Captain ESMONDEasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland how many extra police have been drafted into Toomevara as a result of the dispute between the landlord and tenants on the estate of Henrietta Eustace, in Grenanstown; if he is aware that the dispute in Grenanstown was occasioned by the failure of the landlord to sell their holdings to the tenants under the Land Purchase Acts; that the lands are marshy in character, very inferior in quality, and bear high rents; that the agent on the estate has publicly boasted that he has frustrated the intention of Parliament by rendering it impossible for the tenants on the various estates of which he is agent to purchase their holdings under the Land Purchase Acts; that the tenants from whom he collects rent have not got any opportunity of purchasing their holdings; that the tenants have asked for a reasonable abatement of rent in Grenanstown which they have been refused; that costly legal proceedings have been instituted against them on behalf of the landlord; that a force of about thirty police accompanied the sheriffs' bailiffs to Grenanstown on the early morning of Friday, 24th September, under the charge of District Inspector Ball, to execute a writ for the recovery of rent from a tenant, named Michael 1507W Murray, who holds 19 acres of waterlogged land at the yearly rental of £13; that the action of the agent in harassing this body of tenants has caused local dissatisfaction and that the course pursued by the Executive in lending police to assist the agent is calculated to seriously injure recruiting for the Army in Tipperary, where the recruiting campaign has hitherto satisfactorily worked; whether the Executive now proposes to take any steps to settle this dispute and to withdraw the extra police sent into the district?
§ Mr. BIRRELLI am aware that dissatisfaction exists among some of the tenants on the Eustace Estate, County Tipperary, by reason of the owners unwillingness to sell the lands to the tenants at the present juncture or to grant them the substantial reduction in their rents for which application has been made. I can express no opinion in regard to the third part of the question, except that I understood that all the rents have been judicially fixed, and I have no information as to the statement made in the fourth part. Decrees for payment of rent have been obtained and executed in two instances, one of which is that referred to in the question as having occurred on the 24th ultimo. In affording police protection to the sheriffs officers on that occasion the Irish Government were carrying out an obligation legally imposed on them. Apart from the police who were brought in on that occasion four constables are on temporary duty at Toomevara to afford protection to certain workmen employed on the estate.