Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898

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. ==The existing system and earlier attempts at reform==

Counties and baronies Each county and county corporate of Ireland was administered before the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 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 landowners and occupiers in the county, a form of rate tax. 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. The electorate had been enlarged by the recent Representation of the People Act 1884. Gladstone and Charles Stewart Parnell, leader of the Irish National League, preferred to legislate for Irish Home Rule. However, the First Home Rule Bill was defeated in the House of Commons in 1886. Chamberlain, briefly the President of the Local Government Board in 1886, then left the Liberals to form the Liberal Unionist Party and brought the proposal to his new Conservative allies, who won the 1886 United Kingdom general election shortly afterwards. In 1888 Chamberlain again called for democratically elected county councils in Ireland, as a part of a crash programme of state-funded public works, in his book A Unionist Policy for Ireland. 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, Arthur Balfour, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, 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. Balfour 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 disloyal 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 "Parnellite" 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. 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 the 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. 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. ==Gerald Balfour as Chief Secretary and the crisis of 1897==

Following three years of Liberal government, the Conservative–Liberal Unionist coalition formed a Unionist government following 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 1895. He soon made his mark when he summarised the Irish policy of the new government as "killing home rule with kindness". This use of secondary legislation – the '''''' (SR&O 1899/1120) – rather than primary legislation was controversial, but Irish nationalists accepted it as the price of getting the bill passed. ==The reforms==

, showing results for the county council elections by electoral division. 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 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 a much larger number of local people to take decisions affecting themselves. The county and the sub-county district councils created a political platform for proponents of 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 led to the modification of a number of county boundaries. This was for several reasons: • Each county district had to be in a single county, unlike the sanitary districts on which they were based • Where an urban sanitary district lay in more than one county, the new urban district would be placed entirely within that in which the majority of the population lay. • Where a poor law union (PLU) lay in more than one county, generally a rural district was created for the fraction each county (for example, Ballyshannon PLU was split into Ballyshannon No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3 rural districts in counties Donegal, Fermanagh, and Leitrim respectively). Boundaries were adjusted if one fraction was too small or otherwise impractical. • The eight old counties corporate did not correspond to the six new county boroughs. • The cities of Belfast and Derry were separated from the counties in which they lay and constituted as separate county boroughs. • Four counties corporate were merged into their parent counties. The extents of the new administrative counties and county boroughs, which came into effect on 18 April 1899, were defined by orders of the Local Government Board for Ireland. There were no changes to the boundaries of the counties of Cavan, Cork, Donegal, Fermanagh, Kerry, Kildare, King's County (now Offaly), Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Meath, Monaghan, and Tyrone; nor to those of the county boroughs (previously counties corporate) of Cork, Dublin, Limerick, and Waterford. Changes elsewhere were as follows: ;Notes: ==Subsequent amendments and repeals==

Boundaries of Irish county constituencies at Westminster were not adjusted by the 1898 Act to align with the new administrative boundaries. Some were aligned by the Representation of the People Act 1918, where the county divisions were being altered for other reasons; for example Kilculliheen was transferred from Waterford City to South Kilkenny, but Ardnaree remained in North Sligo rather than East Mayo. Under the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1919, the electoral system for local elections in Ireland was changed to single transferable vote (STV) in multi-member districts. This had been used in the election to Sligo Corporation in 1919 (provided under separate local legislation), and then for the 1920 Irish local elections. After the partition of Ireland in 1920–22, the situation evolved differently in the Irish Free State (Ireland from 1937, Republic of Ireland from 1949) and Northern Ireland. In the Irish Free State, rural districts were abolished by the Local Government Act 1925 (they remained in County Dublin until abolished under the Local Government (Dublin) Act 1930). Urban districts were renamed "towns" by the Local Government Act 2001. The 2001 Act also renamed "county borough corporations" as "city councils". The introduction of a council–manager system in 1929–40 significantly changed the operation of county and city councils. The Local Government Reform Act 2014 abolished the tier of boroughs and towns within county areas and divided all counties (except those in County Dublin) into municipal districts. the unrepealed parts of the 1898 Act in the Republic are sections 6(a), 8, 29, 52, 54, 69(1)–(2), 80, 89, 101(2), 101(4), 102(1)–(3), 109, 110(1), 110(2)(a), and 124, and Schedule 1 parts 3 and 4. In Northern Ireland, STV was abolished in 1922. The two-tier county–district system was retained until the Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 1972 replaced it with a system of 26 unitary districts from 1973. Some elected councils had been dissolved in the 1960s as tensions grew in the buildup to the Troubles. the unrepealed sections of the 1898 Act in Northern Ireland were 4, 10, 11, 21, 27, 29, 31, 36, 37, 41, 69, 72, 78, 82, 83, 108–110, and 124. ==See also==