Deputy Morrissey put a question to me to-day which I am now in a position to answer. The Deputy asked the President whether his attention had been called to the statement recently made by the British Minister for Home Affairs that the Irish Grants Committee is empowered to recommend grants or loans to refugees from Northern Ireland; whether he is aware of any branch of this committee sitting in Dublin which will consider applications from refugees, who are still unable to return home to Belfast and other places in the Six North Eastern Counties for grants or loans; and, if so, if he will state to whom should such applications be made.
The reply is: I am aware of the existence of an Irish Grants Committee, which I understand makes grants to persons alleged to have been forced to leave Ireland who are living in England, but there is no branch of this committee sitting in Dublin. The committee, so far as I am aware, deals only with the cases of persons who have fled from Ireland to England. Accommodation and relief were afforded to refugees from the Northern Area in the Saorstát, the work in this connection having been dealt with by a special section in the Department of Local Government and Public Health. A sum of £17,651 4s. 2d. was expended in this respect up to the 31st March, 1924. That sum was recouped, I understand, by the British Government.
