§ MR. FLYNNI beg to ask the Attorney General for Ireland whether, under the Local Registration of Titles (Ireland) Bill, parties are bound to register all dealings relative to land with the Clerks of the Crown and Peace; whether these officials are now bound to attend to all their official duties in person, including regular attendance at the Quarter Sessions, as 1137 also at the different Assizes held throughout the year; whether some of these officials (some 8 or 10), are now between the ages of 70 and 80; and, under all the circumstances connected with these offices, whether these officials are bound by Clause 10 of the Privy Council Order, which appeared in the London Gazette of 19th August last, which requires all Civil Servants to retire from the Public Service after they have attained the age of 65 years?
§ MR. MADDENNo doubt very important duties are cast upon the Clerks of the Crown and Peace by the Local Registration of Titles Bill, which now awaits the Royal Assent. Since I introduced that measure more than two years ago I have had the advantage of conferences with a representative committee and with individual members of that body, and I have the satisfaction of knowing that the Clerks of the Crown and Peace are as a body entirely in sympathy with the Bill and thoroughly capable of working its provisions, under the direction and control of the Land Judge and the central registering authority. It does not rest with me, or with the Irish Government, to determine the question suggested in the fourth paragraph, but I may say that provision is made in the Bill for the exceptional instances in which the Clerk of the Crown and Peace is from any cause not qualified to discharge the duties of local registering authority, in which ease the Lord Chancellor is empowered to intrust the management of the office, for the time being, to a duly-qualified local solicitor.