Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)

The Minister outlined last night in his speech the rationale for the Government decision to transfer these functions. As I stated at the end of my summary on Second Stage, the functions relating to road safety, in particular, are a matter of very grave concern, as are the matters of having roads dealt with in one Department. That was the initial rationale for the decision.

I thank Deputy Ciarán Lynch for going to the trouble of trawling through the Bill and addressing issues of this nature. From my previous experience with Bills, I have often found technical amendments, when put before us and considered, sometimes present issues of considerable importance in terms of interpretation of legislation, should the need subsequently arise in the courts or in other circumstances.

We asked officials to take up this list of amendments with the Parliamentary Counsel. My initial reaction, grammatically, was that this was a case of substitution. The strong legal advice we have received from the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel is that the term "as substituted" is not used in this context and the terms used in the Bill are more appropriate to the situation.

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