This is an emergency measure. It is an urgent measure owing to the fact that if it is not passed it will be necessary to have local elections again in January and June next. This situation arises from the fact that at the time we passed the first Postponement of Elections Act in 1922 we thought that the elections would be held early in 1923. For that reason the date from which the period of office was to be reckoned was not altered. Subsequently it became necessary to pass several Local Elections Postponement Acts. The last postponement was owing to an amendment inserted in the Local Government Act of 1925 in the Seanad. As a result of that amendment, we did not hold the local elections until June, 1925. The result is that although the local bodies were only elected in June 1925, their period of office dates from 1923, and accordingly they will only have a life of six months in one case and twelve months in the other, unless we pass this Bill.
This Bill is intended to give the ordinary three years period to the existing bodies. It is an urgent measure, because notice of the local elections will have to be given on the 26th of this month, if it is decided not to pass the Bill. Senators may say that this measure should have reached the Seanad before this, and that I should not now be asking to have it passed as an emergency measure. If it were not for the important Bill that was before the Dáil and the Seanad during the last couple of weeks, this Bill would have arrived in the Seanad last week, and that would have given ample time. For that reason I am asking to have the Bill put through all its stages to-day.
