PRINCE’S VISIT TO IRELAND.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17758, 30 January 1926, Page 8

PRINCE’S VISIT TO IRELAND.

MADE POSSIBLE BY RECENT AGREEMENT. (Special to the “Star.") LONDON, December 16. The Prince of Wales has signified his intention of accepting the invitation of the Ulster Government to visit Belfast next summer to lay the foun-dation-sjtone of the new House of Parliament at Stormont Castle, on the eastern outskirts of the city. In official circles in Belfast it is thought that the Prince will visit the Free State at the same time. The building of the Parliament House was stopped owing to the refusal of the British Treasury to advance the necessary money, the British Government being responsible under the Home Rule Act for the cost of the Parliament House. The new agreement, however, alters the whole situation. The settlement provided for a substantial payment by the British Government to the Ulster Government, the total including a sum sufficient to complete the new Parliament House, so that work can be resumed at once. In this way the building will be sufficiently advanced by the late spring or early summer to permit of the foundation stone being laid. It is understood in Belfast that the grant to the Ulster Government will run into several millions, and will include the cost, about a million and a quarter, of the Special Constabulary for* the present year, and a large sum in ,aid of the unemployment fund, which is now in debt to the extent ‘of three millions and a half. In addition, there ts a quarter of a million for the new Law Courts to be built in Belfast.