In connection with Question 10 on the Order Paper, I wish to state, for the information of the Deputies here, that an examination for the position of Clerk to the Dundalk District Court was held sometime in September, 1927, and after a lapse of a few weeks there were summoned here to Dublin, by the members of the Civil Service Appointments Commission, several of the candidates who sat for that examination. I submit that the natural inference from that fact alone should be that at least one of those candidates should have been selected for the position. There is another very significant fact in connection with this appointment. The Civil Service Appointments Commission did not make known the result of the examination, which was held in September, 1927, until February, 1928, a lapse of exactly six months. What is puzzling the people of Louth at the present moment is why this long delay was necessary in making this appointment. Again, the people of Louth feel that, in accordance with the terms governing this appointment, preference should have been given to those candidates who reside in the locality. They have, naturally, been disappointed on finding that the present occupant of the position hails from Arklow, Co. Wicklow, and I have yet to learn when Arklow became part and parcel of County Louth, according to the terms of the advertisement. Definite information has been given to me that the person appointed is an ex-member of the Civic Guard and, incidentally, I venture to remark that I am not imbued with any animus against members of the Civic Guard obtaining any public appointment. I have a special regard for the members of the Civic Guard in general. It has further been stated to me that while he was a member of the Civic Guard he received an injury which necessitated his retirement from the force. I am not giving this information as being definite, but I am giving it, and I hope the Minister for Justice will be able to say whether it is accurate or otherwise, and, if it is not accurate, I will at once withdraw the accusation.
I felt great satisfaction at the fact that the Civil Service Appointments Commissioners thought fit to make it one of the conditions governing this appointment that candidates should reside in the locality. I felt that from a human point of view. Fathers and mothers who raise boys to the age of twenty and twenty-one naturally do not like them to be compelled to leave the town or village in which they were born to seek a living elsewhere, even in their own country. They like to have them close to them, so that they will be under their ever-watchful eye. Consequently the people of Louth in general, were gratified that condition was inserted in the notice governing the appointment, but, to their consternation, after a lapse of six months they found that the person appointed not only did not comply with the terms governing the appointment, but actually at the time of his appointment resided in Arklow, Co. Wicklow.
It is further stated by several candidates who took part in that examination—I am giving the statement for what it is worth—that the person who occupies the position did not sit for his examination in the same room as the other candidates from County Louth. Several candidates who sat for the examination have twenty-five years' experience of legal work. One candidate in particular, as I mentioned in a supplementary question to the Minister for Justice, took a very high place in the examination for solicitors' apprentices, and I am convinced, as one who has received some sort of education and passed through the Intermediate in all its stages, that it would be an intellectual impossibility for an ex-member of the Civic Guard to obtain higher marks than this particular candidate in that examination. Consequently I ask the Minister for Justice to decide that the person who has been appointed to this position is not permanently appointed, and that he will, in the near future, if he is to restore the confidence of the people of the Saorstát in the equity and impartiality of those who constitute the Civil Service Commission, re-advertise the position of Clerk to the Dundalk District Court.