Local Government (Ireland) Act 1919

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Local Government (Ireland) Act 1919
Act of Parliament
Coat of arms of the United Kingdom (2022, variant 1).svg
Long title An Act to amend further the Law relating to Local Government in Ireland and for other purposes connected therewith.
Citation 9 & 10 Geo. 5 c. 19
Territorial extent Ireland
Dates
Royal assent 3 June 1919
Other legislation
Repealed by
Status: Repealed

The Local Government (Ireland) Act 1919 (9 & 10 Geo. 5. c. 19) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland which provided that local government elections in Ireland would be conducted on a system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote (PR-STV). This replaced the previous system of first-past-the-post in single-member districts and block voting in multi-member districts.

Sligo Corporation had introduced PR-STV under a local act of Parliament, the Sligo Corporation Act 1918 (8 & 9 Geo. 5. c. xxiii), ahead of an election in 1919. The first local elections under PR-STV in the rest of the country took place in 1920.

Under the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898, Ireland had been divided into district electoral divisions and wards. Under the provisions of the 1919 Act, the Local Government Board for Ireland was required to divide the local government areas into local electoral areas, variously named as:

The Government of Ireland Act 1920 enacted the partition of Ireland, creating separate jurisdictions of Southern Ireland and Northern Ireland in effect from 1921. It introduced PR-STV for the House of Commons of Northern Ireland and the House of Commons of Southern Ireland.

Southern Ireland became the Irish Free State in 1922 (Ireland from 1937). PR-STV has continued in use for all elections. The act itself was repealed under the Electoral Act 1963. [1] The division of local government areas into LEAs has been re-enacted in later legislation (no longer distinguishing between types of LEA), up to the Local Government Act 2001. [2]

In Northern Ireland, PR-STV was abolished under the Local Government Act 1922, with a reversion to first-past-the-post for 1924 Northern Ireland local elections, the first local elections held in the new jurisdiction. [3] [4] FPTP was introduced for the Northern Ireland House of Commons for the 1929 election. PR-STV was reintroduced for local elections from 1972, and remains in use.

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References

  1. Electoral Act 1963 (Commencement) Order 1965 ( No. 124 of 1965 ). Enacted on 10 June 1965. Act of the Oireachtas .Retrieved from Irish Statute Book .
  2. Local Government Act 2001 , s. 23: Local electoral areas ( No. 37 of 2001, s. 23 ). Enacted on 21 July 2001. Act of the Oireachtas .Retrieved from Irish Statute Book .
  3. "Act abolishes Proportional Representation". Decade of Centenaries. Retrieved 17 June 2023.
  4. Buckland, Patrick (1980). "Who Governed Northern Ireland? The Royal Assent and the Local Government Bill 1922". Irish Jurist. 15 (2): 326–340. JSTOR   44013911.