Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898

Special provisions as to qualifications, elections, and retirement of councillors, guardians, commissioners, &c., day of annual or borough quarterly meeting, and day for electing mayor or chairman, selecting sheriffs, &c.

39 & 40 Vict. c. 76.

94.(1) A person being in holy orders or being a regular minister of any religious denomination shall not be eligible as a county or district councillor.

(2) So much of any enactment, whether public or local, as requires a member of the council of a borough, or of an urban or rural sanitary authority, or board of guardians, or commissioners of a town, to have any property qualification, or to have any other qualification than that of being a local government elector or resident as required by this Act, shall be repealed.

(3) Any member of the council of a county or county district or board of guardians or commissioners of a town who, after the passing of this Act, is convicted of acting when disqualified, or of voting when prohibited, shall for a period of seven years after such conviction be disqualified for being elected or being a member of the same or any other such council, board, or commissioners.

(4) Casual vacancies in the council of any county (not being a county borough) or in any rural district council shall be, as soon as may be, filled by the council.

(5) Casual vacancies among the guardians elected for any electoral division in a county borough or urban county district may be filled by the board of guardians.

(6) Outside a county borough the elections of county and rural district councillors shall be held together, and each district electoral division shall, unless the Local Government Board on the representation of the county council otherwise direct, be a polling district, and such direction, if given, may authorise the poll for a councillor for a district electoral division to be taken outside that division, if it is taken within the county electoral division comprising it.

(7) The ordinary day of election of such councillors shall be the first day of June, or such day not more than seven days earlier or later than that day as may be fixed by the county council with respect to their county, and the day of the annual meeting and ordinary day of election of the chairman and vice-chairman of a rural district council shall be the fifth day, and of a county council the twelfth day, next after the said day of election of councillors.

(8) Outside a county borough the old county and rural district councillors shall retire, and the newly elected councillors shall come into office, on the day next after the said day of election of councillors, which day shall be the ordinary day of retirement of councillors.

(9) In the case of the council of an urban district other than a borough, and of the commissioners of a town, the ordinary day of election of councillors and commissioners shall be the fifteenth day of January, and the day of the annual meeting and ordinary day of election of the chairman and vice-chairman of the council or commissioners shall be the twenty-third day of January, and such chairman or vice-chairman shall come into office as soon as he has made the declaration accepting the office.

(10) In the case of the council of a borough, the ordinary day of election of councillors and aldermen shall be the fifteenth day of January, and the quarterly meeting of the council shall be held at noon on the twenty-third day of January, and at such hour on such other three days before the fifteenth day of January then next following, as the council at the quarterly meeting in January decide.

(11) The first business transacted at the said quarterly meeting in January shall be the election of the mayor, and the outgoing mayor shall retire and the newly elected mayor shall come into office on the ordinary day of retirement of the mayor, or as soon after as the new mayor has made a declaration accepting the office, and the ordinary day of retirement of the mayor shall be the day of the said quarterly meeting, or, if the council have by a general resolution so directed, the following twenty-third day of February.

(12) In a county of a city or town, the selection of three persons qualified to fill the office of sheriff shall be part of the business transacted at the said quarterly meeting in January, and the day of that meeting and the twenty-third day of February shall respectively be substituted for the first day of December and the first day of January in sections three and four of the Municipal Privilege (Ireland) Act, 1876, and the day next before the day of the said quarterly meeting shall be substituted for the thirtieth day of November in section five of the said Act.

(13) In the case of the council of any borough or other urban district, or the commissioners of any town, the outgoing aldermen, councillors, and commissioners shall retire, and the newly elected aldermen, councillors, and commissioners shall come into office on the sixteenth day of January, and that day shall be the ordinary day of retirement of aldermen, councillors, and commissioners.

(14) The fact that an outgoing mayor, chairman, alderman, councillor, or commissioner has ceased, upon the new register of local government electors coming into force on the previous first day of January, to be a local government elector shall not disqualify him for continuing in office until the above-mentioned ordinary day of retirement of mayor, chairman, alderman, councillor, or commissioner, as the case may be, and also, if he is a mayor or chairman and a new mayor or chairman has been elected, until that new mayor or chairman has made a declaration accepting the office.

(15) Where any members of a joint committee or joint board are appointed by any county or district council, whether under this or any other Act or an Order in Council, and the council are elected triennially, the members appointed by such council who are in office at the date of any triennial election shall continue to be members of such joint committee or board until the day after the first meeting of the newly elected council, and the consideration of the appointment of such members shall be part of the business at the said meeting after the election of mayor or chairman.

(16) The scale of expenses of any election shall require the approval of the Local Government Board.