§ Mr. MAURICE HEALYasked the Chief Secretary whether, in the case of Honora Walsh, who was granted an old age pension by the Cork (Station No. 6) pension committee (Register Xo. 917) in May, 1910, the Local Government, on appeal from the pensions committee, have reversed the decision of the committee and upheld an objection of the pensions officer alleging that she was disqualified on the grounds that she was an inmate of the Cork District Hospital since the 26th April, 1912; whether the pensions committee, in deciding in favour of the pension, acted on the certificate of the medical officer of the union that Honora Walsh was necessarily detained in the workhouse owing to illness, and that he3 as medical officer in charge, had supplied medical assistance and recommended that she be supplied with the food and comforts which were necessary in view of her illness; whether the Local Government Board, on the hearing of the appeal, had any evidence before them showing that the doctor's certificate was erroneous; if not, on what grounds they reversed the decision of the pensions committee; and whether it is the view of the Local Government Board that all relief given in a workhouse hospital disoualifies for the pension even though consisting of medical 633W assistance, including food or comforts, supplied on the recommendation of a medical officer?
§ Mr. BIRRELLThe facts generally are as stated in the first part of the question. Before determining the question, the Local Government Board had the case of Honora Walsh inquired into locally by one of their medical inspectors. In cases like this the Board's views are that an old age pensioner who becomes an inmate of a Poor Law infirmary is disqualified for receiving a pension if the case is of a chronic nature in which medical or surgical assistance is quite subsidiary to ordinary relief, including extra diet and nursing. If a person is admitted to an infirmary suffering from some disease which under treatment is capable of cure in a short time, then it is held that no disqualification for pension arises.