Statute Law Repeals - Law Commission - Ministry of Justice

4.14 A series of pre-Union Irish Acts, spanning the period 1771 to 1800, governed the
hospital and workhouse’s activities, followed by a United Kingdom post-Union
statute of 1801. 22 The Dublin Foundling Hospital Act 1810 23 continued in force the
Irish Acts (which had been time-limited), 24 and repealed the 1801 Act. It also
incorporated the hospital’s governing body, made provision for the oral
examination of the hospital’s employees as to their care of the children and the
handling of funds, and varied the mechanics whereby the hospital levied property
rates (through valuation, rating assessment and rate collection) in accordance
with audit practice. 25
4.15 By 1814 the hospital was again overwhelmed with admission candidates.
Concern flowed from the rise in the child mortality rate, and from the attempt by
some parents to secure maintenance through the hospital when they had
sufficient means of their own. The Dublin Foundling Hospital Act 1814 26
empowered the governors to suspend admissions for six months (after the giving
of due notice in the parishes) and to require the production of certificates by
parish ministers and churchwardens as to the absence of parents or the inability
of parents to provide for their child’s upkeep.
4.16 Six years later the 1814 Act powers needed to be supplemented. The Dublin
Foundling Hospital Act 1820 27 provided greater flexibility as to when admissions
could be suspended and individual cases refused or granted with conditions. 28
4.17 The time-limited Acts needed extension. First the Foundling Hospital, Dublin Act
1821 29 and then the Dublin Foundling Hospital Act 1822 30 extended the life of the
Acts, initially up until 1824 and then indefinitely. The 1822 Act also tightened the
admission and discharge arrangements for children in care. Admission was only
to be granted where the parish overseers paid Ir£5 first, and produced a
certificate which stated that the child was under 12 months old, that the parents
could not be located, and that the child had been “deserted or exposed” and was
in danger of perishing. From 1823 onwards hospital rates within the city and
suburbs were to be abolished, and legislation relating to the parish poor was to
be extended to Dublin parishes. No child was to be discharged to any putative
relative without an order of the governors.
22 41 Geo.3 c.50 (1801) (Foundling Hospital, Dublin Act), repealed in 1810 (see below). The
previous Foundling Hospital in Dublin Act 1800 (40 Geo.3 c.33) (Ire), a pre-Union Irish Act,
was repealed in Ireland in 2007.
23 50 Geo.3 c.cxcii (1810). The Act was not assigned a short title: the title used informally
here derives from the Chronological Table of Local Acts 1797-2008.
24 The continuation period was 11 years until January 1821 plus the period leading up to the
end of the next parliamentary session (which meant 1822).
25 Properties liable to be rated were those situate within a two mile radius of Dublin castle.
26 54 Geo.3 c.128 (1814) (“The 1814 Act”).
27 1 Geo.4 c.29 (1820).
28
Suspension orders first required the approval of the lord lieutenant or chief governors of
Ireland.
29 1 & 2 Geo.4 c.117 (1821), repealed in 1873.
30 3 Geo.4 c.35 (1822) (“The 1822 Act”).
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