to see who they were, and then went away. The Inspector-General is satisfied that the police did no more than their duty. This incident appears to be the only ground for the allegations in the question. No special instructions have been issued to the police on the subject and none are required.