§ MR. T. A. DICKSONasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Whether the Land Commissioners have any discretion as to the time from which judicial rents shall commence; and, if not, whether tenants, whose cases are now ripe for hearing, but which, owing to the block in the Land Courts, must be indefinitely postponed, will have to pay their present rents until the gale day next following the decisions of the Courts, even if such decisions should not take place for several years to come?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)Sir, the Act in the second sub-section of the 8th section provides that the judicial rent shall be deemed to be the rent payable by the tenant from the period commencing at the rent day next succeeding 1946 the decision of the Court. Therefore, the Land Commissioners have no discretion as to the time of its commencement. There is, however, no reason to think that tenants whose cases are ripe for hearing will have these cases indefinitely postponed. On the contrary, it would appear from what has already been done, that very considerable progress will be speedily made in the 60,000 or 70,000 cases in which notices have been served. Therefore, it is not in the least likely that it will take several years to clear away the business that has already accumulated.
§ MR. T. A. DICKSONintimated that on a future day he would call attention to the subject, and endeavour to show that as regarded Tyrone and Mayo it was not possible for the decisions of the sub-Commissioners to reach the tenants for at least three years.