referred to committees of councillors with legal experience. Most were ad hoc, but there were statutory "judicial committees" (comprising current or former senior judges) relating to the Encumbered Estates' Court (1849–58) and Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898. Privy Councillors had a right of audience with the viceroy, and many men were anxious to become members purely for this access and took little or no part in council business. By the eighteenth century, there were over 100 councillors, few of whom usually attended meetings. Nevertheless, the viceroy informally consulted an inner circle before the formal council meetings, in order to expedite decision-making. In Great Britain a similar process led to the evolution of this inner circle or "cabinet" into the de facto government while the full privy council became a ceremonial body. Ireland's dependency and lack of responsible government prevented such a definitive division there. The oath of office for senior positions in the administration was taken at a council meeting. Latterly such offices as Vice-Treasurer of Ireland were sinecures whose holders might secure a private act of the British parliament allowing them to take the oath in Britain to save the bother of travelling to Dublin. Although the Acts of Union 1800 abolished the Kingdom of Ireland and its parliament, its Privy Council (like the Lord Lieutenant) was retained, alternatives —abolishing the Irish council or merging it with the British one— receiving little consideration. In 1801 Lord Pelham, a former Chief Secretary for Ireland, became British Home Secretary and assumed that his office now extended to Ireland, but viceroy Philip Yorke, 3rd Earl of Hardwicke insisted that the silence of the 1800 acts regarding the Irish council implied that its assent remained obligatory for effecting government orders. Ireland under the Union had a some government bodies answerable to the viceroy and Council and others which were divisions of Whitehall departments; however, a lack of collegiality prevented the Irish council becoming a rival power centre. In 1852 the Privy Council Office was merged into the Chief Secretary's Office. The Veterinary Department of the Irish Privy Council established 1866–72 became the Veterinary Branch of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction in 1900. Latterly the council's executive role was merely formal and ceremonial. There was controversy over the proclamations issued by the council under the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act 1887, since among the signatories were senior judges who might hear