MR. O'BRIENasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Whether his attention has been called to a summons heard before Captain Hatchell, R.M. at the Glin (county Limerick) petty sessions, on July the 12th, as to which a number of fishermen were fined for trespassing on a passage to the beach; whether he is aware that the case made for the fishermen was that they only passed over a fence erected a few years ago by the landlord, to bar a public right of passage to an important salmon fishery, which right of way the fisherman had until then enjoyed, and which was recognized by the Board of Works at the time of the erection of the Fishery Pier in 1876, when the passage was left open; whether the magistrates allowed the landlord to controvert the defendants' case by reference to documentary proof of his title; whether they undertook to decide for themselves the question of title thus raised, and, notwithstanding the protest of the defendants' solicitor, declined to make the fines of an amount that would entitle the defendants to appeal to the Supreme Courts; and, whether magistrates are warranted by Law in ruling summarily an important public dispute as to title?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER), in reply, said, his attention had been drawn to this matter only by the Question of the hon. Member. He would, therefore, ask him to postpone it, though he might say there was nothing to be gained by inquiry. The matter was one over which neither he nor the Government had any control. If the magistrates had done wrong, which he was very far from 1896 asserting, the aggrieved person had a legal remedy.