Captain CRAIGasked whether Mr. Patrick Scott, J.P., of Scribbagh Garrison, county Fermanagh, is the same person that has repeatedly been fined for drunkenness in Belleek Petty Sessions Court, in which he now adjudicates and elsewhere in the county; in particular he was so fined at Belleek in May, 1909, and at Enniskillen on the 29th November, 1910; and will he suggest to the Lord Chancellor of Ireland the desirability of relieving Mr. Scott of his duties as a justice?
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§ Mr. BIRRELLThe Lord Chancellor informs me that Mr. Patrick Scott is not in the ordinary Commission of the Peace, but became an ex-officio magistrate for the County Fermanagh in October, 1909, by virtue of his election to the office of chairman of the Ballyshannon No. 2 Rural District Council. On the 29th November, 1910, Mr. Scott was brought before a magistrate out of Petty Sessions at Ennis-killen, and was fined in the sum of 1s. on a charge of intoxication. That matter was reported to the Lord Chancellor, and, having considered the circumstances of the case, he did not consider it incumbent upon him to remove Mr. Scott from the magistracy. No other charge of intoxication appears to have been brought against Mr. Scott since he became a magistrate, and a conviction for intoxication prior to the election of the chairman of a council, and his becoming a magistrate, has never been regarded as a ground for interference.