Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The statute law revision programme migrated into my Department from the Office of the Attorney General. It is an extraordinarily valuable programme involving largely either newly qualified or qualifying law students to give them first hand involvement, originally in the Office of the Attorney General and now in my Department. We have used JobBridge for that purpose and it has been a hugely oversubscibed programme which is regarded as an extremely valuable asset on people's CVs. Much of what we discuss here is rather dry and, as such, I note that the Government passed yesterday the latest tranche of legislation to be published on foot of the statute law revision module. The programme is about tidying up the old laws on the Statute Book. Deputy McDonald in particular will be glad to know that among the provisions we intend to repeal in the current batch is a proclamation of 1561 declaring Shane O'Neill to be a traitor, an order of 1590 prohibiting the sale of horses out of the Pale on pain of death, a declaration of 1654 ordering the removal of Irish Papist proprietors, their wives, children and families from the provinces of Leinster, Munster and Ulster and requiring them to go to Connacht-----