MR. P. O'BRIENOn behalf of the honourable Member for the St. Patrick Division of Dublin I beg to ask Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland whether he can say why John Reardon and Jeremiah Reardon, charged with shooting Patrick Connor at Waterville, and who were 289 returned for trial to the next following assizes for Kerry, which would have been the Winter Assize at Cork in December last, are detained for trial at the next Spring Assize in Tralee?
§ MR. ATKINSONThe prisoners were on the 2nd of September 1898 returned for trial to the next assizes for the County of Kerry. An application for bail was refused by the committing magistrates. On the 19th of September 1898 the prisoners were by order of the Queen's Bench admitted to bail. It is not customary, unless under very special circumstances, to put on trial at the Winter Assizes prisoners who are not in custody awaiting their trial but out on bail.