HC Deb 27 November 1911 vol 32 cc167-8W
Mr. WILLIAM O'BRIEN

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has received a copy of the resolution unanimously passed lay a joint conference in Cork of the corporation, county council, harbour board, rural district council, board of guardians, the Incorporated Chamber of Commerce, the United Trades and Labour Council, and the District Trades Association, urging upon the Government the desirability of extending medical benefit to Ireland under the National Insurance Bill, and also of exempting refuge homes and Magdalen asylums from its operations; whether he has observed that the Belfast Trades Council also have issued a manifesto declaring it to be an almost universal feeling that exclusion from medical benefits will render the scheme both useless and unpopular in Ireland; and whether, in view of the numerous other expressions of Irish opinion in the same sense, and of his own declaration that if there was a strong desire that the subject should be reconsidered he would not insist, he will now reconsider his decision not to re-commit the Bill for this purpose?

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE

I see no reason to alter the opinion, which is undoubtedly held by the majority of Irish representatives in this House—that Ireland as a whole does not wish for the inclusion of medical treatment.

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