Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act, 1891

Making up of deficiency of Land Purchase Account by Guarantee Fund or a levy on county.

6.(1) If the Land Purchase Account is at any time insufficient to meet the dividends and Sinking Fund payments, the deficiency shall be a charge on the Guarantee Fund, and, subject to such subsequent adjustment of charge between the several counties as herein-after mentioned, shall be paid thereout to the Land Purchase Account, or, so far as the deficiency has been paid out of the Consolidated Fund, to that Fund.

(2) If the cash portion of the Guarantee Fund is at any time insufficient to pay all such charge, the Treasury shall send to the Lord Lieutenant a notice stating the sum required to meet the remainder of the charge and the date for its payment, and if the Lord Lieutenant before that date, or such later date as on his application the Treasury may allow, does not pay to the Guarantee Fund from the Local Taxation (Ireland) Account, the said sum, with interest at the rate of three per cent. per annum, or such other rate as the Treasury may fix, from the date of the notice, the Treasury shall order such sum and interest to be paid to the Guarantee Fund out of the local taxation (customs and excise) duties and local grants forming the contingent portion of the Fund, and, subject to such subsequent adjustment of charge between the several counties as herein-after mentioned, such sum and interest shall be deducted from the said duties and grants, and the Treasury by their order shall make such provision as seems to them necessary or proper for carrying the order into effect, and the order shall be duly observed.

(3) The Lord Lieutenant shall raise the said sum and interest, and also any sum which, upon any adjustment under this Act of a charge between the counties, is charged against a county in excess of the share of the county in the cash portion of the Guarantee Fund, by a levy upon the county liable; and for that purpose he shall send to the [1] secretary of the grand jury of the county a requisition for the payment of the sum therein named within such period therein mentioned, as the Lord Lieutenant, with the consent of the Treasury, thinks reasonable. The requisition shall be laid before the grand jury at the next assizes, and the grand jury shall, without any previous proceeding at any presentment sessions, present the sum payable in pursuance of the requisition, together with such further sum as will defray the costs of collection at the ordinary rate, to be levied off the county at large, and in default of such presentment the judge of assize shall order the sum to be raised, and such order shall have the force of a presentment; and the county treasurer shall out of the first moneys which he receives in respect of any presentment made at those assizes, pay the sum required into the Local Taxation (Ireland) Account, to be there placed to the credit of the county, and any sum so paid out of moneys not levied under this section shall be replaced out of moneys so levied.

(4) A charge on the Guarantee Fund shall, as between the counties, be adjusted and be borne by such county and in such manner, and the burden as between the local authorities and persons in the county shall, subject to the provisions of this Act, be adjusted and borne in such manner, as may be provided by regulations of the Lord Lieutenant made with the consent of the Treasury, and the benefit of any sum repaid to the Guarantee Fund from the Land Purchase Account shall be adjusted, in accordance with as nearly as may be the mode in which the burden of originally paying such sum was borne.

(5) The share of a county in the Guarantee Fund or any portion thereof for any purpose of this Act shall be ascertained by the Lord Lieutenant in accordance with the regulations under this section, and the regulations shall provide for apportioning the Guarantee Fund in the proportion in which the Irish probate duty grant and the local taxation (customs and excise) duties and the local grants are distributable among the local authorities and persons in each county on the basis of the financial year in which the apportionment is made, and shall provide for the share to be assigned to any county where the benefits of any school or lunatic asylum are not confined to the county in which the school or asylum is situate, or where parts of a poor law union or other area are situate in more than one county.

(6) All questions which arise as to the share of any county, local authority, or person, in any Fund or sum dealt with in this Act, or as to the rights or burdens of any county or local authority or person in respect of payments out of the Guarantee Fund or the Local Taxation (Ireland) Account, shall be determined by the Lord Lieutenant, and his decision shall be final.

[1 This and other expressions in this Act are adapted by Stat. Rules and Orders Rev. 1904, VII., “Local Government I.,” p. 40, made under 61 & 62 Vict. c. 37.]