Mr. Archer told me on the telephone this morning that, with a view to relieving the congestion at the British Permit Office in Dublin which always began about the spring and continued throughout the summer, his authorities proposed, subject to our concurrence, to open a Branch Permit Office in some town in the west of Ireland. The town they had in mind was Limerick. If we had no objection, Mr. Savage¹ would communicate with the Board of Works and ask them to look out for suitable premises and do them up.

I told Mr. Archer that we would prefer to speak to other Departments before expressing a view. I asked him why they had chosen Limerick instead of some centre such as, for example, Sligo, which would be nearer to the areas of seasonal migration. Mr. Archer said that they thought that from Limerick they could cover the area including Kerry, Clare, Tipperary, etc. The seasonal migration was only a question of volume; migration from the other areas presented more difficulty because questions of 'quality' were involved. Of course, if we had any other place to suggest, he was sure that his authorities would be prepared to fall in with our views. I told Mr. Archer I would let him know.