§ Mr. MacVEAGHasked the Postmaster-General the cause of the delay in filling the vacant post for a superintending engineer in the Irish northern district; and if it is proposed to place the whole of the Irish post office engineering service under military control and to displace the civil engineering staff in the North of Ireland by Royal Engineers, notwithstanding the protests made by Irish public bodies when a similar change was made in the South of Ireland a couple of years ago?
§ The POSTMASTER - GENERAL (Mr. Herbert Samuel)In connection with the scheme of decentralisation of post office work, which, as the hon. Member may be aware, is about to be carried out, and in connection also with the approaching acquisition of the business of the National Telephone Company, I have thought it advisable to appoint a small committee to consider the boundaries of the surveyors' districts and the superintending engineers' districts with reference to each other and to the boundaries of the National Telephone Company's divisions; and, pending the receipt of the committee's report and its consideration, I have not thought it advisable to make an appointment to the vacant post for a superintending engineer in the northern district of Ireland. It is not intended to displace the civil engineering staff in the North of Ireland by Royal Engineers.