James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Taoiseach. The Joint Committee on Justice is probably one of the most, if not the most, legislatively heavy committees in the Houses. It processes a very significant body of legislation. In the first term, in the first year of the sitting year of the committee, we processed 50% or more of the entire Government legislation published in that term. We have been managing this proactively. We have allocated 50% of our slots and available time to legislation, be that pre-legislative scrutiny or Committee Stage referrals, and from that we have now completed pre-legislative scrutiny of 18 Government Bills that were referred, including stakeholder engagement submissions and oral engagement at committee. We have also processed ten Government Bills through Committee Stage and beyond. We have processed five elective modules at this stage for the committee's own interest, which includes such topics as GDPR; civil liberties during the pandemic and whether the balance was struck; and issues of domestic and gender-based violence. We have upcoming modules on the coroner system and we are considering policy areas on the decriminalisation of small quantities of prescribed narcotics.

There is an interesting broad range of elected modules within the committee as well. In addition to the Government legislation and our own electives, we have also had five Private Members' Bills referred for pre-legislative scrutiny. Of those, the Dying with Dignity Bill in particular took some considerable time and engagement. We received 1,400 submissions from members of the public and interested parties on that, which took some intensive engagement.

Ultimately, the Bill was not considered fit for purpose or ready to progress, due to drafting errors and legal errors. However, it did raise important policy issues. We were glad to have the opportunity to consider it.

The asks to Government are quite straightforward and simple. We have a legislative-heavy workload. We are very much up for the job in getting through it and processing it. I would make some points. One is that there is tendency from the Department to refer a plethora of items for pre-legislative scrutiny at one time. We may therefore get a bulk of Bills referred over the course of one or two days. Then the trail goes cold. We also have an issue with Committee Stage legislation. We tend to reserve a committee slot each month and we have Committee Stage referrals coming through. However, on occasion, the Department has pulled a Bill at short notice when a Committee Stage was scheduled and, because of the timelines and Standing Orders etc. it is not possible then to re-engage another meeting. We hate to see a slot going to waste, particularly when there is such a busy schedule. We stressed to the Department before that a back-up list should be created, whereby if a Bill is not ready for Committee Stage for whatever reason, another Bill should be substituted so that we can make the most of the time and that we can optimise it for all. That has not happened to date and perhaps the Government could look at that.

As a concluding remark, I will give an example of the system working well. The Judicial Appointments Commission Bill recently went to Second Stage in the House, having been published. I noted that it took on board, and the Minister acknowledged in her opening speech, a number of recommendations from the committee. This was probably the first Bill that has gone full cycle in this Dáil in that it came to us for pre-legislative scrutiny, it went back to Government, it was amended and adopted, and then it went to Second Stage. I was very pleased and the committee welcomed the fact it included a number of our recommendations. We thank them. That is an example of the system working well. I thank the Taoiseach for being here today.