The Local Government Act of 1925 provided that whenever the Minister made an order under Section 72 of that Act dissolving a local authority he might appoint such and so many persons as he should think fit to perform the duties of such local authority. That is the provision in sub-section (3). It is provided in sub-section (6) that the Minister may, from time to time, by Order do all such things and make all such regulations as in his opinion are necessary for giving full effect to any Order made by him under Section 72. When in May, 1924, the Dublin County Borough Council was dissolved certain subsidiary bodies had to be carried on. One was the Grangegorman Mental Hospital Joint Committee consisting of 29 representatives of the Dublin Corporation and a number of representatives from County Louth, County Wicklow and County Dublin. By statute it was necessary that three-fourths of the 29 representatives from the City of Dublin should be members of the County Borough Council. The Minister's Order dissolving the Council provided that the representatives appointed by the old city council on the Grangegorman Joint Committee would continue to act as representatives of the city on that Joint Committee. In fact they did not attend the meetings. About July, 1925, it was clear that a more satisfactory representation of the city was required on the committee. The Minister then, by Order, removed the 29 representatives who had been on the Joint Committee and appointed, as representing Dublin on it, the three Commissioners at the time in charge of Dublin City.
Arising out of a law case in connection with the reduction made by the Committee formed after July, 1925— Woods and others against the Dublin Corporation — a decision of the Supreme Court was given. The decision, in effect, was that the Joint Committee so constituted by the Order of July, 1925, was not legally constituted, and that therefore all its subsequent acts were invalid. The judgment makes it clear I think, that, if we could not put on sub-section (6) of Section 72 of the Act of 1925 the interpretation that was put on it when the Committee was so set up by order of the Minister, the Joint Committee for Grangegorman Mental Hospital could not be set up at all.
In addition, there is the position that the decision of the Supreme Court leaves in very considerable doubt whether even the Order of the Minister dated 20th May, 1924, whereby he made provision for the representation of Dublin City on the Grangegorman Joint Mental Hospital Committee by leaving the nominees of the old Dublin Council on, made that a legally constituted body. Generally, it raises the question whether when a county council is dissolved it is possible under the present law to put on sub-section (6) of Section 72 of the 1925 Act the interpretation that has been put on it up to the present. The question arises as to whether it is possible to have such bodies as boards of health, vocational education committees or a mental hospital committee, whether it is a joint mental hospital committee or not, functioning.
The present Bill does not make provision for giving any powers to the Minister additional to what it was understood he was getting under the 1925 Act or to what is actually necessary for the work of the subsidiary bodies under a county council if that work is to be carried on at all, but makes explicit the powers which it is necessary the Minister should have if a deadlock is not to be created by the abolition of a county council, or if the law in the matter is not going to be left in an uncertain state. The Bill, therefore, provides for giving the additional powers that are necessary and for validating, in so far as any validation is necessary, the powers that have been exercised in the past in order to carry out the work that was necessary. Among other matters, the general acts of the Grangegorman Joint Mental Hospital Committee are being validated in this Bill. The Bill proposes in Section 6 to preserve the steps which have been taken by the present Joint Committee, appointed subsequent to the reconstitution of the Dublin City Council, and to give effect to the judgment of the Supreme Court in the Woods case already referred to as regards the salaries and wages of officers and servants. The steps which the Joint Committee at present in existence have taken to pay the moneys to officers and servants arising out of the judgment in the Woods case are being validated. Unless we took steps to validate the action that has been taken in the making of these payments the making of them would be left invalid.