User:Jnestorius/Irish Universities Committee

The Irish Universities Committee was a committee established under the Irish Universities Act 1908 for dealing with petitions relating to provisions of the act.

1908 act
Besides establishing the Irish Universities Committee, the act also:—
 * abolished the Royal University of Ireland (RUI) and Queen's College Belfast (QCB)
 * established the National University of Ireland (NUI) and Queen's University Belfast (QUB) and University College Dublin (UCD)
 * established temporary commissioners (Belfast, Dublin, and joint committee of both) originally till end 1910 and extended to 31 July 1911 The commissioners completed the transition by:
 * making initial Statutes for NUI, QUB, and UCD
 * transferring property from the RUI to the NUI, QUB, or UCD
 * appointing officers to NUI, QUB, UCD, UCC, and UCC
 * favouring transfer of officers
 * from RUI to NUI, UCD, or QUB;
 * and from QCB~QCC~QCG to QUB~UCC~UCG.
 * I presume that few if any of the UCD posts were filled by ex-RUI officers, leaving Dublin Commissioners free to appoint to UCD offices many personnel ex-Catholic University of Ireland (a private university not recognised as such by the British state)
 * Were any ex-Catholic officers not transferred to NUI-UCD? Probably some clerics at least, although maybe enough private money to fund and re-employ them in parallel to the Dublin Commissioners' work
 * compensating discontinued or demoted personnel

Committee
The committee was a committee of the Privy Council of Ireland (PCI) It heard petitions against two types of decisions:
 * decisions of the temporary commissioners
 * I presume the following two sources relate to the same appeals:
 * 15 February 1910 heard and rejected appeals by "several persons against the determination of the Dublin and Belfast Commissioners relative to the amount of compensation awarded to them in respect of fellowships and examinerships in the dissolved Royal University"
 * there were 7 appeals of Commissioners' Joint Committee s.16 orders for compensation; all were rejected by Irish Universities Committee but it advised that Joseph P Pye (Professor of Anatomy & Physiology at Galway from 1877 to his death in 1920) should receive a half-year's salary as Fellow of the RUI, to 10 April 1910.
 * enactment of Statutes
 * ["in the first instance"] made by the temporary commissioners
 * It heard and dismissed on 12–14 October 1909 two petitions praying to disallow the creation under Chapter XVI of the QUB Statutes of a chair of scholastic philosophy filled by Catholic priest, Denis O'Keeffe. The lead petition was from John MacDermott, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland; the other was from a group including Thomas Sinclair, Rev. John J. Magill, and the 6th Marquess of Londonderry. The hearing was first postponed when MacDermott fell ill; finally, six of the seven committee members were present; FitzGibbon was absent and died on the 14th.
 * No mention AFAIK in the Dublin Commissioners' reports (final or Statutes )
 * [subsequently, "after the powers of these commissioners determine"]
 * of the NUI or QUB by their respective Senate
 * of one of the NUI's constituent colleges by its governing body
 * UCC lectureship of Russian referred by NUI Senate in 1917

The committee's rules were made by order on 23 April 1909.

Members
The initial seven committee members were appointed on 28 April 1909: judges Samuel Walker, Gerald FitzGibbon, William Moore Johnson, John Ross, and civil servants Sir David Harrel, Sir James Dougherty, Sir Patrick Coll.

By 1913-14, Walker and FitzGibbon had died and been replaced by Justices William Kenny and Richard Cherry; the other five were as in 1909.

Partition
After the Partition of Ireland, the PCI became obsolete.

In relation to Northern Ireland,
 * the Irish Free State (Consequential Provisions) Act 1922 explicitly transferred
 * PCI functions to the new Privy Council of Northern Ireland (PCNI)
 * the functions of any PCI committee to "a corresponding committee" of the PCNI
 * QUB Statutes were still published in the Belfast Gazette per s.5 as late as 1949.
 * Was there ever a petition on a QUB Statute, or a PCNI Universities Committee to which to direct such?
 * 1908 act s. 17(1)-(3) repealed by SLR(NI)1954, but ss. 5 and 18 still in force. (The physical text has a footnote no. 13 at s. 18, but it's not previewable at Google books. )
 * The Higher Technological Studies Act (Northern Ireland) 1954 says "The Committee of the Privy Council of Northern Ireland referred to in section eighteen of the Irish Universities Act, 1908, shall have jurisdiction to determine any dispute arising out of the principal agreement [between QUB and Belfast Corporation to share a facility for teaching mechanical and electrical engineering] or any supplemental agreement"

In relation to the Irish Free State, the Adaptation of Enactments Act 1922 adapted reference to Order in Council or Proclamation in Council, but not to (? PCI or) committees of the PCI
 * Were NUI Statutes still published in Iris Oifigiúil? Yes, but not as soon as approved by NUI Senate/ college governing body; rather, forwarded to the Department of Education for approval (which might be dilatory) and thence for publication.
 * What if Dept vetoed?
 * 1942
 * SI under 1922 act adapted 1908 act s. 5(2) but not otherwise
 * proposed bill drafted, which would have amended 1908 act to replace the Irish Universities Committee with a National University Committee; pressure of business meant it was never introduced
 * 1959–60 petitions were dealt with by Visitor rather than non-existent Irish Universities Committee. In one case, the Statutes were allowed, but other case found ultra vires, and act rushed through to retrospectively allow actions made under them.
 * Noël Browne saw the whole thing as a power grab by Michael Tierney, UCD President.
 * Tierney told the 1960s Commission on Higher Education that the 1908 provision was obsolete.
 * In 1973 the Seanad expressed concern that because "the Privy Council in Ireland is non-existent" there was no way to process petitions.

As regards the 1908 act, s.5 was repealed in 1997 and s.17 is spent since the commissions are defunct; but s.18 has not been repealed. So Committee not abolished but has no statutory functions.