Towards sheriff reform: An analysis of the historical, legal and political context surrounding the Irish State’s failure to implement the chief recommendation contained in the Law Reform Commission Report on Debt Collection: (1) The Law Relating to Sheriffs, namely that the present responsibilities of County Registrars in the enforcement of judgements in civil cases should be ended and the sheriff system in Dublin and Cork be extended to the entire country.

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with the failure of the Irish State to implement the chief recommendation contained in the Law Reform Commission Report on Debt Collection: (1) The Law Relating to Sheriffs,1 namely that the present responsibilities of County Registrars in the enforcement of judgments in civil cases should be ended and the Sheriff system in Dublin and Cork be extended to the entire country. This recommendation would, if implemented, bring consistency and uniformity to the enforcement of judgments and arrears of taxes in Ireland.

In the absence of any seminal modern publication on Irish Sheriffs, an attempt to establish the reasons for this failure is made drawing from historical, political and legal sources. The history and law of the Sheriff’s office is examined, not only from an Irish perspective, but also from an English perspective, given that the office of Sheriff has its origins in English antiquity. From this multifaceted approach, certain themes emerge, in particular the historical royal distrust of Sheriffs.

This thesis draws support from these sources in order to discern the attitude of the State towards Sheriffs and Sheriff law reform, in order to endeavour to understand the reasoning behind the failure to implement reform. The findings will establish that in all probability, arising from disparate factors including the historical distrust of Sheriffs and a fixation with the familiar, the Irish State has not been persuaded that reform of Sheriff law should be afforded any priority.

In addition to proposing reasons why the State has failed to meaningfully reform this aspect of shrieval law, the final portion of this thesis looks to the future and examines what areas lend themselves to Sheriff enforcement (in addition to judgments and taxes), thus providing the State, State bodies and others with an opportunity to recover otherwise unrecoverable outstanding debt.

Date of Award	24 Oct 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Northumbria University
Supervisor	Adam Ramshaw (Supervisor)