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In Ireland, local government functions are mostly exercised by thirty-one local authorities, termed County, City or City and County Councils.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.environ.ie/en/LocalGovernment/LocalGovernmentAdministration/ )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.lgcsb.ie/en/irish-local-government )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.environ.ie/en/LocalGovernment/LocalGovernmentAdministration/LocalAuthorities/ )〕 The principal decision-making body in each of the thirty-one local authorities is composed of the members of the council, elected by universal franchise in local elections every five years. Irish Local Authorities are the closest and most accessible form of Government to people in their local community. Many of the authorities' statutory functions are, however, the responsibility of ministerially appointed career officials termed Chief executives.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.lgcsb.ie/en/who-we-are )〕 The area under the jurisdiction of each of the authorities corresponds to the area of each of the thirty-one Local administrative unit (LAU 1) Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) areas for Eurostat purposes. The competencies of the city and county councils include planning, transport infrastructure, sanitary services, public safety (notably fire services) and the provision of public libraries.〔 Local government in the state is governed by ''Local Government Acts'', the most recent of which – the Local Government Act 2001 – established this two-tier structure. The Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 is the founding document of the present system. The Twentieth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland (1999) provided for constitutional recognition of local government for the first time in Ireland. The Local Government Reform Act 2014 changed the existing structure, in line with reforms announced in October 2012 by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government. These included the abolition of all town councils and the merger of some county councils. The reforms came into effect in 2014, to coincide with that year's local elections. ==Historical development== (詳細はcounty was a unit of judicial and administrative government introduced to Ireland following the Norman invasion. The country was shired in a number of phases with County Wicklow being the last to be shired in 1625. The traditional county of Tipperary was split into two judicial counties (or ridings) following the establishment of assize courts in 1838. Sixty years later, a more radical reorganisation of local government took place with the passage of the Local Government (Ireland) Act (1898). This Act established a county council for each of the thirty-three Irish counties and ridings. The geographic remit of the Irish Free State, which was established pursuant to the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, was confined to twenty-six of the traditional counties of Ireland and thus included 27 administrative counties. To this number may be added the county boroughs. In 1994 Dublin County Council and the Corporation of Dún Laoghaire were abolished with their administrative areas being divided among three new counties: Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin. The 2001 Act simplified the local government structure, in which the principal tier of local government (county and city councils) cover the entire territory of the state and have general responsibility for all functions of local government except in 80 towns within the territory of county councils, where the lower tier (town councils) exists with more limited functions. The five county boroughs of Dublin, Cork, Galway, Waterford, and Limerick were re-styled as city councils under the Act, with the same status in law as county councils. The remaining county boroughs in place at the foundation of the state were downgraded by the 2001 Act to town council status. In introducing a second tier of local government, the Act had the effect of: *abolishing Urban District Councils *abolishing boards of Town commissioners *reducing the status of certain borough corporations from a position of equivalence with county councils to one of equivalence with town councils. From 1 January 2002 the existing Urban District Councils and boards of Town Commissioners were renamed as Town Councils. Additionally, the city of Kilkenny, along with the four towns of (Sligo, Drogheda, Clonmel, and Wexford) were reduced in status to the level of Town Council. In recognition of the previous history, the towns were permitted to use the title of "Borough Council" instead of "Town Council". There were 75 other town councils in addition to these five borough councils. This structure was a modified version of the system introduced in 1898, with some county boroughs renamed as cities, urban districts and municipal boroughs renamed as town councils (or, as noted, boroughs), and rural districts abolished (everywhere except County Dublin in 1925, and in County Dublin in 1930). The distinction between urban district and "towns with town commissioners" had been abolished. At various times in the past, other entities at a level below that of the county or county borough have been employed in Ireland for various judicial, administrative and revenue collecting purposes. Some of these, such as the barony and Grand jury, no longer fulfil their original purpose while retaining only vestigial legal relevance in the modern state. Others, such as the Poor Law Unions, have been transformed into entities still in use by the modern state, but again, their original functions have been substantially altered. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Local government in the Republic of Ireland」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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