§ Mr. NEWMANasked under what circumstances some 8 acres of untenanted land on the estate of George Higginbotham and others, record No. E.C. 6299, county Tipperary, adjoining the village of Borrisokane, was given by the Estates Commissioners to Father Vaughan, C.C., Borrisokane, as Father Vaughan does not appear to qualify in this case for an advance under the Land Purchase Acts?
§ Mr. BIRRELLThe Estates Commissioners have acquired over 800 acres of untenanted land on this estate, and, in the exercise of the discretion vested in them and of their powers under Section 17(1)(d) of the Irish Land Act, 1909, proposed to give a parcel of land containing 5½ acres to trustees to be used as a site for a curate's residence. One of the proposed trustees, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Killaloe, has not up to the present signed the undertaking to purchase this parcel, and the matter is at present under consideration by the Commissioners.
§ Mr. SHEEHANasked the Chief Secretary whether the inspection ordered by the Estates Commissioners in reference to the Massy estate, near Macroom, has been completed; whether he can state the nature, purpose, and result of it; whether the untenanted land comprised in the demesne lands around Mount Massy House will be acquired by the Commissioners for the purposes of division amongst evicted tenants, deserving labourers, and uneconomic holders in the distict; and what action is it now proposed to take in reference to the holdings in the town of Macroom which form portion of this estate?
§ Mr. BIRRELLThe reply to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As I have already informed the hon. Member, the mansion house and surround- 1455W ing demesne are not included in the lands of which particulars have been furnished to the Estates Commissioners by the Land Judge in this matter. The Commissioners are not at present in a position to make any statement with regard to the other matters referred to in the question.
§ Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSYasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland why the Estates Commissioners in their investigation into the position of the estate of Mr. O'Grady Delmege, at Glensharrold, Ardagh, in the county Limerick, did not declare it to be a congested estate; whether the valuation of each tenant as set out in query form, was correct, and whether the valuation of £416 on the holdings of the sixty tenants, after deducting £80, the valuation of the landlord's part of the estate, from £496, its total valuation, brought it within the definition of a congested estate as defined by the Irish Land Act, 1909?
§ Mr. BIRRELLThis estate is not the subject of voluntary proceedings by the owner for sale under the Land Purchase Acts, and the Estates Commissioners have decided not to institute proceedings with a view to its compulsory acquisition under the Act of 1909.