I move that the Bill be read a Second Time. The kernel of this Bill is, of course, in sub-section (2) of Section 3. The rest is merely an adaptation of existing machinery so as to give effect to the intention of the sub-section. The proposal is to extend the jury area for courts that sit in the City of Dublin to include the townships set out in the schedule of the Bill—Blackrock Urban District, Dalkey Urban District, Dun Laoghaire Urban District, Howth Urban District, Killiney and Ballybrack Urban Districts, Pembroke, Rathmines and Rathgar Urban District. The effect of that will be approximately to double the numbers available for jury service. There are in the City of Dublin 5,440 male jurors. In the entire county there are 7,630. Of those 2,900 are rural. There are 630 in Howth and Dun Laoghaire and in the suburbs of Dublin—Rathmines, Pembroke and Rathgar—there are 4,100. Roughly the effect of the Bill will be to double the number of male jurors available for service in the courts. In addition there are women jurors who hardly ever serve, 620 in the city and 1,480 in the Co. Dublin— total, 2,100. The case for the proposal I think is one that does not need to be stressed or over-elaborated very much.
It is I think common knowledge that the establishment of the Central Criminal Court has thrown an additional burden on the jurors here in the city. Now that, like many things, has of course been exaggerated. Some people have written and spoken as if the Dublin citizen spent most of his time in the jury boxes. That of course is not the case. But it is true and likely to remain true that jurors in and around the City of Dublin have been called upon much more frequently than jurors in the counties throughout the State, and this extension seems a reasonable one. When you remember for instance, that at present a citizen living in Lower Baggot Street is a city juror and liable for service, while citizens in Upper Baggot Street are in the county and not hitherto liable for service the case for the Bill will be better understood. There is, of course, very little justification for that difference except the accident that the county line came in and generally speaking it will mean that the difference between the man in the city area and the man who is being brought in on the proposal embodied in this Bill, might be defined in terms of an addition of a penny or two-pence in the tram.
It is not proposed to take in the entire county for jury service in the city courts. It is not proposed to take in the rural areas and one reason for that would be that of course the consideration of convenient transport to town would not apply to anything like the same extent as it applies in the case of people living along the tram line in the townships. This proposal here was meant to be one of many proposals in connection with the general question of juries and jurors, but because a more comprehensive measure has been crowded out and cannot be taken up until November, I was anxious to get this special relief for the Dublin jurors through if possible before the adjournment of the Oireachtas.