—in the legal record, note should be taken of them. We have a greater knowledge now and persuasive decisions by, for example, the Master of the Rolls, in a specific case to which I intend to refer. It was a judgment of the Master of the Rolls delivered in the High Court of Judicature in Ireland on 2 June 1888 and resolves all the contentions, in the opinion of senior legal advisers to the college. The case concerned a dispute between Trinity College Dublin and the Senate of the University of Dublin concerning a request by the late Richard Reid, a law graduate of Trinity College, who had left a substantial bequest to "The Corporation of the University of Dublin", a rather ham-fisted concoction. This bequest eventually funded the Reid Professorship of Law in Trinity, of whom two Presidents of Ireland have been the holders, Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese, our current President. It also funded sizarships for the special benefit of students from County Kerry, the county of birth of the late Mr. Reid, and among the beneficiaries of those was Brendan Kennelly, one of my teachers.
The judgment was delivered by Sir Andrew Maxwell Porter on 2 June 1888 in legal proceedings between Trinity College Dublin and the Senate of the University of Dublin, that a bequest to the Corporation of the University of Dublin was a bequest to Trinity College Dublin and not to the Senate of the University of Dublin. The Master of the Rolls determined that Trinity College Dublin and the University of Dublin were inseparable and founded under the same charters and letters patent. That could not possibly be clearer. This is the leading, established and persuasive judgment in the matter, and there is nothing to challenge it. If the Progressive Democrats are honourably seeking a clarification, they now have it.
Trinity College Dublin and the University of Dublin are both incorporated under the foundation charter and Trinity College Dublin can speak for the University of Dublin. The joint committee said it wanted further information and research. It now has it and one element of it is blaming the messenger for producing the persuasive argument which I have placed on the record of the House.
Counsel's researchers have unearthed the only reserved judgment of the Irish Superior Courts dealing with the relationship between Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin and the Senate of the University of Dublin. The case concerned, as I have already said, a substantial bequest by a Mr. Richard Touhill Reid. The Master of the Rolls, in a judgment given on 2 June 1888 determined the issue conclusively in favour of Trinity College. There was no appeal to the Court of Appeal. The full title of the proceedings was The Provost, Fellows and Scholars of Trinity College Dublin v. the Attorney General, the Chancellors, Doctors and Masters of the University of Dublin and the Trustees and Executors of the Will of the late Richard Touhill Reid. The judgment was never reported in any series of law reports, nor is it referred to in the many histories of the college.
I apologise if this causes confusion but it was an unrecorded judgment, a little forgotten nugget. Thank God it has been found, and I congratulate those who found it because there is no question whatever that it is the determining authority in this case. We have heard truth invoked, we have heard the legal precedent and now I have placed it on the record.
My Fianna Fáil colleagues have been told that this is a free vote. They have been told that no arrangements have been made. They have now been placed in possession of the truth and I am asking them, as one of the three representatives of the University of Dublin and with the full sanction and authority of the Provost of Trinity College, Dr. Thomas Mitchell, who is here in the Chamber, and of the Secretary of the College, Michael Gleeson, who is also here, what are we at if we are going to contradict legal authority, legal precedent and the overwhelming body of the university with the support of our distinguished colleagues from University College, Dublin?
The High Court held that a bequest to the Corporation of the University of Dublin be vested in Trinity College Dublin and not in the Senate of the University of Dublin. The plaintiffs were the provost, fellows and scholars of Trinity College Dublin. The first named defendant was joined as the proceedings concerned a charitable trust and the Attorney General has an ancient jurisdiction concerning charitable trusts which require his joinder to any such proceedings. The second defendant was the Senate of the University of Dublin, sued under the title contained in the supplemental letters patent of 1857, and the third defendant was the trustees of the estate of Richard Touhill Reid which had left a substantial bequest to found a professorship of law and also sizarships.
The Master of the Rolls, in considering the charters down to the supplemental letters patent of 1857, determined that there was no difference or distinction between the University of Dublin and Trinity College Dublin. The Master of the Rolls cited the charter in Latin, including a series of sentences that refer to the foundation of the college—