Captain CRAIGasked the Chief Secretary whether he will call for a Return from county councils in Ireland of the number of persons in each district in receipt or old age pensions of 1s., 2s., 3s., 4s., and 5s. respectively, and the total number of claims received, allowed, adjourned, and disallowed, and-the number of claimants who have died, in the same form as that adopted by certain county councils in England?
§ Mr. BIRRELLI am informed that the pension committees in Ireland have not. kept any records which would enable them to furnish such a Return as is suggested in the question. It would be necessary in order to prepare such a Return to examine every one of the hundreds of thousands of claims which have been made since the Old Age Pensions Act came into operation. I cannot ask the pension committees to impose this task on their officers.