MR. SULLIVANasked Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland, If the attention of the Government has been called to the fact that, notwithstanding section 12 of 499 the Act 37th and 38th Vic. c. 69, under which the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was empowered, by Order in the Dublin Gazette, to appoint one of the ordinary-quarter sessions to be the annual licensing sessions, and, notwithstanding such order having been made, fixing the Michaelmas Sessions, held in October, as such annual licensing sessions, the clerk of the peace for the City of Dublin has issued a notice for the ordinary quarterly licensing sessions to be held for the City of Dublin on the 10th April next; and, if the Government intend to take any steps to ensure that the provisions of the Licensing Act in this respect shall be complied with?
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PLUNKET)Sir, I am informed that the only public document issued by the Clerk of the Peace for the City of Dublin, as to the granting of licences at the April Quarter Sessions, is a list of persons intending to apply for licences on that occasion. By the 12th section of the Intoxicating Liquors (Ireland) Act of last Session, an authority is reserved to the Recorder to grant provisional licences at any General Quarter Sessions, in such cases as shall seem fit to him. I am certain that the learned Recorder of Dublin will exercise this discretion in accordance with law, and it is not the intention of the Government to interfere.