§ Major KELLEYasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether civil servants withdrawn from Southern Ireland are to be pensioned or absorbed in the British Civil Service?
Mr. YOUNGThe Articles of Agreement for a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland provide for the payment of special terms of compensation to civil servants employed on Irish services who840W are discharged or retire in consequence of the establishment of the Irish Free State. The possibility of providing for the transfer of some such officers to Government employment in Great Britain has not been overlooked, but my hon. and gallant Friend will appreciate the difficulty of making arrangements of this kind at the present time, when the establishments of the Civil Service are in process of contraction. It would not be possible in any event to provide for transfer in more than a very few isolated cases; and I am afraid that at this stage I could not give an undertaking even to accomplish so much as that.