MR. PATRICK O'BRIENI beg to ask the Attorney General for Ireland whether he is aware that the matter of the Grand Jury of the county Kilkenny having given away a printing contract for seven years without having advertised for tenders, was brought before the last Judge of Assize, Mr. Justice Johnston, by counsel on behalf of certain cesspayers, and that his Lordship decided that he could not allow the case to be gone into because the contract was fiated by the Lord Chief Justice at the previous Spring Assizes; whether he will inquire if the Lord Chief Justice was fully informed of the illegal way the contract was made, without advertising for tenders, by the Kilkenny County Grand Jury, before he fiated the presentment; and, whether there is any remedy by which the county cesspayers can undo the arrangement which binds them for seven years to pay for a contract at prices which they believe unjust, fixed without their knowledge or consent, and without the economic safeguard of public advertisement for public tender?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. J. ATKINSON,) Londonderry, N.The printing contract for the county Kilkenny was made by the Grand Jury at the Spring Assizes, 1896, for the sum of £300 per annum for seven years, it being the lowest of two tenders put in. The amount is practically the same as that contracted for for many years back. The effect of advertising 1036 over the whole of Ireland on a previous occasion failed to bring in tenders as low as this. The presentments were fiated in open Court in the usual public manner, and it was open to any cesspayer then to object and traverse the presentment, but no objection having been made, the Lord Chief Justice fiated the presentment. The whole of the facts were laid before Mr. Justice Johnston at the Summer Assizes, 1896, and he refused to hear the traverse, stating that he was very doubtful if an appeal to the Queen's Bench would be successful. On the 13th April last, the hon. Member was informed, in reply to a question put by him on that date, that there was some doubt, owing to a decision delivered many years ago, whether Grand Juries are bound to advertise for tenders for printing. They are undoubtedly bound to do so in the case of all other contracts. I have several times stated to the House, in reply to the questions of hon. Members that the Government have no control over or responsibility for the action of the Grand Jury in such matters.