Ireland
In the Republic of Ireland, the dual mandate of local councillors having Oireachtas seats was abolished by the Local Government (No. 2) Act 2003, an amendment to the Local Government Act 2001. Attempts to include it in the 2001 Act failed after a rebellion by Fianna Fáil backbenchers; the 2003 Act passed after a compensation package was agreed for those losing out. The 2001 Act prohibited being a member of multiple county/city councils, or multiple town councils, or both a town and city council. Brian O'Shea was a member of both Waterford City Council and Waterford County Council until 1993. County councillors are allowed to sit on a town council, and many do so. The 2003 Act provides that a candidate elected simultaneously to a forbidden combination of local councils has three days to choose which seat to take up, with the others being considered vacant.
Read more about this topic: Dual Mandate
Famous quotes containing the word ireland:
“No people can more exactly interpret the inmost meaning of the present situation in Ireland than the American Negro. The scheme is simple. You knock a man down and then have him arrested for assault. You kill a man and then hang the corpse.”
—W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt)
“In Ireland they try to make a cat cleanly by rubbing its nose in its own filth. Mr. Joyce has tried the same treatment on the human subject. I hope it may prove successful.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Come, fix upon me that accusing eye.
I thirst for accusation. All that was sung.
All that was said in Ireland is a lie
Breed out of the contagion of the throng,
Saving the rhyme rats hear before they die.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)