Ms Maev Nic Lochlainn:

It came to light within the group of my own divisional colleagues in recent years. It is probably a factor of a certain siloed approach in respect of the development of legislation. There are people who do road traffic legislation and people who consider railway legislation. Somewhere, obviously, something fell between the gaps. We intend to address this in the way in which we have approached this Bill. The intention is not only to update the limits, but also to ensure there is a connection back to the limits in the Road Traffic Acts in order that if there is an amendment on the road traffic side, relating to either statutory alcohol limits or concentrations of drugs, this will automatically carry through straight away. As soon as my colleagues and I realised there was a disparity, draft regulations were developed to address the disparity and to amend the limits because, under the current 2005 Act, there is a power to amend the limits with a statutory instrument. However, when we developed that statutory instrument and sent it to the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, it asked the advisory side of the Office of the Attorney General to look at it and to consider whether we had adequate powers, given statutory alcohol limits are set in primary legislation and we were attempting to amend these limits in primary legislation using only secondary legislation or a statutory instrument. When that question was asked within the AG's office, it turned out that there was a Supreme Court case pending at the time which addressed the exact question whether these powers could be used. The AG awaited the outcome of that case and then advised that it was inappropriate for the Department or the Minister to attempt to change the limits using a statutory instrument. When the outcome of the Supreme Court case was clear, the advice was that primary legislation should be developed to amend the statutory limits. This process took its time, and part of the delay was due to that engagement.