§ MR. DAVITTI beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland whether any such office as a county solicitor existed under the late grand jury system of local government in Ireland; if so, by what statute, or under what order or sanction of the Local Government Board, was such an office recognised as part of the executive machinery of the country?
§ THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON, Londonderry, N.)In the technical sense, there is no such office mentioned in the Grand Jury Acts as that of county solicitor, but the Grand Jury has power to retain a solicitor and to raise money to pay his costs. It has been the almost universal practice of the Irish Grand Juries to retain solicitors for the discharge of their legal business, and to treat that retainer as continuing during good behaviour. In framing the Local Government (Ireland) Act in analogy to the English Statute, the Government were guided by the practice which actually prevailed, and in that Act treated solicitors, poor rate collectors, and others as officers, though, in a strict legal sense, they were not there-before entitled to that position.