§ MR. SEXTONasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, If it be true that, about a year ago, the Magistrates of Tyrone, assembled at the Omagh Quarter Sessions, resolved to form a new petty sessions district, comprising a number of town lands in the county of Tyrone, and a few in the county of Fermanagh, and having its court in the village of Dromore; that a court-house was accordingly erected at Dromore, and several petty sessions held there, but that the Court of Queen's Bench being appealed to on the subject, delivered a judgment quashing the whole proceedings, and declaring the establishment of the new petty sessions district void; if, since the intervention of the Queen's Bench Court, the Magistrates of Tyrone have refused to take back the village of Dromore, and the townlands assigned to the Dromore district, into the petty sessions district to which they formerly belonged, with the result that the inhabitants of that village and those town-lands have been left since the 3rd of April last without the ordinary service of the law; and, if he can assure the House that the Government will take steps to make amends to the district isolated by this conduct of the magistrates?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)Sir, in answer to the first part of the Question of the hon. Gentleman, it is a fact that the Chairman and Justices of the county Tyrone, assembled in Quarter Sessions, did form a new Petty Sessions district having its court-house in the village of Dromore, as stated. To form this district, they took a number of townlands from certain adjoining Petty Sessions districts of the county Tyrone and a few from the Petty Sessions district of Lack, in the county Fermanagh, declaring that all should together constitute the new Petty Sessions district of Dromore. The Court of Queen's Bench feeing appealed to by the Petty Sessions Clerk of Lack, has quashed not the whole proceedings, but, as I am informed, only so much of the Quarter Sessions order as purported to transfer the townlands belonging to the Lack district, in the county Fermanagh, leaving the order and constitution of the new district unaffected as to the rest. With regard to the second part of the Question, I am not aware of any application having been made to the Tyrone Justices to take back the village of Dromore and other townlands which still form parts of the Dromore district. They, as I understand, now constitute the Petty Sessions district of Dromore; and the Petty Sessions there held will, we hope, be found a convenience to the inhabitants. While the legal constitution of the district, as including the Lack townlands, was being litigated, it was thought prudent to suspend the holding of any Petty Sessions at Dromore; but now that the controversy has been decided and the true area of jurisdiction ascertained, the holding of Sessions will, I presume, be at once resumed.