No. 5/1933:

LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT, 1933

ARRANGEMENT OF SECTIONS

1 Definitions.

2 Repeal of section 71 of the Principal Act.

3 Validation of certain resolutions.

4 Appointment by local authority of persons formerly removed from or refused office or employment.

5 Pensionable service of certain classes of officers.

6 Legalisation of certain payments.

7 Payment of certain withheld remuneration.

8 Limitation on amount of rates.

9 Short title and citation.

AN ACT TO AMEND THE LAW RELATING TO THE APPOINTMENT, SALARIES, AND PENSIONS OF OFFICERS AND SERVANTS OF LOCAL AUTHORITIES, AND TO MAKE SPECIAL PROVISIONS IN REGARD TO PARTICULAR OFFICERS AND SERVANTS OF LOCAL AUTHORITIES.

[13th April, 1933.]

BE IT ENACTED BY THE OIREACHTAS OF SAORSTÁT EIREANN AS FOLLOWS:—

1.—In this Act—

the expression "the Principal Act" means the Local Government Act, 1925 (No. 5 of 1925);

the expression "the Minister" when the local authority to which it relates is a vocational education committee means the Minister for Education, and when the local authority to which it relates is a committee of agriculture means the Minister for Agriculture, and in all other cases means the Minister for Local Government and Public Health;

save as is otherwise provided by this section all other words and expressions used in this Act to which a particular meaning is assigned by section 1 of the Principal Act have in this Act the meaning so assigned.

(2) The following bodies shall be local authorities for the purposes of this Act, that is to say:—

( a ) all bodies which are local authorities within the meaning of the Principal Act;

( b ) vocational education committees;

( c ) committees of agriculture.

2.—(1) section 71 of the Principal Act is hereby repealed.

(2) The repeal of section 71 of the Principal Act effected by this section shall take and be deemed to have taken effect as on and from the 9th day of March, 1932, and accordingly where a local authority, on or after the 9th day of February, 1932, and before the passing of this Act, passed any such resolution as is mentioned in sub-section (1) of the said section 71 that section shall not operate and shall be deemed never to have operated to make void such resolution or to postpone after the said 9th day of March. 1932, the coming into effect of such resolution.

3.—Whenever a local authority before the 9th day of March, 1932, passed a resolution increasing the salary or emoluments of an officer of that local authority and such resolution became, before the said 9th day of March, 1932, void under section 71 of the Principal Act by reason of the failure of such officer to make and subscribe in accordance with that section the declaration required thereby, the following provisions shall have effect, that is to say:—

( a ) such resolution shall have and be deemed always to have had the same validity and effect (if any) as it would have had if the said section 71 of the Principal Act had not been enacted;

( b ) if the increase of salary or emoluments mentioned in such resolution was by law subject to sanction or confirmation by the Minister, the Minister may, if he thinks proper so to do and notwithstanding any former refusal of such sanction or confirmation or any former grant thereof which did not become effective, give such sanction or confirmation at any time after the passing of this Act, and thereupon such sanction or confirmation shall take and be deemed to have taken effect as on and from such date (not being earlier than the date on which such resolution was passed) as the Minister shall specify in that behalf;

( c ) there shall be payable by virtue of this section to such officer or his personal representative the total amount of such additional salary and emoluments (reckoned as from the date on which the increase of salary or emoluments mentioned in such resolution is deemed by virtue of this section to have become effective) as he would have been entitled to receive by virtue of such resolution if such increase had actually become effective on the said date;

( d ) neither the fact that such officer was transferred by statute or otherwise to the service of a local authority other than the local authority by which such resolution was passed nor the fact that the local authority by which such resolution was passed has ceased to exist shall operate to disentitle such officer or his personal representative to the payment mentioned in the next preceding paragraph of this sub-section;

( e ) if such officer ceased to be an officer of a local authority and was granted a pension or paid a gratuity on such cesser, such officer or his personal representative shall be entitled to have the amount of such pension or gratuity reconsidered by the Minister for Local Government and Public Health and, if the said Minister so thinks proper, increased by such amount as the said Minister shall direct;

( f ) every doubt, question or dispute which shall arise in the carrying of this section into effect, and, in particular, every doubt, question, or dispute as to the local authority or local authorities by which any moneys payable to such officer or his personal representative by virtue of this section are to be paid shall be determined by the Minister for Local Government and Public Health whose determination thereof shall be final, but where the local authority in relation to which any such doubt, question, or dispute arises is a vocational education committee or a committee of agriculture the Minister for Local Government and Public Health shall consult with the Minister for Education or the Minister for Agriculture (as the case may require) before determining such doubt, question, or dispute.

4.—(1) Notwithstanding anything contained in the Local Authorities (Officers and Employees) Act, 1926 (No. 39 of 1926), it shall be lawful for any local authority, within a period of five years from the passing of this Act, to appoint with the sanction of the Minister to any office or employment under such local authority any person who in the opinion of the Minister was removed from, or was refused appointment or not appointed to, such office or employment or any office or employment analogous thereto whether under the same or another local authority in Saorstát Eireann as a result of the operation of section 71 of the Principal Act or for political reasons, or any person who in the opinion of the Minister was removed for political reasons from an analogous office or employment under a local authority in any part of Ireland outside Saorstát Eireann.

(2) Any person who is appointed under sub-section (1) of this section to an office or employment may, when so appointed, be placed on the salary scale which, in the opinion of the Minister, he would have reached at the time of such appointment if he had not suffered any such removal or refusal as is mentioned in the said sub-section.

5.—(1) Whenever an officer of a local authority resigned or was dismissed from the service of such local authority after the 1st day of January, 1922, and before the 9th day of March, 1932, and at any time subsequent to such resignation or dismissal either was appointed (whether by way of re-instatement or by way of new appointment) to and employed in the same or another pensionable office by the said local authority, or was appointed to and employed in a pensionable office by another local authority, and the Minister, within twelve months after such appointment or the passing of this Act, whichever is the later, certifies in writing under his hand that such officer so resigned or was so dismissed for political reasons, such officer shall be entitled, for the purpose of calculating the amount of any pension to which he may become entitled under The Principal Act or any other enactment—

( a ) to reckon as pensionable service the period between the date on which he so resigned or was dismissed (as the case may be) and the date on which he was subsequently so appointed as aforesaid by a local authority, and

( b ) where his service before he so resigned or was dismissed was service under a local authority whose functional area was outside the area now comprised in Saorstát Eireann and was service which would have been pensionable service if the functional area of such local authority had been within Saorstát Eireann, to reckon such service as pensionable service, and

( c ) to reckon as one period of continuous pensionable service the following periods that is to say, his pensionable service before he so resigned or was dismissed (as the case may be), the said period mentioned in paragraph (a)of this sub-section, and his pensionable service subsequent to that period.

(2) Where an officer becomes entitled by virtue of this section to reckon as pensionable service a period intervening between his resignation or dismissal from the service of one local authority and his appointment to a pensionable office by another local authority, such proportion of that period as the Minister shall direct shall, for the purpose of determining the liability for any pension to which such officer may become entitled under The Principal Act, be deemed to be service in the employment of the local authority from whose service such officer so resigned or was dismissed, and the remainder of the said period shall be deemed to be service in the employment of the local authority by whom he was so appointed at the expiration of the said period.

(3) Where an officer has become entitled by virtue of this section to reckon as part of a period of continuous pensionable service a period of service under a local authority the functional area of which was outside the area now comprised in Saorstát Eireann (whether such period of continuous pensionable service does or does not also include by virtue of this section a period between the termination of such service and his being appointed to a pensionable office under another local authority) and such officer is awarded a pension or gratuity, the Minister shall, out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas, refund to the local authority by which such pension or gratuity is paid, such proportion of such pension or gratuity as the Minister, with the consent of the Minister for Finance, shall determine to be attributable to the service of such officer under a local authority whose functional area was outside the area now comprised in Saorstát Eireann, and in such case section 47 of the Principal Act and sub-section (2) of this section shall not apply.

(4) No certificate for the purposes of this section shall be given by the Minister for Education without the consent of the Minister for Finance.

(5) In this section—

( a ) the expression "local authority" shall in relation to any act, event, or thing which was done or occurred before the 30th day of April, 1923, be construed as including any local authority whose functional area was then situated anywhere in Ireland, and

( b ) references to resignation from a service shall be construed as including leaving such service otherwise than by dismissal, and

( c ) all words and expressions to which a particular meaning is assigned by section 42 of the Principal Act have the meaning so assigned.

6.—(1) Where a person actually performed and fulfilled the services and duties of an officer or a servant of a local authority while he was, by the operation of section 71 of the Principal Act, not an officer or servant of such local authority or while he was, by reason of a decision of or direction given to such local authority and on account of his political activities, not in receipt of remuneration from such local authority, such local authority or any other local authority to whom the functions, duties, and powers of such first-mentioned local authority have been transferred on the abolition of such first-mentioned local authority may with the sanction of the Minister pay to such person or his personal representative any sum or sums of money by way of remuneration in respect of the period during which such person was so performing and fulfilling the services and duties of such officer or servant, not exceeding in the whole the amount of the remuneration to which such person would have been entitled in respect of such period if he had actually been such officer or servant.

(2) Any payment made by a local authority before the passing of this Act which was not lawful at the time when it was made but would have been lawful by virtue of this section if this section had been in force at that time, shall be deemed to have been made under this section and to be and always to have been lawful.

7.—(1) Any local authority may, within six months after the passing of this Act and with the sanction of the Minister, pay to any person or to the personal representative of any person who was an officer or servant of such local authority during the whole or any part of the period which began on the 1st day of July, 1922, and ended on the 30th day of April, 1923, and whose service as such officer or servant was interrupted during any part of that period by reason of his having being imprisoned or interned or otherwise absent from his duties during the said part of such period on account of his political activities, the whole or any part of any salary, wages, or remuneration in respect of the said part of such period payment of which was withheld from him by such local authority on account of his being so imprisoned or interned or otherwise absent from his duties.

(2) The following provisions shall have effect in relation to or for the purposes of the foregoing sub-section of this section, that is to say:—

( a ) payment may be made to a person under this section whether he is or is not, at the time of making such payment, an officer or servant of the local authority making such payment;

( b ) if the local authority by whom payment of salary, wages, or remuneration was withheld has ceased to exist, any exercise of the powers conferred by this section which could have been made by such local authority if such local authority still existed may be made by the local authority to whom the functions, powers, and duties of such first-mentioned local authority have been transferred;

( c ) any payment made under this section to any person shall be defrayed out of the rate or fund out of which the salary, wages, or remuneration of such person are defrayed by the local authority making such payment or, if he is not an officer or servant of such local authority, out of the rate or fund out of which his salary, wages, or remuneration would be defrayed by such local authority if he were an officer or servant of such local authority;

( d ) every doubt, question, or dispute which shall arise in the carrying of this section into effect shall be determined by the Minister for Local Government and Public Health whose determination thereof shall be final.

8.—For the purpose of any limit on the amount of the rate out of which a payment under this Act is defrayed so much of such rate as is made for the purpose of defraying such payment shall not be reckoned as part of such rate.

9.—(1) This Act may be cited as the Local Government Act, 1933 .

(2) The Local Government Acts, 1925 to 1931, and this Act may be cited together as the Local Government Acts, 1925 to 1933.