To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that some seventy tenants on the Sir Thomas Finlay estate, in Chancery, near Bawnboy, who bought their holdings under the Ashbourne Act at sixteen and eighteen years purchase, have had to be sued subsequently for their annuities; is he aware that it is now proposed to sell the balance of the agricultural portion of this estate at twenty-three years purchase, and the village of Bawnboy portion of the estate at thirty years purchase; and will he, in view of the fall in price of farm products owing to increasing foreign competition and the increased cost of labour, have the terms of this sale reviewed so as to prevent the fixing of annuities on a basis that could not be met.

I am informed that out of seventy-seven tenant purchasers on the estate referred to only six have had to be sued for the recovery of their instalments. As regards the portion of the estate which has not yet been sold, the Estates Commissioners inform me that no proceedings for sale have yet been instituted before them, and they have no knowledge of any negotiations for sale which may in progress.