MR. O'KEEFFE (Limerick City), asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If Colonel Perse, R.M., was fined 5s. and costs by a full Bench of the City Magistrates for an illegal trespass committed by him on the Mechanics' Institute, at Limerick, on November 23 last; whether the local magistrates on the said conviction granted a case stated; and, whether such conviction was quashed by the Queen's Bench on technical grounds, that the summons did not come under the 8th section of the Summary Jurisdiction Act (Ireland), although affirming that Colonel Perse had no legal right to enter said premises?
§ THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR) (Manchester, E.)The facts are as stated in the first and second paragraphs of the Question. I have no official Report of the Judgment of the Queen's Bench; but from the reports published in the Press it appears that the conviction was reversed on the ground that the action complained of did not constitute an offence under the Act referred to.