Central Control of Local Authorities in Ireland

fT HE trend of central-local relations in the Irish Free State (1921-1937) and Eire (Ireland) since 1937 has been decidedly toward increased central control over local authorities.1 A highly integrated series of administrative controls has been centered in the Local Appointments Commission and in the Department of Local Government and Public Health. The former has charge of the recruitment of executive, professional, and technical officers for local units; the latter regulates questions of remuneration, superannuation, discipline, and removal. In addition, the Department has come to have a broad jurisdiction including combined purchasing; fiscal controls as to accounting, auditing, and surcharging; administration of grants-inaid; and drastic powers of dissolution. This system of pervasive power extends to all basic units of Irish local administration: county boroughs, administrative counties, boroughs, urban districts, boards of public assistance, and towns. When the Free State was established, an unwary prophet might have predicted that the growth of central-local relations would be in the direction of decentralization. The first decades of the twentieth century in Ireland were marked by a deep-rooted antagonism between elective county councils and the English Local Government Board for Ireland. During the nineteenth century the landlords, through their representation on the grand juries appointed by the sheriffs, had controlled the revenues and admin

Control (management · Economics · Management · Political science · Irish and British Studies · Public Administration