Public Health (Ireland) Act, 1878

Regulations as to exercise of borrowing powers.

238. The exercise of the powers of borrowing conferred by this Act shall be subject to the following regulations; (namely,)

(1.) Money shall not be borrowed except for permanent works (including under this expression any works of which the cost ought in the opinion of the Local Government Board to be spread over a term of years):

(2.) The sum borrowed shall not at any time exceed, with the balances of all the outstanding loans contracted by the sanitary authority under the Sanitary Acts and this Act, in the whole twice the net annual value of the premises assessable within the district in respect of which such money may be borrowed:

(3.) Where the sum proposed to be borrowed with such balances (if any) would exceed the assessable value for one year of such premises, the Local Government Board shall not give their sanction to such loan until one of their inspectors has held a local inquiry and reported to the said Board:

(4.) The money may be borrowed for such time, not exceeding sixty years, as the sanitary authority, with the sanction of the Local Government Board, determine in each case; and, subject as aforesaid, the sanitary authority shall either pay off the moneys so borrowed by equal annual instalments of principal or of principal and interest, or they shall in every year set apart as a sinking fund, and accumulate in the way of compound interest by investing the same in the purchase of Exchequer bills or other Government securities, such sum as will, with accumulations in the way of compound interest, be sufficient, after payment of all expenses, to pay off the moneys so borrowed within the period sanctioned:

(5.) A sanitary authority may at any time apply the whole or any part of a sinking fund set apart under this Act in or towards the discharge of the moneys for the repayment of which the fund has been established: Provided that they pay into the fund in each year and accumulate until the whole of the moneys borrowed are discharged, a sum equivalent to the interest which would have been produced by the sinking fund or the part of the sinking fund so applied:

(6.) Where money is borrowed for the purpose of discharging a previous loan, the time for repayment of the money so borrowed shall not extend beyond the unexpired portion of the period for which the original loan was sanctioned, unless with the sanction of the Local Government Board, and shall in no case be extended beyond the period of sixty years from the date of the original loan.

Where any urban authority borrow any money for the purpose of defraying private improvement expenses, or expenses in respect of which they have determined a part only of the district to be liable, it shall be the duty of such authority, as between the ratepayers of the district, to make good, so far as they can, the money so borrowed, as occasion requires, either out of private improvement rates, or out of a rate levied in such part of the district as aforesaid.