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Justices holding property in union, but not resident, may act as ex-officio guardians in certain cases.
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7. In any union in which the number of qualified justices shall on the twenty-ninth day of September in any year not be equal to the number of elected guardians, every justice of the peace acting for any county in Ireland, and otherwise qualified under the laws now in force to be an ex-officio guardian of any union within such county, and who shall be seised, possessed, or entitled for his own use and benefit of or to any lands, tenements, or hereditaments situate within such union, or in the rents and profits thereof for any life or lives in being, or for any term of twenty-one years at the least, such estate being of the yearly value of fifty pounds at the least, shall, for the year next following such twenty-ninth clay of September as aforesaid, be an ex officio guardian of such union, notwithstanding that such justice shall not be resident within the same: Provided that when the number of justices so qualified as is herein-before provided shall make the entire number of qualified justices exceed the number of elected guardians, such only of the highest rated justices, so qualified as aforesaid, shall be entitled to act as ex-officio guardians for such year as aforesaid as shall make the whole number of ex-officio guardians equal to the number of elected guardians; provided also, that any justice becoming qualified to act as an ex-officio guardian after the twenty-ninth day of September in any year shall not be entitled so to act until the twenty-ninth day of September following, if by his so acting the number of ex-officio be made to exceed the number of elected guardians in the union, but otherwise he shall be at once entitled so to act.
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