asked the Chief Secretary whether the attention of the Local Government Board has been called to the complaint of the Fermoy Board of Guardians as to the deportation to Ireland of an American citizen named Martin Haire, suffering from mental breakdown, who has become a burden on the rate- payers, and is alleged to have been landed at Queenstown by an official of the Government of the United States, where he had been residing seventeen years subsequent to naturalisation; if inquiries will be made by the British Ambassador into the allegation that American citizens mentally afflicted are sent back to burden the ratepayers of Ireland after they have given years of labour to the country of their adoption; will he inquire by what vessel Martin Haire and four other persons similarly afflicted were dispatched to Ireland; and whether the Government will consider whether the law could be altered so as to make it illegal for the commanders of passenger vessels to dump lunatics at Queenstown to become a charge on Irish ratepayers?

The Local Government Board have received a resolution from the Fermoy Board of Guardians on this subject. The Board, however, do not appear to have any power to interfere in the case. The matter will be further inquired into and considered by the Government.