§ MR. REDMONDasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, If his attention has been called to the case of "Kavanagh Minors" in the High Court of Chancery in Ireland; whether it is a fact that the children in question, aged respectively 7, 5, and 4 years, were forcibly taken from their mother by the relatives of her deceased husband, and that on the 21st of December 1878 the Lord Chancellor appointed a guardian of the fortunes of the children, and ordered him to institute an action for the administration of the estate of their father, and further ordered that the matter of the custody of the children should be proceeded with concurrently in the Court of the Vice Chancellor; whether it is a fact that such matter respecting the custody of the children has never been proceeded with, and that, in consequence, the mother has been deprived of the custody of her children, not from any fault of her's, but because she is unable to incur the expense of repeated applications to the Court to compel the order of the Lord Chancellor to be complied with; and, whether he can take any steps to ensure that the mother shall be no longer deprived of the custody of her children to which she is by law entitled?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)The hon. Member must be aware that I have no special means of ascertaining whether the facts of the case referred to are as stated in the Question; and, even assuming the facts to be as they are stated, I must remind him that I have no means or power whatever of interfering in the matter.