§ 28. Mr. HORNERasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury if he will state how many of the non-established examiners of titles and conveyancing clerks attached to the Irish Land Commission that Department proposes to dispense with; and what will be the saving effected by the proposed reduction?
§ Mr. BIRRELLThe reduction in the provision for the temporary staff of the Examination of Titles branch in the Irish Land Commission will be £6,300 in a full year, this amount representing the pay of seven temporary examiners and of two professional clerks. This will leave an expenditure of £5,500, representing the salaries of six examiners and two clerks, 1276 but the question whether this sum will be allocated on the present basis or whether it will be devoted to the retention at reduced salaries of a larger number than six examiners is still under consideration by the Land Commissioners, in whose discretion the allocation has been left.
§ 29. Mr. HORNERasked how many of the permanent staff of the Irish Land Commission have been, or are about to be, retired as having attained the age of sixty years who have not had forty years' service; and, having regard to the fact that the Treasury letter of 12th December, 1890, recommends that no efficient Civil servant be retired at sixty years who has not had forty years' service, how is it proposed to compensate those officials who, contrary to such recommendation, may be compulsorily retired at sixty years of age although they have not had that length of service?
§ Mr. BIRRELLEight permanent lay Assistant Commissioners, who have attained the age of sixty years but are not yet sixty-five, have been, or are about to be, retired on pension from the staff of the Irish Land Commission, and the retirement of three other officers in like circumnstances is in contemplation. The terms of the Treasury letter, referred to by the hon. Member, were intended to mitigate the hardship to individuals if a new Order in Council was to be suddenly applied to them, and it was expressly provided that any exercise of the discretionary powers approved in the letter should be subject to the requirements of the public service. The present retirements are being effected in the public interest and are in pursuance of the Order in Council, which has now been in force for over fourteen years. I am accordingly not prepared to make any recommendations for compensation to the officers affected.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYMay I ask whether Sir Matthew Nathan's proposals to tamper with the Fair Rent Courts and Land Purchase Courts in Ireland by this system has his approval, or is it done under the initiative of that stranger to the country himself?
§ Mr. BIRRELLI do not think that the hon. Gentleman puts the question in a manner that is entitled to receive an answer.
§ Mr. HEALYMay I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether we may see the correspondence between Sir Matthew Nathan 1277 and the Land Commission, and whether the action taken by him is taken against the protest of the judges of that body?
§ Mr. BIRRELLThe correspondence will certainly not be laid upon the Table.
§ 30. Mr. HORNERasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury if he is aware that the temporary examiners of title in the Irish Land Commission and their clerks, who are all either barristers-at-law or solicitors, come under the heading of professional legal staff, specified in the Fourth Report of the Royal Commission on the Civil Service, dated 2nd April, 1914, and that such Report has recommended that all existing officers of this class should be given the benefit of established status, which implies permanency and a pension; whether, notwithstanding such qualifications and recommendations, it is now proposed, on account of the War, to place a number of these officials on half-pay and also dispense with others without even giving them that option; and, if so, having regard to the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Civil Service and of Ministers to employers as to their duty to retain and provide work for their employés during the War, what provision, in compliance with their own recommendations, has been or will be made by the Government for these officials?
§ Mr. BIRRELLThe Royal Commission in their Report estimated that the land purchase work of the Irish Land Commission would be completed within a definite period, and in paragraph 4 of Chapter VII, they expressly find that persons engaged to perform work capable of completion within a definite period are properly unpensionable. I am therefore unable to agree in the hon. and learned Member's interpretation of their recommendations. In reply to the last part of the question, I would refer to the answer given to the hon. and learned Member's previous question on the 29th April, and to the question of the hon. Member for Mid-Armagh yesterday.