Sections 98, 99, 100, 101, 102.—Justices may proceed by summons for recovery of penalties—penalty on officers disobeying guardians—penalty on officers and others purloining goods &c. belonging to any union—penalty on persons wilfully disobeying the orders of the commissioners or assistant-commissioners.
Sections 103, 104, 105.—Forfeitures costs and charges may be levied by distress under warrant of two justices, and are to be applied to the use of the union—ratepayers are competent witnesses—distress not to be deemed unlawful for want of form in the proceedings—plaintiff not to recover for wrongful proceeding, if tender of amends be made.
Sections 106, 107, 108, 109.—Persons aggrieved may within four months after the cause of complaint, appeal against the poor-rate, or against a conviction where the penalty exceeds 5l., and the justices and assistant-barrister before whom the appeal is brought, are empowered finally to determine the same; but fourteen days’ notice of the appeal is to be given.
Sections 110, 111, 112.—Notwithstanding any appeal or notice thereof, the rate is to be paid, unless and until it be actually quashed or amended. Persons appealing are to enter into recognisance to prosecute the same at the next sessions, and to abide the order and pay such costs as the justices and assistant-barrister shall award.
Section 113.—No action to be commenced against any person for anything done under authority of the Act, until after twenty-one days’ notice thereof, nor after sufficient satisfaction has been tendered to the party aggrieved, nor after three months from the time the action complained of was committed; and the defendant may plead the general issue.
Sections 114, 115, 116, 117.—No order of the commissioners, assistant-commissioners, or guardians, is removable by writ of certiorari except into the Court of Queen’s Bench in Dublin, and every order or rate[[86]] so removed is to continue in force until declared to be illegal. No application for writ of certiorari to be made, unless ten days’ notice of the particulars thereof shall have been delivered in writing to the commissioners, who may thereupon show cause against such application, and the court may if it think fit, proceed at once to hear and determine the case. Recognisances must be entered into previous to application for a writ of certiorari, and if the order be quashed, notice thereof is to be given to the unions to which it was directed; but the judgment is in no case to annul existing contracts.
Sections 118, 119, 120, 121.—The Poor Law Commissioners for England and Wales are declared to be “The Poor Law Commissioners” under the provisions of this Act, and are empowered to carry the same into effect. A fourth commissioner may be appointed, and any two or more of the commissioners may sit as a board in England and Wales, or in Ireland, as they shall deem expedient. They are to have a common seal, and all orders or copies thereof purporting to be sealed therewith, are to be received as evidence that the same have been duly made.
Sections 122, 123.—When required by the secretary of state, or when the board shall think fit, one of the commissioners may act in Ireland, and have all the powers given to the board of commissioners, except the power of making general rules; but the whole of the commissioners are to assemble in London once at least in every year, for the purpose of submitting a report of their proceedings, which report is to be made on or before the 1st of May, and is to be annually laid before parliament, “together with an account of the expenditure upon the relief of the poor in each union, and of the total number relieved in each union during the year ended the 1st of January preceding.”
Section 124.—Interpretation clause.
Notwithstanding all the care that had been taken in framing this Act, it was found on proceeding to carry it into operation that there were several defects, partly owing to a want of information with regard to certain peculiarities existing in Ireland, but principally arising out of the changes made in the passage of the bill through parliament. Thus, on the assumption that the division into townlands was universal, an alteration was made in the Lords constituting a townland the unit in the formation of unions; but in some places it was found that no townland existed, and in very many cases the extent of the townland was not known. There was uncertainty also with regard to parishes, their limits being in many instances undefined. It became necessary therefore with as little delay as possible to take steps for remedying these defects, and to pass a short Act amending the former, which was accordingly done; and as this last was essential to the one which preceded it, so that the two Acts may be said to form one statute, it will be convenient to insert a summary of it here in continuation of the above—