Pigs and Bacon (Amendment) Act, 1961

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Ordinary members of the Commission.

9.—The following section is hereby substituted for section 6 of the Act of 1939, namely:

“6 (1) The ordinary members shall, unless they sooner die, resign, become disqualified or are removed from office, hold office for a period of three years commencing, in the case of members nominated before the appointed day, on the appointed day and, in the case of subsequent members, on the day next following the day on which the members who immediately preceded them in office ceased to hold office.

(2) A person who is an ordinary member may at any time resign his office by letter addressed to the chief officer of the Commission and the resignation shall take effect as on and from the date of the receipt of the letter by the chief officer and the person shall be eligible for re-nomination as a member.

(3) (a) Where an ordinary member becomes a member of either House of the Oireachtas, he shall, upon his becoming entitled under the Standing Orders of that House to sit therein, cease to be an ordinary member.

(b) A person who is for the time being entitled under the Standing Orders of either House of the Oireachtas to sit therein, shall, while so entitled, be disqualified from being an ordinary member.

(4) An ordinary member shall be disqualified from holding and shall cease to hold office if he is adjudged bankrupt, or makes a composition or arrangement with creditors, or is sentenced by a court of competent jurisdiction to sufferimprisonment or penal servitude or ceases to be ordinarily resident in the State or absents himself, otherwise than with the permission of the Commission or through illness, during any period of three consecutive months, from every meeting of the Commission held during that period.

(5) (a) The Minister may at any time remove an ordinary member, being an officer of the Minister nominated by the Minister, from office.

(b) The Minister may at any time remove a person who is an ordinary member from office at the request of the body or bodies that nominated the person as an ordinary member or whose failure to nominate a person or to comply with the provisions of paragraph (b) of subsection (3) of section 4 of this Act occasioned the nomination of the person if, in the opinion of the Minister, the member is permanently incapacitated through ill-health, from performing the duties of his office.

(6) (a) Where a casual vacancy occurs among the ordinary members, the chief officer shall, as soon as may be, notify in writing—

(i) the Minister, and

(ii) if the member occasioning the vacancy was nominated under paragraph (b) of subsection (3) of section 4 of this Act, the body or bodies that nominated or whose failure to nominate a person or to comply with the provisions of the said paragraph (b) occasioned the nomination of the person.

(b) A casual vacancy occurring among the ordinary members shall be filled—

(i) in case the member occasioning the vacancy was an officer of the Minister nominated by the Minister under subparagraph (iii) of the said paragraph (b), by the nomination by the Minister of an officer of the Minister, and

(ii) in case the member occasioning the vacancy was nominated under subparagraph (i) or subparagraph (ii) of the said paragraph (b)—

(I) by the nomination of a person referred to in the subparagraph aforesaid under which the member was nominated, within thirty days after the day on which notification of the vacancy was received by the body or bodies aforesaid from the chief officer of the Commission, and the delivery to the Minister, within forty days after the day on which the notification aforesaid was so received, of notification in writing of the nomination together with a statement in writing signed by the person signifying his consent to the nomination, or

(II) in case the body or bodies entitled to nominate a person to fill a casual vacancy fails or fail to nominate a person or to comply with the provisions of this paragraph, by the nomination by the Minister—

(A) in case the body or bodies aforesaid is or are the body or bodies referred to in the said subparagraph (i), of a person whom the Minister considers to be representative of the interests of pig producers, and

(B) in case the body or bodies aforesaid is or are the body or bodies referred to in the said subparagraph (ii), of a person whom the Minister considers to be representative of the interests of curers of bacon.

(c) The chief officer of the Commission shall be notified in writing as soon as may be of a nomination by the Minister under this subsection and the term of office of an ordinary member nominated under this subsection shall commence—

(i) in case the member was nominated by the Minister, on the date of such notification, and

(ii) in any other case, on the date of the receipt by the Minister of the notification and statement referred to in paragraph (b) of this subsection or, if those documents are received on different days, on the date of the receipt of the document which is last received.

(d) A person nominated as an ordinary member to fill a casual vacancy among the ordinary members shall hold office for the remainder of the period for which the member occasioning the vacancy, if he had continued to be an ordinary member, would have held office.

(7) Where the term of office of an ordinary member expires by the effluxion of time he shall be eligible for re-nomination.

(8) If a person nominated before the appointed day to be an ordinary member dies before that day, he shall be deemed for the purposes of subsection (6) of this section to have died on the appointed day, and if a person nominated subsequently to be an ordinary member dies before the commencement of his term of office as an ordinary member, there shall, on the day on which such term of office would have commenced, be deemed to be a casual vacancy among the ordinary members.

(9) Where immediately before the commencement of section 9 of the Pigs and Bacon (Amendment) Act, 1961, a person holds office as an ordinary member, that person shall hold office until the day before the appointed day and shall then cease to hold office.”