The Gazette 1996

GAZETTE

JULY 1996

WARNING - Stolen Land Certificates

18. Land Certificate Folio 33989F County Galway - Michael and Mary Mclnerney. 19. Land Certificate Folio 7682F County Galway - Hayden and Carmel Moore. 20. Land Certificate Folio 27463F County Galway - Thomas and Eileen Melody. 21. Land Certificate Folio 21869F County Galway - Brian and Sheila Parr. 22. Land Certificate Folio 35544 County Galway - Patrick Ruane. 23. Land Certificate Folio 29059F County Galway - Stephen Quinn. Should any solicitor come across any of the Land Certificates, please contact the Editor. • And, in what should have been a knock-down argument, he went on to "invite the attention of the Government to the following statement made by the Minister for Justice on 22 April, 1953" (that is, just two short weeks before he heard from the President of the High Court) "in the course of the debates on the Justice group of Votes". There, Boland said: "I do not want to criticise the judges but I think it would be no harm if while the congestion is on they cut the long vacation a bit shorter and maybe arranged a longer day. It would not be any harm for them to consider that." Boland, and the High Court, got its extra judge. The decision raised the number on the High Court bench from six to seven. From there numbers rose remorselessly. There were eight by 1974, and nine by 1979. There are now 17 with the promise of two more to come. The other courts have grown apace.

We have been advised that the safe containing the following Land Certificates has been stolen. 'List of stolen Land Certificates 1. Land Certificate Folio 34812 County Galway - John Bane. 2. Land Certificate Folio 20204 County Galway - Thomas Broderick. 3. Land Certificate Folio 13393F . County Galway - Bridget Brannelly. 4. Land Certificate Folio 24606 County Galway - Mary-Ann Caulfield. 5. Land Certificate Folio 14028F County Galway - Conor B. Fahy. 6. Land Certificate Folio 11837 County Galway - Walter and Susan Francis. 7. Land Certificate Folio 5648 County Galway - Margaret Flaherty. "No less ill-informed is the criticism generally heard of the long vacation which begins at the end of July and goes on to October 10. The popular notion is that it is to suit the convenience of the judges . . . whereas the present arrangement is primarily for the convenience of the solicitors profession. "The solicitors say (and they must be allowed to know their own business best) that it takes them six weeks to clear up the business left over at the end of the legal year and to prepare their work for the coming year . . . and that the remaining four weeks of the Long Vacation are all too short to enable them to provide for the holidays of their staffs and their own holidays." McEntee's much shorter memorandum of 29 May 1953 began by reviewing the 30-year history of the judiciary, revealing that requests in 1930, and again in 1935, for the appointment of additional High Court judges had been rejected. The Government instead, and for various reasons, increased the number on the Supreme Court. It also provided for its judges to sit as High Court ones where necessary - one of

8. Land Certificate Folio 30395F County Galway - Catriona Greaney. 9. Land Certificate Folio 18624F County Galway - Catriona Greaney. 10. Land Certificate Folio 51340 County Galway - Michael Hoade. 11. Land Certificate Folio 13315F County Galway - James and Mary Kelly. 12. Land Certificate Folio 4763 County Galway - Rosaleen Keane. 13. Land Certificate Folio 42426 County Galway - Rosaleen Keane. 14. Land Certificate Folio 5023 County Galway - Derek Kennedy. 15. Land Certificate Folio 20288F County Galway - Noel Lally. 16. Land Certificate Folio 30884 County Galway - John Moran. 17. Land Certificate Folio 5831 - Thomas Manton. Boland's "palliatives". McEntee went on to "strongly recommend to the Government that the proposal to appoint an additional judge of the High Court should not be approved." He wished to "draw attention" to "the recent report of the Select Committee on judicial salaries, etc., in which it is stated that 'to make for the more economic and expeditious administration of the law, the Committee is of opinion that the Courts where necessary should sit for longer hours each day, that as far as possible each judge and justice should sit on five days each week, and that the Summer vacation should be shortened'." His main concern, as befits a Minister for Finance, was with cost. He was "seriously perturbed as to the psychological effect of an announcement to appoint an additional judge costing about £4,000 a year . . . at a time when every effort, is being made to reduce the cost of the public service". This point was sharpened by the fact that the judiciary were about to receive a pay rise.

• Kieran Conway is a freelance journalist

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