The Local Government Act, 2001 was enacted by the Oireachtas of Ireland on 21 July 2001. Most of the provisions of the Act came into operation on 1 January 2002. The act was a restatement and amendment of previous legislation, which was centred on the Local Government Act 1898. The 2001 act remains in force, although significantly amended by the Local Government Reform Act 2014. According to the explanatory memorandum issued before the passing of the Act, its purposes were to:
enhance the role of the elected member,
support community involvement with local authorities in a more participative local democracy,
modernise local government legislation, and provide the framework for new financial management systems and other procedures to promote efficiency and effectiveness,
underpin generally the programme of local government renewal.
Local government areas
The Act established local government areas based on those already created by previous legislation. The types of areas listed in the Act are: Counties: Identical to the administrative counties established by the Local Government Act 1898 and modified by later legislation. The opportunity was taken to rename Tipperary and Tipperary as North Tipperary and South Tipperary respectively. Cities: These were the County boroughs created by the 1898 Act and later legislation, renamed. All the county boroughs except Galway had previously had the courtesy title of city by charter or letters patent. Boroughs: The five existing non-county boroughs continued in existence. In addition it was recognised that Kilkenny could continue to be called a city, in spite of being governed by a borough council and not being a former county borough. Towns: The remaining town authorities, formerly known as urban districts or towns with town commissioners, were all redesignated as towns.
One of the most controversial aspects of the Act was the abolition of the so-called "dual mandate". This meant that members of the Oireachtas could no longer be candidates for local authority elections. This was taken out of the original act after protests from Fianna Fáil backbenchers who were also councillors. It was introduced in a 2003 amendment after a compensation package was agreed.
Directly-elected mayors
Inspired by the office of Mayor of London created in 2000, Chapter 3 of Part 5 of the 2001 act as passed provided for a directly elected chairperson of each county and city council. This was to take effect from the 2004 local elections. However, a 2003 amendment repealed the provision before it was implemented.
Part 11 of the Act mandated the establishment of a permanent Local Government Commission to propose changes to local authority areas, local electoral areas, or local authority powers. This part never came into force and was repealed by the 2014 act. The previous practice of ad-hoc committees for boundary reviews continued after 2001 and was formalised by the 2014 act.
