§ Mr. FETHERSTONHAUGHasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether an increase of three or five employés in the Valuation Office, in Dublin, to deal with the revision of valuation for the city is adequate; is it owing to the number of the staff that the valuation is to take six or seven years, though the Commissioner of Valuation swore he could do the revaluation in from sixteen to eighteen months when the Dublin Corporation Act of 1900 was in Committee; will he say if the annual revisions of valuation have left a comparatively small portion of the city unrevised; and why the revision of that small portion need take six years or more, as at present contemplated, the present revision having begun in 1906?
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§ Mr. HOBHOUSEUp to this date the increase in the staff of the Commissioner of Valuation has proved adequate. It is not owing to the small amount of the increase in the number of his staff that the valuation is to take six or seven years. The rate of progress is governed by the number of skilled professional valuers with local knowledge who are available for the work. I am not aware that the Commissioner of Valuation made any such statement as that referred to in his evidence in connection with the Dublin Corporation Act. The annual revisions form a small proportion of the number of cases to be examined, and even they have to be reexamined and brought up to date. The lists should be ready for issue at the end of 1912 or early in 1913.