General Council of County Council, Ireland

The Centenary of Irish Local Government

'Historically, Irish local government developed largely from a judicial system introduced under a colonial regime and from town corporations with limited community involvement. It tends therefore to lack the deep community roots that go to form the basis of continental local government - which evolved over time and predated national government as widely accepted representative institutions''

- Better Local Government (Dublin, 1996), p.14

'Established institutions were overhauled and hew bodies tacked on to the existing structure to cope with the expanding limits of government responsibility. The resulting patchwork was a frankenstein's monster of overlapping authorities and jurisdictions.'

- Victoria Crossman, Local Government in 19th Century Ireland (Belfast 1994)

The General Council of County Councils is the representative body for Ireland's thirty-four county and city councils embracing almost 900 councillors. It was founded in August 1899.

The Predecessors: 19th Century Local Government

The corporations have their roots deep in medieval charters but they were rationalised and reconstituted under the 1840 Municipal Corporations Act.

Town Commissioners existed in the smaller towns; some from 1828, most from 1854 onwards

Impact of the 1878 Public Health (Ireland) Act

The remit of the Boards of Guardians was expanded to include public health and sanitation functions, crucially water supply and sewage.

In the urban setting the larger town commissioners became urban sanitary districts - a prelude to their becoming urban district councils.

1898 Local Government (Ireland) Act

In simple terms the functions of the Grand Juries and of the Poor Law Guardians were merged to create the array of services identified with modern county councils, viz: roads, sanitation, housing.

The franchise was greatly widened to include those with very little property and, for the first time at any level of election, women were given the right to vote (at least those over thirty).

Created Rural District Councils from the old Boards of Guardian's Districts but this time respecting county boundaries.

Brought the Corporations under a democratic franchise and gave them similar all embracing powers to the county councils creating County Borough Councils.

Converted the larger Town Commissioners to Urban District Councils (ie. a parallel concept to the Rural District Councils). The UDCs had a wide range of functions but were still subject to the county councils for 'county at large' services - main roads, courthouses and coroners.

Made little change to the smaller towns where Town Commissions remained with limited functions.

Political Context to Origins of Irish Local Government

In 1888 Westminister had passed a Local Government Act creating elected county councils in England, Scotland and Wales. It was accepted by both liberals and conservatives that similar would be introduced for Ireland but the land agitation of the time meant that such an intention was delayed. Curiously enough there were mixed feelings towards local government reform among Irish nationalists who feared a diversion from their ultimate prize of national self-rule.

The motivation of the British Government in the 1890s towards local government reform had two sources; on one level it was a bona fide follow on to the reforms introduced in England a decade previously; on another level it had a clearly political purpose, one which might be described as 'killing Home Rule' by kindness.

'The belief that by improving local administration and thereby winning the confidence of the people ... the clamour for separation from England [would disappear] provided the impetus behind local government reform in the nineteenth century''

- Local Government in Nineteenth Century Ireland, Crossman, 1994

There is no doubt that as far as major Irish politicians of the time were concerned local government was either a diversion from, or a stepping stone to, the goal of some form of Irish self-rule, be it Home Rule or full independence.

When a Local Government Bill did appear for Ireland in the summer of 1898 it arrived with great haste. The chief official of the Britain's Local Government Board in Ireland, Sir Henry Robinson, who had his office in the Custom House, claimed in his memoirs that he was on a holiday cruise on his yacht off Scotland when he learned that the Bill had been introduced in Wesminister!

This Act was very similar to the English Local Government measure with some key additions designed mainly to mollify the gentry. It brought with it a dowry of ST£750,000 as a grant to relieve landowners of half of the cost of rates.

This was partially a compensation by the British Government for a gross overtaxation of Ireland. However from a political point of view it was also a bait to the landlords who had feared that councils would run riot in terms of expenditure.

Another concern advanced by the unionists was fear of discrimination, particularly towards protestant office-holders in the new councils by the new nationalist controlled councils. Again there were some safeguards included for the 'old regime' including provision for three of the outgoing Grand Jury members to join the new elected councils.

The Bill had a rapid passage through parliament in the summer of 1898. There were some points of contention - interestingly one of them was a provision banning clergymen from being members of local authorities.

There was at least one objection from across the Irish Sea which might be termed 'A Welsh Protest':

The Irish Times, 12 July 1898, reported:

'Mr. Lloyd George moved to challenge the granting of the money under the Act. The money, he said, was to be used ostensibly for Irish purposes, but in reality, it was a dole to the landlord class to induce them to accept the measure. He protested against the sum of three-quarters of a million being given to a certain class and not to the most deserving.''

The complexity of the Act itself probably militated against its immediate comprehension by the public. According to one commentator of the time it was a 'bewildering maze of a hundred and twenty clauses filling over a hundred printed quarto pages'. (Freeman's Journal).

The same journal was prepared to give little credit to the Conservative government who had sponsored the Bill:

' It is only an English Tory who could conceive that idea that the Irish people should be grateful for a reform accomplished twelve years after it was considered necessary.'

The Irish Times of 13 August 1898 covered both extremes of opinion:

"The session of 1898 has given us in Ireland the Local Government scheme which some speak as directly conservative of a true imperialism and others describe as revolutionary ... as a new and radical approach to the goal of separation.''

The Act was followed by a tortous process of putting regulatory and administrative machinery in place to give practical effect to the new system.

The first elections were for the city and town councils in January 1899; they were followed in April with the elections for the new county councils with their first meetings taking place on or about 22 April 1899.

From April of 1899 the political consequences of the new local government system became apparent.

The Act had widened the right to vote to a wider scope than had been experienced before; all householders were allowed to vote including, for the first time, women. It was not a perfect franchise in that the vote was limited to women over thirty.

Nor was it quite the first opportunity for nationally minded politicians to come to public office; there was a small corpus of nationalist representatives who had come through the somewhat more restricted Board of Guardians since the 1840s.

However the dramatic widening of the franchise in the Local Government Act produced a spectacular effect. Nationalists won seventy-five percent of Council seats. Indeed outside Ulster unionists won a mere 39 of a possible 495 seats. The creation of a new politicised class had begun.

A National Forum for Local Government

The emerging breed of nationally minded politicians - whether those of the Home Rule hue or of the more militant approach - were not slow to seize the opportunity to use the new found councils as a lever to further their ideals.

Barely had the ink dried on the proclamations on courthouse doors throughout the country announcing the result of the first elections than Sir Thomas Grattan-Esmonde, newly elected councillor in Wexford, was writing to his colleague councillors throughout the country, suggesting the setting up of a national forum of councils:

"on a date to be subsequently fixed by mutual consent in Dublin, two members from as many other county councils as see fit to assent to the suggestion [shall meet] for the purpose of considering such public matters as may be deemed worthy of their attention and of taking such action in relation to them as may be deemed useful in the national interest.''

His call ended with a stirring historical allusion:

"If the suggestion be generally adopted, we would once have a Peoples' Parliament, the first since 1641.''

Esmonde's concept for a national assembly of councils took effect; precisely four months to the day after the inaugural meetings of the councils members from 24 of the 39 authorities gathered in the Antient Concert Rooms in Dublin's Pearse Street to form the General Council of County Councils.

Within two years all of the county and city councils (including the 'northern counties') were represented on the General Council.

Although outside of the immediate statutory process it is fair to say that a mention of the formation of the first national representative body for local government is as good a point as any on which to finish a detailed account of the circumstances of the birth of our current local government system.

20th Century Turning Points in Local Government

* Local Government acted as a vehicle for national ambitions from 1900 to c.1910. The General Council of County Councils, for example, was prime mover in the foundation of the National University of Ireland in 1908.

* At this time too Arthur Griffith saw the General Council as an essential plank in his 'dual monarchy' campaign; the General Council would become in effect the nucleus of an Irish parliament

* After 1910 nationalist/home rule ambition began to follow two tracks:

- the parliamentary approach of John Redmond and the IPP

- the clandestine preparation for armed rebellion led by the IRB

* Local government did not figure greatly in either camp and, consequently, began to slip away from its prominent place on the political landscape.

* However in terms of services it delivered its achievements were outstanding: the provision of a comprehensive health service; water and housing; the tarring of roads; and the facilitation of vocational education were some pre 1920 initiatives.

* Local government resumed a key status in the 1919-21 War of Independence when the County Councils transferred their allegiances from the Local Government Board to the subversive Dail Eireann local government department. This brought councils into the firing line; premises were raided by the RIC and minutes and records confiscated.

* The disruption of this period and the subsequent Civil War hit councils severely particularly in their rate collections. It also accelerated abuses such as allocation of council jobs on a partisan basis.

* The new Free State Government had to impose a rigid central control on many aspects of council activity notably recruitment and purchasing.

* The disorganisation, scarcities and debilitating political fractures of the 1920s led to the suspension of many elected councils and their replacement by Government appointed 'commissioners'.

20th Century - Turning Points in Local Government (continued)

* Their success in 'cleaning up the Act' prompted consideration of the management concept: an innovation based, unusually, on the US model with a sprinkling of the French/Swiss prefet thrown in. The first manager was appointed to Cork City in 1929; Dublin followed shortly afterwards; the Co. Managers nationwide date from 1940.

* Local government lost health functions (1970) but gained planning (1963), environmental concerns (1970s), and general power of action for local betterment (1994).

* Increasingly however many other players at state, semi-state, and particularly 'community development' and 'voluntary' sector levels have intruded on territory once occupied by local authorities.

* Referendum 11 June 1999: c730,000 vote in favour of Constitutional recognition for Local Government.

'BUILDING BLOCKS OF DEMOCRACY'

Some reflections from Local Elections 1999:

29 County Councils & 5 City Councils

Poll: c1.441m people, c50% of electorate

Gains over 1991 for Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein

Losses over 1991 for Labour and PD s

Unchanging nature of Irish politics?

FF & FG account for 74% of the 883 seats

Females -just 15% of total seats

An Outline of County Dublin Local Government Landmarks

Dublin Local Government pre-1899:

* Grand Jury of Dublin County

* Poor Law Unions: Balrothery; Rathdown; North Dublin Union; South Dublin Union.

Clontarf, Drumcondra & Glasnevin

New Kilmainham, Rathmines & Rathgar

Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1899:

Abolished Grand Jury and merged its functions with some from the Poor Law Unions. Created Rural District Councils.

Local Government (Dublin) Act, 1930:

1. Made some changes to Co. Boundaries

2. Removed the last of the townships

3. Set up Dun Laoghaire Corporation

4. Introduced the office of Dublin City Manager (who was also appointed Dublin County Manager)

Local Government Act 1991:

Began the process of dividing Dublin County in three parts:

Fingal, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, South Dublin.

First step: Area Committees from March 1992

Second step: Full County Council Status 5 January 1994