§ Mr. DELANYasked the Chief Secretary whether he has received a resolution passed by the Mountmellick District Council on the 10th instant, protesting against the recent order of the Local Government Board raising fees to solicitors under the Labourers Act, 1906; and whether, seeing that the solicitors were quite willing to act at previous terms and that the ratepayers in Ireland are overburdened, he will cause the Order in question to be withdrawn?
987W
§ Mr. BIRRELLI have received the resolution referred to. The Order in question makes a large reduction in the fees and costs which were payable to solicitors acting for rural district councils and for owners of lands respectively, prior to the Labourers Act of 1906. It alters in certain respects Orders already made by the Local Government Board in 1906 and 1908, which were the subject of legal proceedings in the courts and much controversy with the members of the legal profession. The Order, as now made, has been the result of most careful consideration on the part of the Board, having regard to the interests of the ratepayers, as well as those of the owners of land, and it cannot be withdrawn, as suggested.