MR. PATRICK O'BRIENI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, having regard to the number of cases both in England and Ireland in recent years in which life sentences have been dealt with as if they were for a term of twenty years, and to the fact that convicts under life sentences have been released upon the expiration of fifteen years imprisonment, whether he will advise His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to treat with like clemency prisoners like Finigan and Muldowney, now confined in Mountjoy and Maryborough prisons, each of whom has been confined for about eighteen years.
§ MR. WYNDHAMThe exercise of the prerogative of mercy is vested in the Lord Lieutenant, and it would be entirely outside my province to advise him as suggested in the question. Any fresh representations, if they can be urged, in favour of a mitigation of the sentence on the two convicts named should be addressed in the usual way to the Lord Lieutenant.
§ MR. WYNDHAMI fancy that in both countries the prerogative is only exercised by the constituted authority.