Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is a technical proposal. We had anticipated this Bill would have been signed off last year but that did not take place so it is now going to be in 2021. I will repeat the formal note. Prior to consideration at the select committee, section 5 of the Bill provided for amendment of section 24(3) of the Public Service Pay and Pensions Act 2017 to align the date for repeal of section 5(1) of the 2009 Act with the date on which this proposed Act is enacted. However, the 2017 Act provided for the repeal of section 5(1) of the 2009 Act on 21 January. Section 5 had been included on the basis that the Bill was drafted and published in 2020 in advance of 1 January 2021, and that was to avoid inconsistency in the removal of the restrictions on pay, so noting that arising from the passage of time, section 5(1) was actually repealed on 1 January 2021 by virtue of the 2017 Act. This section is no longer required and, therefore, it is proposed to remove it, removing a reference to the 2017 Act in the Long Title also and to renumber the Bill accordingly.

It really is a technical proposal to take account of the passage of time since the Bill was published.