Ms Sunniva McDonagh:

Obviously, legislation comes from the Oireachtas and regulations come from individual Ministers, but they are all subject to Article 15 of the Constitution. Regulations are supposed to be enacted to give effect to the details of the parent Act. The checks and balances that exist provide that if an individual Minister made a wide-ranging regulation that was not within the parameters of what the Oireachtas had decided by way of legislation, that would be outside the power of the Minister. There is no unfettered power to put anything one wishes into a regulation because of the importance of parliamentary oversight, which would be available in the parent legislation.