HC Deb 01 April 1901 vol 92 cc367-8
MR. FLYNN

I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland whether his attention has been called to the proceedings at the Monaghan Quarter Sessions on the 26th instant, at which Mr. W. K. Leslie, agent of the Earl of Dartrey, applied for a licence for promises in the townland of Drumgoole; can he state if these are the same premises respecting which an application for licence was refused at a petty sessions court, and such refusal confirmed subsequently by the Court of King's Bench; is he aware that the county court judge and forty magistrates constituted the court of quarter sessions; and can he state how many of these magistrates were entitled under the terms of their appointment to sit at Monaghan Sessions as being the district for which they were appointee justices of the peace.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON,) Londonderry, N.

The reply to the question in the first paragraph is in the affirmative. The former application to the justices was for a transfer of the old licence; the latter for the grant of a new licence. The application to the King's Bench Division was for a certiorari to quash the order of the magistrates on the ground that it was made without jurisdiction, and the only question decided by that court was that the justices had jurisdiction to make the order, but no opinion was expressed upon the justice or propriety of their decisions on the facts. The undertaking required from magisstrates to act within particular districts applies to petty, not quarter sessions, and has no application to these proceedings.

MR. FLYNN

Is it not most unusual and irregular for magistrates to adjudicate outside their own district?

MR. ATKINSON

There was nothing irregular in this case.

AN HON. MEMBER

Is this the Mr. Leslie who for months has been carrying on a shebeen with the consent of Dublin Castle?

[No answer was returned.]

MR. O'DOHERTY

Will the right hon. Gentleman give the Members for Ireland some assurance that such a gross injustice shall not—

* MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER

Order, order!

MR. FLYNN

Will the attention of the Lord Chamberlain be drawn to the fact that forty magistrates came over from England to adjudicate in this case?

MR. O'DOHERTY

Are these magisstrates allowed to adjudicate all over Ireland?

[No answer was returned.]