THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEmoved for
Return of the Number of Civil Bills and of Ejectments, and the Defences to them, Entered and Tried at the different Courts of Quarter Sessions of Ireland respectively, commencing with the Easter Sessions of 1856 to the Hilary Sessions of 1861, both inclusive; showing also the Number of Appeals to Courts of Assizes from the Decisions of the Chairman of Quarter Sessions, and the Number of such Decisions Reversed or Confirmed at each Assizes: Also,Return of the Number of Felonies and Misdemeanours Tried at each Quarter Sessions, and of Convictions or Acquittals, within the same period: And also,Return of the Number of Appeals from the Decisions of Magistrates, and of the Insolvent Cases Heard at each Quarter Sessions; and to call attention to the Report of the Office of Registry of Deeds,The noble Marquess said, that the information which these Returns, if produced, would afford, was necessary to enable Parliament to legislate hereafter with effect on the subject of these Courts. A greater amount of business was now transacted, and transacted in a satisfactory manner, in the Quarter Sessions Courts of Ireland than the public was aware of. It was desirable, however, to improve the character and add to the efficiency of those tribunals; but he did not expect that such a change could be attended with greater economy to the suitor or to the public. There was another matter so urgent that he must earnestly press it upon the immediate attention of the Government. Not a day ought to be lost in dealing with the Registration Office in the city of Dublin. The state of things existing in that office, as disclosed in an official Report presented last April, was quite appalling. Nothing could exceed the utter confusion which prevailed in that important department of the judicial administration of the country. In the Office there were 800 volumes which were totally useless, and other ten volumes had been lost. These evils could not have arisen from the want of due assistance, because in the indexing branch of that Office alone there was a larger staff employed than the whole staff of the Registration Office of the county of Middlesex, where, moreover the number of deeds were half as many again as the deeds in the Registration Office in Dublin for all Ireland. This Office ought, in his opinion, to be placed under the superintendence of the Irish Landed Estates Court, or of some 1875 one of the other great Courts in Dublin; and he trusted that the Government would turn its earliest and most careful attention to this subject, with a view to legislation upon it at the beginning of next Session.
§ LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYsaid, there was no objection whatever to the production of these Returns. In the absence of all his colleagues immediately connected with Ireland, he could only assure the noble Marquess that his observations respecting the state of the Registry Office in Dublin were deserving of the best consideration of the Government. The existence of the Landed Estates Court in Ireland rendered it all the more necessary and important that the office for the registration of deeds should be in a satisfactory condition.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ Afterwards—
§ LORD STANLEY of ALDERLEYsaid, that since be had answered the question of the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Clanricarde), he had received an intimation that it was the intention of the Government to issue such an inquiry as the noble Marquess had advocated, with the object of discovering whether any improvement could be effected in the department.