Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 25 September 2013

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality

Fourth Programme of Law Reform: Discussion with Law Reform Commission

11:35 am

Mr. Tom O'Malley:

I know it produced an excellent report on the general part of the criminal law. I understand it was moving on to deal with sex offences, but I am not sure whether that came out.

Further to what Mr. Justice Quirke and Ms Flanagan said, what we are recommending is now possible because of information technology. It was not possible to do readily what we are proposing when Acts appeared in print form only. However, now it is very easy to slot in and revise the sections. It is possible to check out a New Zealand criminal Act from 1961 on the Internet and find that it is updated to today. In other words it is not just the Act as originally enacted but it has built into it every amendment in the meantime, which would probably run into the hundreds. That is the general system in Australia and New Zealand. It is excellent from the point of view of the user.

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