§ 12. Mr. FIELDasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he is aware that at the present moment the married warders in the Irish prisons service are in a state of semi-starvation owing to the inadequate pay and allowances they are receiving: that owing to the result of his promised personal inquiries into the miserable condition of those officials not being announced they are now assuming an attitude of desperation; if he is not now prepared to have the Treasury sanction announced on the 11th April, 1916, applied in full to the existing warders will he take immediate steps to restore back to them the fuel and light and other allowances of which the new scheme deprived them and also have their pay immediately and substantially increased; and will he consider the advisability of an increase in the lodging allowance granted to married officers not occupying prison cottages or official quarters?
§ Mr. DUKEThe position of the prison warders was dealt with in an answer I gave to the hon. Member for the College Green Division of Dublin yesterday. Full details have been communicated to the General Prisons Board and to the Press. The mention of semi-starvation and desperation in the earlier part of the question is unfair, both to the Prisons Board and the warders.