HC Deb 31 March 1885 vol 296 cc1088-9
MR. HARRINGTON

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If he is aware of the serious inconvenience caused to a large number of tenants in the county of Kerry by the great delay in the hearing of appeals from the decisions of the Sub-Commissions; whether, at the last sitting of the Head Commission in Killarney, not a single case from the Unions of Tralee and Killarney was heard, though a great many have been pending for two years; whether the tenants concerned, in a large number of these cases, attended with their witnesses at Killarney for more than a week at great expense; whether a promise made by Judge O'Hagan to hold another sitting in Killarney early in the summer has not been kept, inasmuch as the official list of fixtures up to August makes no reference to Kerry; and, whether a remedy will be provided for this state of things, which presses so hardly on the tenants?

MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN

I have just received a telegram from the Land Commissioners, which I will read in reply to this Question— It is the case that the Land Commissioners were unable from want of time to finish the cases listed for hearing at Killarney at the last sitting there in December, and the cases from the Unions of Tralee and Killarney remained unheard. Only two of the cases from these Unions had been pending for two years at the date of the last sitting. The Commissioners, as a rule, put at the end of the list the districts nearest to the place of sitting, so that if a postponement of some of the cases should become inevitable the least degree of inconvenience may be occasioned. They, therefore, think it improbable that tenants and their witnesses from places so accessible as the Unions of Tralee and Killarney remained in the town of Killarney for a week with the witnesses. Mr. Justice O'Hagan did not promise to hold another sitting in Killarney early in the summer. The official list of hearings fixed in the several parts of Ireland up to August referred to in the Question had been issued before the Killarney sitting in December took place, and have since remained unchanged. What Mr. Justice O'Hagan did say was that the Commissioners would, after having gone through the hearings at the several places named in the list, go in August and hear the cases not heard in the County Kerry, and this the Commissioners intend to do, though it may encroach upon the vacation.