I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time".
The object of this Bill is to enable part of the funds of suitors vested in the Accountant of the Courts of Justice to be withdrawn and applied towards the cost of carrying out repair and renovation work which is essential for the preservation of the Kings Inns building in Henrietta Street, Dublin.
The funds of suitors are the cash and securities belonging to suitors and other persons which have been transferred to or paid into or deposited with the High Court. These funds include the unclaimed dividends and balances to the credit of suitors and estates carried down for at least two centuries. In the ordinary way these funds may be used only for the benefit of those entitled to them. However, part of the funds is represented by unclaimed dividends and balances which have been accumulating over a long period. These are known as dormant funds and may be defined more precisely as balances in accounts in the funds of suitors which have not been active for 15 years or more. The funds of suitors are under the control of the High Court and subject to that control, are managed by and stand in the name of, the Accountant of the Courts of Justice.
The total liability of the Accountant in respect of funds of suitors on 30 September 1980—the latest date for which there are published figures—was just over £49,505,000. Assets held by the Accountant, consisting of cash and securities, amounted to £48,227,000 on that date. The difference between the amount of liabilities and assets on hands on 30 September 1980 — £1,278,000 — represents the aggregate of the moneys which have been withdrawn from the funds of suitors over the past 200 years under the authority of various Acts of the Parliament of Ireland, the Parliament of the United Kingdom and the Oireachtas. All these Acts indemnified suitors for any loss which they might sustain by reason of the withdrawals, and these indemnities are backed by the Central Fund. Another way of saying this is that a portion of the funds of suitors, at present amounting to £1,278,180, is not represented by cash or securities held by the Accountant, but simply by the liability of the Central Fund to indemnify suitors against any loss up to that amount.
Moneys withdrawn from the funds of suitors under Acts passed before the establishment of the Oireachtas, were applied for such purposes as building and improving the Courts of Justice and enlarging the Law Library. Coming up to modern times, withdrawals from the funds were authorised by the Oireachtas in 1959, 1963 and in 1966 as follows:
—The Funds of Suitors Act, 1959 enabled a total of £323,000 to be withdrawn for three purposes, namely, to provide assistance towards the rebuilding of the Abbey Theatre, to finance repair and renovation of the buildings of the society of Kings Inns and to provide for the creation of a fund for the maintenance of the Society's Library.
—The Funds of Suitors Act, 1963 authorised the release of a sum of £50,000 to help finance the rebuilding of the Cork Opera House.
—The Funds of Suitors Act, 1966 authorised the release of £450,000 to help finance the cost of rebuilding the Abbey Theatre and the completion of the Cork Opera House.
As I have mentioned, the total of the sums withdrawn to date from the funds of suitors is £1,278,000. There remained, on 31 December 1981 in the dormant accounts assets consisting of £864,000 cash and securities nominally valued at £1,583,000 — market value £1,363,000. The yield from the securities is adding to the cash balances in the dormant accounts at a rate of about £184,000 per annum at present.