Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898

Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title:	An Act for amending the Law relating to Local Government in Ireland, and for other purposes connected therewith.
Statute book chapter:	61 & 62 Vict. c. 37
Introduced by:	Gerald Balfour
Territorial extent:	Ireland
Dates
Date of Royal Assent:	12 August 1898
Status: Repealed
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The Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 (61 & 62 Vict. c. 37) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that established a system of local government in Ireland similar to that already created for England, Wales and Scotland in 1889 and 1890. The Act effectively ended landlord control of local government in Ireland.^[1][2][3]

Background

From the 1880s the issue of local government reform in Ireland was a major political issue, involving both Irish politicians and the major British political parties. Questions of constitutional reform, land ownership and nationalism all combined to complicate matters, as did splits in both the Liberal Party in 1886 and the Irish Parliamentary Party in 1891. Eventually, the Conservative government of Lord Salisbury found it politically expedient to introduce the measures in 1898. The legislation was seen by the government as solving a number of problems: it softened demands for Home Rule from Nationalists, it eased the burden of agricultural rates on Unionist landlords, it created a more efficient poor law administration and it strengthened the Union by bringing English forms of local government to Ireland.^[2][3]

The existing system and earlier attempts at reform

Counties and baronies

Each county and county corporate of Ireland was administered by a grand jury. These bodies were made up of major landowners appointed by the assizes judge of the county. As well as their original judicial functions the grand juries had taken on the maintenance of roads, bridges and asylums and the supervision of other public works. The grand jury made proposals for expenditure known as "presentments" which required the approval of the assizes judge. The money to pay for the presentments was raised by a "county cess" levied on owners and occupiers in the county.^[4] A second tier of administrative division below the county was the barony. A similar system operated at this level, with the justices of the area empowered to meet in baronial presentment sessions to raise a cess to fund minor works.^[4] The members of the grand juries and baronial sessions were overwhelmingly Unionist and Protestant, and therefore totally unrepresentative of the majority of the population of the areas they governed.^[3]

Poor law unions and sanitary districts

In 1838 Ireland was divided into poor law unions, each consisting of a geographical area based on a workhouse. The union boundaries did not correspond to those of any existing unit, and so many PLUs lay in two or more counties. The unions were administered by Boards of Guardians. The boards were in part directly elected, with one guardian elected for each electoral division.

With the growth of population a need to create authorities to administer public health and provide or regulate such services as sewerage, paving and water supply arose. The Public Health (Ireland) Act 1878 created sanitary districts, based on the system already existing in England and Wales. Larger towns (municipal boroughs and towns with commissioners under private acts or with a population of 6,000 or more) were created urban sanitary districts: the existing local authority became the urban sanitary authority. The remainder of the country was divided into rural sanitary districts. These were identical in area to poor law unions (less any part in an urban sanitary district), and the rural sanitary authority consisted of the poor law guardians for the area.

Proposed changes 1888 – 1892

Directly elected county councils were introduced to England and Wales by the Local Government Act 1888 and to Scotland by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889. Attempts to bring about similar reforms in Ireland were delayed because of the civil unrest caused by the Plan of Campaign. The government argued that before they could bring in administrative reforms, law and order should be restored. Accordingly, the Chief Secretary, Arthur Balfour, introduced coercion acts to end the "agrarian outrages". Unionists, increasingly losing seats to members of the Irish National League at elections of guardians, also sought to delay implementation.^[3][5]

Balfour finally announced on 10 August 1891 that local government legislation would be introduced in the next parliamentary session. The announcement was met with protests from Unionists and landlords who predicted that the new authorities would be dis-loyal and would monopolise their power to drive them out of the country. Balfour, despite the opposition, made it clear that he intended to proceed. With the Irish Parliamentary Party split into "Panellite" and "anti-Parnellite" factions, he was encouraged to believe that the bill could be used to destroy the demand for Home Rule and further splinter the Nationalist movement.^[3]

When the bill was introduced to parliament early in 1892, it was clear that the Unionists had successfully watered down many of its provisions by securing safeguards on their hold on local government. The provisions of the proposed legislation were:

• County and district councils, elected on the parliamentary franchise
• Transfer of powers of grand juries over roads and sanitation to the new councils
• Administration of local revenues and setting of county cess to be decided by majority of ratepayers

The "safeguards" to protect the Unionist minority were:

• Electors to have "cumulative votes" with those paying more cess having more votes
• Any ratepayer could challenge the council presentment before a judge and jury
• County and district councils could be dismissed for "disobedience to the law, corruption or consistent malversion and oppression"
• A joint committee of councillors and grand jurors was to approve all capital expenditure and appointment of officers.^[3]

The bill was rejected by almost all Irish parliamentarians, with the support of only a handful of Ulster Liberal Unionists. While Balfour hoped to make the legislation acceptable by tabling amendments, this was rejected by Nationalists who hoped to see a change to a pro-Home Rule Liberal administration at the imminent general election. The bill was accordingly abandoned.^[3]

Gerald Balfour as Chief Secretary and the crisis of 1897

Following three years of Liberal government, a Conservative-Liberal Unionist government was returned to power at the 1895 general election. Gerald Balfour, brother of Arthur, and nephew of the new prime minister, Lord Salisbury was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland on 4 July. He soon made his mark when he clumsily summarised the Irish policy of the new government as "killing home rule with kindness".^[2] The government passed three major pieces of Irish legislation in four years: apart from the Local Government Act, these were the Land Law (Ireland) Act 1896 and the Agriculture and Technical Instruction (Ireland) Act 1899.

The local government legislation was not originally part of the government's programme announced in the Queen's Speech of January 1897. It was also exceptional in that there was almost no popular demand for the reforms. It thus came as a complete suprise when Balfour announced in May that he was preparing legislation. While he claimed that the extension to Ireland of the local government reforms already carried out in Great Britain had always been intended, the sudden conversion to the "alternative policy" was in fact a way of solving a political crisis at Westminster. Obstruction by Irish members of parliament and a number of English MPs was causing a legislative backlog. Landlords, already angered by the 1896 land act, were enraged by the refusal of the Treasury to extend the agricultural rating grant to Ireland. In fact the failure to introduce the grant was largely due to there being no effective local government system to administer it. Instead an equivalent sum had been given to the administration in Dublin Castle, who had decided to use the money to fund poor law reform and a new Agricultural Board. On May 18 the Irish Unionist MPs wrote to the government informing them that they would withdraw their support unless the rating grant was introduced.^[2]

The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Earl Cadogan, held talks with the Treasury and hit upon the idea of introducing the local government reforms as a way to "break up a combination of unionists with nationalists in Ireland" which he felt was "becoming too strong for even for a ministry with a majority of 150!" The introduction of democratic county councils along with a substantial rates subsidy was felt to be sure to placate all Irish members of the house.^[2] The government moved quickly, sending a copy of the English Local Government Act of 1888 to Sir Henry Robinson, vice president of the Local Government Board for Ireland. Robinson, who was on holiday, was instructed to decide how much of the existing legislation could be speedily adapted for Irish use. It was in fact thought that legislation might not be needed at all, as the lord lieutenant possessed the power to extend any provisions already in force in England to Ireland by order in council. Within a week came the announcement that a bill was to be prepared.^[2]

The reforms

The 1898 act brought in a mixed system of government, with county boroughs independent of county administration, and elsewhere a two-tier system with county councils, along with borough, urban district and rural district councils. Urban districts were created from the larger of the town commissioners towns, while the smaller towns retained their town commissioners, but remained in the rural districts for sanitary planning purposes.

The creation of the new councils had a significant effect on Ireland as it allowed local people to take decisions affecting themselves. The County and the sub-county District Councils created a political platform for proponents of Irish Home Rule, displacing Unionist influence in many areas. The enfranchisement of local electors allowed the development of a new political class, creating a significant body of experienced politicians who would enter national politics in Ireland in the 1920s, and increase the stability of the transitions to the parliaments of the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland.

County and county borough boundaries

The Act caused a number of county boundaries to be modified. This was for four reasons. Firstly, urban sanitary districts (USDs) that lay in more than one county were to be placed entirely within that in which the majority of the population lay. Secondly, wherever possible poor law unions (PLUs) were to be in a single county. This would sometimes involve the exchange of electoral divisions (EDs) between counties. Thirdly, the cities of Belfast and Londonderry were separated from the counties in which they lay and constituted as separate county boroughs. Finally, those counties corporate that did not become county boroughs were merged into their parent counties.^[6]

The boundaries of the counties and county boroughs, which came into effect on 18 April 1899, were defined by orders of the Local Government Board for Ireland as follows:^[7]

Administrative counties

• Note a: This area contains the village of Mountshannon on the north-western shore of Lough Derg.
• Note b: These areas lay on the western shore of Lough Mask, and were remote from the rest of Galway.
• Note c: These areas were adjacent to the Mayo town of Ballina.

County boroughs

Changes and repeal

The Rural District Councils, designed to allow the closest local control of some administrative functions, were abolished in the Irish Free State after 1923 to save money, but the Urban District Councils were retained.

In Northern Ireland, the provisions of the Act were repealed in the 1970s with a pattern of unitary authorities. In the Republic of Ireland, the act was amended by several Acts of the Oireachtas principally by the abolition of Rural District councils 1925–30 and the inception of a system of council-manager government 1929–40; the act as so amended has been replaced by the Local Government Act 2001.

References

See also

• List of Irish Local Government Areas 1900–21
• Local government in the Republic of Ireland
• List of rural and urban districts in Northern Ireland
• List of townlands in County Kilkenny