I beg to move the adoption of the Estimate of one hundred thousand eight hundred and seventy-five pounds required in the year ending 31st March, 1923, to defray the salaries, allowances, and expenses of various County Court Officers and of Magistrates, bonus to Chairmen of Quarter Sessions and Recorders, and to Clerks of the Crown and Peace, and the expenses of revision.
DAIL IN COMMITTEE. ESTIMATES. - COUNTY COURT OFFICERS.
I would like to know from the Minister for Finance does he include in this Estimate, Registrars of the Irish Courts which sat from 1917 up to the time of the Truce? Is it his intention to give them superannuation or something by way of gratuity the same as it is the intention of the Government to give to Petty Sessions Clerks? I see here in the Estimate that magistrates' salaries amount to £24,000, allowances £1,700, and travelling expenses £500. I wish to know whether any allowance is made for the magistrates who acted as Justices of the Peace in the Parish and Districts Courts from 1917, or is he only making allowance for magistrates who acted in the enemy courts all the time? I think it is the duty of the Government to recompense especially those Registrars of the Courts who have acted all over the country, and who for the greater portion of that period of over three years carried their lives in their hands. It was absolutely essential at the time to have these men, and I am sure that 95 per cent. of them never received one penny in salary or wages or for travelling expenses. A great many of these men, the Justices of the Peace as well as the Registrars, were a lot of money out-of-pocket, and I hope the Government will recognise this and will do something either by way of superannuation or allowance or gratuity to recompense them for the time and money they lost in the services of the country.
I would like an assurance from the Minister that the ex-British Justices will not be allowed to supersede the Justices appointed and who are to be responsible for the administration of justice in this country. There is a very strong feeling in the country on this matter. I believe some of the new Justices are considering whether the old Justices are eligible to sign summonses. The Justices appointed in the last two or three years by the people have the confidence of the people, and they made sacrifices for the country, and they ought not now to be thrust aside by the old garrison, and I hope that the Minister for Home Affairs will give instructions accordingly. The people will not allow the powers of administration to slip back into the hands of the old Tory Justices. I think we ought to keep the administration of the law in the hands of the people and not allow it to slip back to where it was heretofore.
The old magistrates who received Commissions of the peace from the British will not be continued in office, and are not expected at the moment to perform any function pertaining to their office. There are certain legal technical difficulties in the way of actually at the moment depriving them of their commissions, and if here and there certain people holding these commissions functioned or attempted to function it was not in accordance with the spirit or intention or wishes of the present administration. Is that clear? Now steps will be taken to make that even legally and technically impossible. With regard to those who receive the commission to act as Parish Justices and who went in and acted under the Dáil the same thing applies. They have not at the moment authority to function. The particular Courts with which they were associated have been disbanded. There is no such thing at the moment as an Honorary Magistrate. There have been salaried District Justices appointed and sent out from the Government to administer the ordinary summary jurisdiction which was exercised in the past by Justices of the Peace. They have no greater jurisdiction. The question as to what jurisdiction they will have in the future is one which the Judicial Committee will consider. I do not want to say anything now which will prejudice or forecast the report of that Committee. For the moment they will carry on under the jurisdiction that magistrates exercised in the past which is embodied in an interesting volume of light literature known as "O'Connor's Justice of the Peace." About the Registrars of the old Dáil Courts, the claims of those men to be incorporated in the new system, and to be used as Registrars of particular Courts, have been very sympathetically considered, and so far as was consistent with efficiency and with providing the public with an efficient and smooth-working service, these men have been engaged. The Registrars who have been appointed up to the present are drawn largely from two classes—either from the Registrars of the old courts or from the existing Petty Sessions Clerks. Now there were about 305 Petty Sessions Clerks in existence. Granted a great deal of those were ex-R.I.C. men, ex-Sergeants, ex-Constables or anything else which made them unacceptable to the great majority of the people, there were still a great many about whom you could not say that there was anything wrong which would make them objectionable to the people. Where that was so, economy pointed to the employment of those men. Any man not used is entitled to a pension under Article 10 of the Treaty. The British Government did not clear out without trying to make some sort of bargain for those who had served them for their time here, and there is an Article in the Treaty which definitely provides that if we do not use those officials, they are entitled to a certain pension. Any existing Petty Sessions Clerk that we do not propose to incorporate will be entitled to his pension, and that is a fact that we are bound to consider. Certain Registrars who have been appointed will be from that class. Certain of them will be from the Registrars of the District Courts and possibly even from the Parish Courts, but I would point out that these particular positions were not given with any terms attaching to them of pensions or any security of tenure, and the people who got those positions in the past understood that very well. There is an equitable claim, if you wish, for favourable and sympathetic consideration, but they have received such favourable and sympathetic consideration in the past, and they will receive it in the future.
In answer to that statement of the Minister for Home Affairs, I may say there were a great many Registrars who have acted as Registrars in the Irish Courts, but who have not the qualifications to act as Registrars now. As this Dáil is well aware, during 1917, 1918, 1919 and 1920 it was not qualifications we required, but pluck. Well, at the present time a great many of these men who acted as Registrars have not sufficient qualifications. Well, they had quite sufficient moral courage to carry on the work of the nation, and surely the Dáil will agree with me when I say that under Article 10 of the Treaty if the Clerks of the Petty Sessions Courts are entitled to get superannuation or pensions, surely the same thing ought to apply to the Registrars of our own Courts whom we are not able to find positions for.
Does the Deputy suggest that we should consider bringing in a Pension Bill and place on the Civil List of the country every brave man who did his duty in the last five or six years?
Yes, I think it would only be right. I do not use the word "yes" with the intention of the men getting a pension, but I use it in the sense that they should get something by way of gratuity, especially in certain cases of Registrars who have acted in the 26 counties and who were penalised and victimised for so acting. I think those men should be seen to. At least it should be the duty of the Government to see that they should not suffer or be penalised for having acted as Registrars.
I would like to ask when is it intended to get rid of the old County Judges now officiating and who officiated for the British Government in the days of the Terror? I would also like to draw attention to recent advertisements by publicans seeking licences in which the applications were signed by some of those old Justices who held their J.P.-ships from the British Government. In many of the local papers you will see their names appearing even at the present time, at least they appeared a few weeks ago. I have not very much more to say except that personally I believe the removal of the Arbitration Courts was a mistake. However we can only hope that these things will be remedied in time. I would like at any rate that that matter would be seen to—the question of J.P.'s affixing their names to applications for licences.
I had already dealt with the question of the Justices. With regard to the County Court Judges, they will continue to function until the Judicial Committee reports to the Government and until we are able to place a decent substitute at the disposal of the people. To suggest that we should come in and play the part of the young bull in the china shop, and smash all round us without having any substitute machinery to place there is to suggest that we should have served the people very badly indeed. It was not a time for such smashing; it was a time to hold on to any bit of solid machinery you had at your disposal. The Judicial Committee is being set up. It will hold a very thorough and comprehensive enquiry into the whole system of administration of justice in the country. It will report to the Government. Its report will be considered and a new system of Courts will no doubt be set up in the country, a system more in conformity with the needs of the people and a system more in conformity with the genius of the people, than the present one, and less cumbrous, and I hope less expensive. But until we have such a system ready to try and ready to substitute the existing machinery must be allowed, and will be allowed, to continue to function.
May I remind the Minister that he was good enough on a former occasion to promise to lay before the Dáil the Terms of Reference for the Judicial Commission? Am I right in assuming that he still adheres to the pursuance of that course, because I rather gather from what he said that there is a possibility that this Committee may be set going without our knowing exactly what is the scope of its inquiry? I hope I misinterpret him.
Mr. O'HIGGINS
The Terms of Reference will, of course, be made public both for the Dáil and for the people.
Motion made and question put: "That the Dáil in Committee, having considered the Estimates for County Court Officers in 1922-23, and having passed a Vote on Account of £77,940 for the period to the 6th December, 1922, recommend that the full Estimate of £100,875 for the financial year 1922-23 be adopted in due course by the Oireachtas."
Agreed.