§ Mr. NEWMANasked the Chief Secretary if he is aware that Mr. James Timothy 1986W O'Connor, of Killarney, county Kerry, was at one time the chairman of the Killarney Urban District Council, and, as such, an ex-officio justice of the peace for the county of Kerry, and that Mr. James Timothy O'Connor was disqualified from being a member of the Killarney Urban District Council by reason of his being concerned in a contract then subsisting with the said Killarney Urban District Council, and that the disqualification lasted for seven years; will he state the date oil which Mr. O'Connor was disqualified; and whether, during the period of disqualification, he was appointed upon the responsibility of the Government to be a justice of the peace for the county of Kerry; and will he state the exact date of his appointment and what inquiries were made by the Government before they appointed Mr. O'Connor to be a justice of the peace upon their own responsibility?
§ Mr. BIRRELLThe Lord Chancellor informs me that the facts are as stated in the first paragraph of the question. In 1904 Mr. James T. O'Connor became disqualified from acting as an urban councillor by reason of his being surety for a contractor to the council. This did not disqualify him from being appointed as an ordinary magistrate. On 7th June, 1907, he was appointed to the ordinary magistracy by the late Lord Chancellor, on his own responsibility. It is contrary to the practice to state the nature of the inquiries or the sources of the Lord Chancellor's information in such cases.