Colonel NEWMANasked the Chief Secretary what provision has been made for the payment of superannuation allowances to Poor Law and rural district council officers and officers of other local authorities in Ireland, whose scale of pensions has been sanctioned by the Local Government Board for Ireland prior to the Treaty; what is to be done in the case of recalcitrant local authorities who have declined or failed to recognise the sealed orders of the Irish Local Government Board, and consequently have left these ex-officers without any means of existence for themselves and their families; and whether he will see that these officers will at once be paid out of the local Grants-in-Aid the amounts due to them to date as superannuation allowances?
§ Mr. CHURCHILLI would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the statement on this subject made by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland in the course of the Debate on Supplementary Estimates on the 24th February last and also to the reply which I gave to the hon. and learned Member for York (Sir J. Butcher) on the 14th February last on the subject of rate-collectors. Suitable arrangements are being made for the payment of pensions to the persons referred to in the hon. and gallant Member's question; but I am not in a position to furnish more precise information at present.