Executive Council of The Irish Free State - Overview

Overview

While the Free State constitution provided that executive authority would be 'vested' in the King and exercised by his Governor General. However under Article 51 this power was only exercisable "in accordance with the law, practice and constitutional usage governing the exercise of the Executive Authority in the case of the Dominion of Canada". In practice this meant that, as in Canada, the Governor-General was in most cases required to act on the advice of the Executive Council. Thus, it was the cabinet in which true authority lay. In addition to exercising the executive authority the Executive Council, by advising the Governor General, had the exclusive right to

• Convene and dissolve parliament - although this right could not be exercised by a cabinet which had lost the confidence of the Dáil.
• Command of the Defence Forces - although the cabinet could not involve the state in a war without the consent of the Oireachtas.
• Appoint judges.
• Introduce a money bill in the Oireachtas.

Once the President of the Executive Council had been appointed he nominated the Vice President himself. The remaining cabinet ministers were also nominated by the President but had be approved by a vote of consent in the Dáil. Initially the constitution provided that the Executive Council would consist of between five and seven ministers (not including its president) but under a constitutional amendment adopted in 1927 this maximum limit was increased to twelve. Similarly, initially it was required that all cabinet members hold seats in the Dáil, but an amendment in 1929 provided that one member could be a senator.

In the event that the Executive Council ceased to "retain the support of a majority in Dáil Éireann" the entire cabinet was obliged to resign en masse, however they were permitted to remain in office as acting ministers until the appointment of successors. The fact that an Executive Council that had lost the confidence of the Dáil could not request a dissolution created the possibility of a political stalemate. It meant that if the Executive Council resigned after being defeated, and the Dáil could not agree on a new Council, a Catch-22 situation might be created, in which the inability of the Dáil to choose a cabinet could not be resolved by the holding of a general election. Unlike the modern Taoiseach of Ireland, the President of the Executive Council did not have authority to dismiss ministers individually. Rather, to dismiss a single member, the whole council had to be dismissed and reformed en bloc. Additionally, the President of the Council could not ask the Governor-General to dissolve the Dáil on his own initiative, but the Council as a whole had to do so. This meant that the position of the President was weaker than that of most modern prime ministers, and he was its chairman as much as he was its leader.