Captain O'NEILLasked why the application for a new labourer's cottage by Hugh Shannon, of Gortfad, Portglenone, county Antrim, has not been sanctioned, although his present dwelling has been condemned as insanitary by the local medical practitioner?
§ Mr. BIRRELLThe application of Hugh Shannon for a cottage was before the Ballymena Rural District Council on 9th December last, when on the report of one of the councillors for the Lisnagarron Division it was refused on the grounds that Shannon now occupies a good house, and that, in addition, there was a cottage erected by the council in his division which had been vacant since July, 1910.
§ Mr. SHEEHANasked the Chief Secretary if his attention has been drawn to the fact that, although Scheme Seven for the provision of labourers' cottages in the Macroom rural district was sanctioned in 1908, the first record the Local Government Board have of any cottages being erected under it was October, 1910; can he explain the cause of the delay in the building of cottages under this scheme; how many cottages were sanctioned under it and how many are at present built; were the contractors in every instance bound by the terms of their contract, under strict penalties, to have cottages complete within a certain time; were they released at any time from their obligations by resolutions of the district council; and in how many cases, if any, were the penalties against defaulting contractors enforced?
§ Mr. BIRRELLThe Local Government Board are informed by the clerk of the 1133W rural district council that the delay was due to the difficulty in obtaining contractors at the price allowed in the council's estimate. Two hundred and thirty-seven cottages were sanctioned under Scheme Seven, of which ninety-three are now completed. The contractors were in every case bound by the terms of the contract under penalties to have the cottages completed within a certain time, but the council, as they are by law empowered to do, decided not to enforce full penalties of £1 a week, but instead to deduct from the contract price the fees payable to their engineer for inspection of the works after the prescribed period of six months at the rate of 7s. 6d. per visit, and subsequently an extra charge of 1s. a week. The penalty of 7s. 6d. per visit was enforced in eighty-eight cases, and the additional penalty of 1s. a week in twenty-one of these eighty-eight cases.