This Court Officers (Temporary Appointments) Bill is introduced mainly as an economy measure, and it simply deals with a practical difficulty that has arisen in the machinery of administration in the country. In certain Court offices vacancies have arisen. I think there were one or two in connection with clerkships of the Crown and Peace, certain Probate Registrarships in Cork, and a few others here and there through the country. We have passed here a Bill reorganising the machinery of justice for the country, and that Bill is at present before the Seanad. It seems undesirable, when the Court machinery of the country is about to undergo considerable changes, to appoint people to these old offices with exactly the same tenure and rights as their predecessors.
But, short of legislation to meet the point, that would be necessary, and this Bill is introduced to enable me, or the Minister for Home Affairs for the time being, to make temporary provision to have the duties attaching to these vacant offices carried out, without giving the person appointed to do the work all the rights and all the vested interests of their predecessors. I think that that is an object which will commend itself to Deputies generally, and I feel that it is unnecessary, in so far as the principle of the Bill, at any rate, is concerned, to elaborate the point. Certain minor matters may arise on the Committee Stage, but I now ask Deputies to give this Bill a Second Reading.