Irish Peers Seek Right To Speak In Lords

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30395, 20 March 1964, Page 11

Irish Peers Seek Right To Speak In Lords

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.)

LONDON, March 19. His death certificate has

The 71 Irish peers who are not represented in the House of Lords have taken action to secure once again what they believe to be their right —to elect 28 representative peers who would sit at Westminster. The “Guardian’s” Parliamentary reporter says the action has taken the “somewhat ghoulish” form of sending a death certificate to the Lord Chancellor, Lord Dilhorne. The death certificate is that of the last of the Irish representative peers elected before Ireland became a free state in 1922. The peer in question. Lord Kilmorey, died in 1961.

been lodged with the Lord Chancellor’s office after being witnessed and signed by two members of the House of Lords. The Lord Chancellor must now consider whether he will set up the necessaary machinery for electing an Irish representative peer to take Lord Kilmorey’s place. If this is done, there is no reason why the 71 Irish peers should not elect 28 of their number to sit in the Lords. Lord Dilhorne has hitherto opposed the return of the Irish peers to the Lords. The Union of Ireland Act of 1800, which has never been repealed, gave the Irish peers the right to send 28 of their number to Westminster.