§ Mr. GINNELLasked the Secretary to the Treasury the net amount deducted, and not subsequently made good, from the share of each county and county borough council in Ireland in the Estate Duty and agricultural Grants in respect of land purchase liabilities from 1st. November, 1903, to 31st March, 1914; and the net amount deducted, and not subsequently made good, from the Grants payable to, or on behalf of, each local body in Ireland, rural and urban, subject to such deductions in respect of land purchase liabilities, for the same period, with the total net less for the whole of Ireland, which has had to be met out of the rates?
§ Mr. BIRRELLThe required information in respect of each Vocal body in Ireland for the years 1906 to 1913 will be found in the Annual Reports of the Local Government Board for that period. The figures for the period from 1st November, 1903, to 31st March, 1905, are not readily available, and their preparation would involve an amount of labour out of proportion to their utility.
§ Mr. GINNELLasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland if he will give the names of the estates in Westmeath now before the Estates Commissioners in their different registers, respectively, for sale, with, in each case, the number of tenants, the estimated area of untenanted land comprised, the date on which the official proceedings were initiated, and the probable date of vesting and commencement of purchase annuities, assuming the average rate of progress in the last five years to be maintained?
§ Mr. BIRRELLThe different registers showing the priority of estates the subject of proceedings for sale before the Estates Commissioners under the Irish Lind Acts, 1903–9 are prepared in accord-1638W ance with the regulations issued under Section 23 of the Act of 1903 and Section 4 of the Act of 1909. The Estates on these registers, which are open to inspection at the offices of the Commissioners, are not classified according to counties. A number of these estates have not yet been dealt with, and some of the details asked for have not, therefore, been abstracted. In any event it would not be possible, at this stage of the proceedings, to make any reliable estimate of the dates asked for in the concluding part of the question.
§ Mr. FETHERSTONHAUGHasked the Chief Secretary whether Patrick Campbell was evicted from the lands of Knockaven on the Ely estate, county Fermanagh, and was one of the evicted tenants who it was agreed on the sale of the estate should be reinstated; why was he not so reinstated in the whole of his holding, but a part, for which a mart named Magee paid him £2 a year conacre rent, taken from the holding; and will the Estates Commissioners see that this part is restored or an equivalent portion of land given to Campbell?
§ Mr. BIRRELLThe reply to the first paragraph of the question is in the affirmative. This estate was sold by the owner direct to the tenants at prices agreed upon between the parties, and the Estates Commissioners were not parties to the terms of the sale. Campbell has been reinstated as a purchaser in his former holding, with the exception of a small plot, of 1 rood or thereabouts, which has been in the occupation of another tenant for over twenty years, and with whom the Commissioners have no power to interfere, even if they wished to do so. The reply to the concluding portion of the question is in the negative.