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GAZETTE
JULY/AUGUST 1982
exclude the press or (b) the local authority by resolution
refers a designated item or designated items to a committee
and adopts the procedure laid down in its own standing
orders.
The propriety of procedure (b) is — in the circumstances
outlined earlier in this paper — open to question and it
remains to be seen if a journalist becomes sufficiently
worked up about it to take the matter before the courts or if
the media generally considers the matter to be sufficiently
important as to press for legislation. If the legislation fol-
lowed the English pattern the last state of the journalist
would be no better than the first.
The last area to be examined is the right of the public to
attend meetings of local authorities. We start with the
proposition that the public has no general or absolute right
to attend meetings of local authorities. The law as enunci-
ated in
Tenby Corporation
v.
Mason
continues to apply in
this jurisdiction. The Local Government (Procedure in
Councils) Order 1899 indicated that estimates meetings
should be open to the public but Street, in his compendious
book on local government suggests that the Order (at least
in this respect) is now obsolete. The 1899 Order was, in
fact, revoked by the Public Bodies Order 1923. The legal
position was reviewed by District Justice Delap in January
1973 in his unreported findings in
A. G. V. Eugene Keogh
andAifan Griffin-,
thefinding is set out in the Law Society
Gazette of July/August 1973 at page 163 and arises out of
the conduct of two members of the Dun Laoghaire Housing
Action Group at a meeting of Dun Laoghaire Borough
Council. Here again the standing orders of individual local
authorities need to be studied.
Standing Order no. 49 of Limerick Corporation for
example, reads simply:
"The public, in so far as space permits, may be
present at meetings of the Council in that portion of
the Chamber from time to time allotted to their use."
The limitation of attendance of members ofthe public by
habitually offering too little space for the public would be
seen by the courts as a ploy — see
R. V Liverpool City
Council
(The Times, December 7th, 1974) — but such a
ploy has not evidenced itself in this jurisdiction. Local
Government officials, while concerned about the effects —
especially on the elected representatives — of attendance
by members of the public who are really pressure groups
and can be numerous and noisy, are conscious of the
benefits to democracy which spring from scrutiny of the
activities of local government by the press and the public
and generally maintain a co-operative rather than an
obstructive stance. •
Appendix
Local Government Board for Ireland
To the
County Council
of each Administrative County in
Ireland; the
District Council
of each Urban and Rural
District in Ireland', the
Town Commissioners
of each
Town having Commissioners under the Towns Improve-
ment (Ireland) Act, 1854, but which is not an Urban
District; and the
Guardians
of the
Poor
of each Union in
Ireland; And to all others whom it may concern.
[Order dated 9th February, 1903.]
Whereas it is provided by section 15 of the Local
Government (Ireland) Act, 1902(a), that no resolution of
any council, board, or commissioners to exclude from its
meetings representatives of the press shall be-valid unless
sanctioned by the Local Government Board for Ireland in
pursuance of bye-laws which the said Local Government
Board are thereby empowered to frame regulating the
admission of the representatives of the press to such
meetings:
Now, therefore, We, the Local Government Board for
Ireland, in exercise of the powers vested in us by the said
section and of all other powers enabling us in this behalf,
do hereby order and direct that the following provisions
shall take effect as bye-laws for regulating the admission of
the representatives of the press to meetings of councils,
boards, and commissioners:
1. Subject as is hereinafter mentioned any person who
desires to attend a meeting of any council, board, or
commissioners as a representative of the press, and
(continued opposite)
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