Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 9:

In page 7, between lines 19 and 20, to insert the following:“Review of Operation of Act

7. The Minister shall, not later than 2 years after the date on which this Act is enacted, and again not later than 5 years after that date, carry out a review of the operation of this Act assessing, in particular, its consistency with international best practice in the field of gender recognition and its compliance with national, regional and international equality and human rights standards, and shall make a report to each House of the Oireachtas of his or her findings and conclusions resulting from the review.”.

There is a difference in emphasis between my proposal and that which the Minister of State has set down. The legislation refers to the commencement of a review of the operation of the Act not later than two years after its coming into operation and to the issuing of a report. A period of two years is fine in some ways but most peculiarities, problems or issues in respect of registration often arise a number of months later. My hope is that the Minster would allow a little more than two years in which to carry out a proper review of the legislation.

The Minister of State mentioned that he hoped to have all this up and running by the summer, the end of the summer or, perhaps, the end of the year. Sometimes that does not happen. It can sometimes be months or years after enactment. We should give ourselves a little breathing space to ensure the review will be carried out in the fullest sense and that it will not be a short one just to tick a box with the sole purpose of being able to say a review was carried out after two years and that certain issues arose. I would be happy if the Minister made a commitment to ensuring the measures we have identified in respect of international best practice, towards which we are moving in part, are in compliance with the human rights standards abroad. In some ways, they are. Is the Minister happy that the two-year period is not too onerous to capture what I propose?

We have talked about an annual report. That report should capture the issues and not just be a one-off review after two years. It should not be a matter of simply identifying three issues and saying everything is hunky-dory. The report should be able to identify all the relevant issues. I have seen reports concerning other legislation that were very black and white. For example, they might state a certain section was applied ten times and another five times. However, such reports do not necessarily identify the problems, difficulties or areas of concern. My references to two years and five years are to address this. If the Minister of State is happy with the period of two years, I still want the annual report to highlight concerns. This legislation has not gone far enough because we will come across practical issues and problems. When they arise, the Department and Deputies at the time will need to be in a position to address them quite quickly.