This Vote, like the High Court Vote, is the last of the old series, and, to a considerable extent, it is simply imposed on us by the existing law and must undergo considerable changes as soon as the Court Officers Bill comes into operation. The amount is practically the same as last year. It is worth, perhaps, drawing attention to that, though the Estimate is properly an estimate for staff, it is swelled by a sum of £2,550 (item 10, under sub-head A), being the estimated cost of one assistant circuit judge for the whole twelve months, that is £1,700, and another for six months, £850. At present there are two assistants, Mr. Piggott, K.C., in Dublin, assisting Judge Drumgoole, and Mr. Roche, K.C., in Circuit No. 5, assisting Judge Wakely. So far as we can see at present, both of these gentlemen will have to be retained for the whole year, though perhaps not in the circuits in which they are at present assisting. I find that in Donegal there are heavy arrears, mostly compensation work, and that some assistance may be necessary there to get the volume of work down to what might be regarded as normal.
On the general question as to whether there is need for an increase in the number of Circuit Judges, I have not yet formed any firm opinion. There was, of course, a great volume of work for these courts arising out of the disturbed period of the past, a great many compensation cases, for instance, and I would like a longer period of observation before coming to a firm opinion on the question of whether or not the number of Circuit Judges fixed by the Act is in fact adequate and would prove to be adequate even when the volume of work had subsided to something which could be regarded as normal. As I say, I do not want to prejudice the matter one way or another just now. We are not taking the position to the Dáil at the moment that the number fixed by the Act is inadequate. Item No. 9 under sub-head A, "Remuneration of Criers to Circuit Judges," is simply an intelligent anticipation of a charge which may have to be borne by the State, as soon as the Court Officers Bill becomes law. At present these men are not paid anything by the State. They are paid small sums by the county councils, under the old county court law. As yet we have not arrived at any definite understanding with the Department of Finance as to what they are to get. A thousand pounds would represent £125 each to eight of them. There will be one to each Circuit Judge. Probably what will be done will be to allow each judge to pick his own man—they are really more in the nature of personal servants than public officials—and to give the judge an allowance of about £125 towards retaining the man. There is a corresponding item of £500 to cover the travelling expenses of these men. It will be found in sub-head C, No. 4, That again is simply largely guesswork. Expenses of this kind were never paid before, and we can only try to approximate to what they will amount to. The figure given is about one-fifth of the corresponding figure for the judges themselves. That will be found in No. 1, sub-head C. The item of £210 under sub-head D is the salary which is prescribed under the old statute mentioned opposite the item for the gentleman in question. The work has dwindled down to nothing owing to the simplicity of modern law as against the old. But the salary has to be paid and will have to be paid until the Act is repealed. Probably then there will be a question of compensation of some kind for the abolition of the office. Under sub-head A it will be noted that the salary for the Clerk of the Crown and Peace in Dublin is on the new and more economic scale that will be paid in future to County Registrars. A vacancy in that position occurred early in 1924. The new occupant accepted the post at this salary, which represents a saving to the State of about £1,000 per annum. A similar change has taken place since this Estimate was prepared in County Kerry. The new occupant of the post there has a Civil Service salary of £850, plus bonus. That would amount to about £1,100 instead of the old salary which amounted to about £300 more than that. There will be similar reductions in every county according as the old officials retire. On the other hand, the cost of clerical assistance set out under sub-head B is bound to go up when we take over the staffs under the Court Officers Bill, not merely because the work of the Circuit Court is heavier in fact than the work of the old county court, but also because the present lump sum method is always cheaper than the stated salary method. It is sometimes rather cruelly cheap, and in fact it is because it was cruelly cheap that we are departing from it. Men were doing a great deal of work in these offices for salaries that were really not adequate remuneration at all.
