Section 7.—Relieving officers are empowered to give provisional relief in cases of urgent necessity, by an order of admission to the workhouse or fever hospital of the union, or only affording such relief as may be necessary in food, lodging, medicine or medical attendance, until the next meeting of the board of guardians, to whom the case is then to be reported, and their directions taken thereon. The guardians are to furnish the relieving officers with the necessary funds for the above purposes, in such manner as the Poor Law Commissioners direct.
Sections 8, 9, 10.—Relief to a wife or child is to be considered as given to the husband or parent, as the case may be; and children are liable for the relief afforded to their parents. Relief at the cost of a union, is only to be given within the union. Occupiers of more than a quarter of an acre of land are not to be deemed destitute, nor to be relieved out of the poor-rates.
Sections 11, 12.—Regulate the mode of charging out-door relief; and provide that no person shall be deemed resident in an electoral division, unless three years before he applies for relief, he shall have occupied some tenement within it for three months, or usually slept within it for thirty months.
Sections 13, 14, 15.—Prescribe the conditions on which assistance may be given to emigration, and the proportion of the expense that may be defrayed out of the rates. The provisions of 6th and 7th Vict. cap. 92, sec. 18,[[155]] for the emigration of persons who have been three months in a workhouse, extended to poor persons not in a workhouse, or who have been there less than three months. The expense incurred in aid of emigration not to be deemed relief.
Section 16.—The limitation of ex-officio guardians to one-third the number of elected guardians is repealed; but it is at the same time provided that the ex-officios shall in no case exceed the number of the elected guardians.
Sections 17, 18.—The commissioners empowered to dissolve or alter unions without consent of the guardians, and to form such other unions therefrom as they shall deem expedient, and to adjust the claims and liabilities consequent thereon. The commissioners also empowered to dissolve a board of guardians on their failing duly to discharge their prescribed duties, and to appoint paid officers to carry into execution the provisions of the law, without any intermediate election of guardians.
Section 19.—Enables the commissioners to provide a chapel, and to make such regulations as they deem expedient, for securing the religious worship of any denomination of Christians in the workhouses.
Sections 20, 21, 22, 23, 24.—Provide for the purchase of three additional acres of land to be used for a cemetery, or for the erection of fever wards. The commissioners are also empowered to hire or purchase, not exceeding 25 acres, for the purpose of erecting a school for the joint reception maintenance and education of the children of the North and South Dublin unions, the management of such school to be conducted by a board chosen from among the guardians of the two unions, in such manner as the commissioners shall by order direct. Other unions may also be formed into school districts in like manner, and for a like purpose.
Sections 25, 26.—The commissioners empowered to prescribe the qualifications and the duties of all officers, and to determine their continuance or removal, and to regulate their salaries, &c. The administration of relief is also subject to the commissioners’ direction and control.
Sections 27, 28, 29.—Accounts are to be kept and audited as prescribed by the commissioners. Any payment disallowed by an auditor, is to be recovered from the party debited therewith. And on or before the 1st of May in every year, an account is to be laid before parliament of the expenditure on relief of the poor, and of the total number relieved in each union, during the year ended on the 29th of September preceding.