§ Mr. GINNELLasked the Chief Secretary if he was aware that the Local Government Board for Ireland, in pursuance of a circular issued by that Board last year, had not yet held an inquiry into a scheme of labourers' cottages adopted by the Mullingar District Council six 1108 months ago, though some of those to be provided occupy dwellings condemned as unfit for human habitation; whether he would have this inquiry held at an early date; and whether he would see that his undertaking that the sanitary grounds on which Parliament passed the Labourers' Acts were not, in practice, disregarded?
§ Mr. BIRRELLThe council's petition for the confirmation of the scheme in question was only received by the Local Government Board on the 15th February, and the case must await its turn, having regard to the invariable principle of dealing first with those cases where the needs of the labouring classes in. the matter of housing accommodation are greatest. In the Mullingar rural district 782 cottages were erected and fifty-five others were in course of construction on the 31st March, 1911.
§ Mr. GINNELLThe right hon. Gentleman has not answered that part of my question with regard to persons occupying dwellings unfit for human habitation?
§ Mr. BIRRELLI do not know whether that is so or not. We have to proceed in the various districts according to the amount of accommodation already furnished, and I think Mullingar has done very well.
§ Mr. GINNELLIs it not a fact that the Local Government Board are sanctioning schemes on other than sanitary grounds?
§ Mr. BIRRELLI do not know whether that is so. They only sanction schemes in those parts of the country where the accommodation is wholly insufficient.