(1) Where any local authority that is required to provide, alter, or extend any sanitary works pursuant to this Act—
(a) Fails to commence or to complete the provision, alteration, or extension of those works within such time as the Director-General, in approving the proposals under section 25 of this Act, may have fixed; or
(b) Has, in the opinion of the Director-General, failed to proceed diligently with the provision, alteration, or extension of those works,—
the Director-General may, at the direction of the Minister, commence, carry out, and complete the provision, alteration, or extension of those works.
(2) Where any local authority otherwise fails to exercise any power or perform any duty under this Act, the Director-General may himself exercise the power or perform the duty.
(3) For the purposes of this section the Director-General may employ all such officers, employees, contractors, and others as may be necessary.
(4) Subject to the succeeding provisions of this section, when any work is done or any power or duty is exercised or performed by or on behalf of the Director-General pursuant to this section, it shall be deemed for all purposes to have been done, exercised, or performed, as the case may be, by the local authority.
(5) All expenses incurred by the Director-General under this section shall be paid in the first instance out of public money.
(6) All public money so paid, together with reasonable costs in respect of administration, shall be recoverable from the local authority as a debt due to the Crown, or may be deducted from any money payable by the Crown to the local authority.
(7) All money recovered from any local authority under this section, or deducted as aforesaid, shall be paid into the Crown Bank Account or a departmental bank account.
Subsection (1) was amended, as from 23 March 1987, by section 7(2) Health Amendment Act 1987 (1987 No 10) by omitting the words “Subject to the provisions of section 26 of this Act,”
.
Subsection (1) was amended, as from 23 March 1987, by section 7(2) Health Amendment Act 1987 (1987 No 10) by substituting the words “Director-General may, at the direction of the Minister,”
for the words “Board may itself”
.
Section 123 was amended, as from 23 March 1987, by section 7(2) Health Amendment Act 1987 (1987 No 10) by substituting the word “Director-General”
for the word “Board”
wherever it occurred. In subsection (2) the word “himself”
has been consequentially substituted for the word “itself”
Subsections (5) to (7) were substituted, as from 1 April 1978, by section 134 Public Finance Act 1977 (1977 No 65).
Subsections (5) to (7) were further substituted, as from 1 July 1993, by section 33 Health Amendment Act 1993 (1993 No 24).