The Supreme Court appointed Cork solicitor Richard Hammond as a notary public for Dublin and its adjoining counties, as well as Cork and its adjoining counties, after finding special factors justified an exception to the usual territorial rule.
In a ruling delivered on 27 September 2016, Chief Justice Frances Denham said the general practice was to appoint a notary for a county and the counties adjoining it. The application concerned the additional, non-contiguous Dublin area. The Faculty of Notaries Public accepted Hammond’s personal fitness for appointment in Cork; its concern was the requested Dublin jurisdiction.
Hammond’s petition, filed on 14 July 2015, sought appointment for Cork City and County and Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary and Waterford, and for Dublin City, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, South Dublin and Fingal, together with Kildare, Meath and Wicklow.
The court considered earlier rulings, including the 2000 appointment of Bill Holohan for Cork and Dublin, which Denham described as the most relevant precedent. She said she accepted the evidence from Hammond and Holohan. Among the factors she identified were Hammond’s Dublin work: she accepted his evidence that he was there on 128 days in 2015 and his analysis that he spent part of about half his working days there, with the other half in Mallow. She also noted his significant client base among other solicitors and parallels between the two practitioners’ professional experience and contributions.
Denham concluded that Hammond’s application met the standard set in Holohan and that the specific circumstances warranted appointment. She appointed him for the areas sought. The ruling addressed the territorial scope of this appointment; it did not change the general rule or establish a general entitlement to appointments covering non-contiguous areas.
The judgment also endorsed an earlier ruling’s criticism of the lack of modern legislation governing notary appointments. It noted that the Chief Justice’s appointment power derives from limited statutory provisions and that each application must be assessed on its own circumstances.