Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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There is a wider issue here that goes beyond the Minister of State's remit. Advice was given to the Minister by someone. I am not sure if it was departmental officials or the Attorney General. The advice was that transposing by way of statutory instrument would have dealt with this issue. At a very late stage in the drafting process, it was discovered that it was not possible to do that or that it would not be robust enough. As such, we have scrambled to find a piece of legislation we could fit this into. Just before the last election, the Supreme Court ruled against the Government to strike down a statutory instrument on fisheries penalty points. The court said that could not be introduced by way of statutory instrument and needed to be done by way of primary legislation. In fairness, the Minister has now agreed to annul the statutory instrument. However, it seems that there is a default position to, where possible, transpose by way of statutory instrument. Is that a way to avoid parliamentary scrutiny or is there a wider issue with difficulties in finding slots to bring legislation forward? The mortgage credit directive should have been transposed by way of primary legislation but it has been brought in by way of statutory instrument. There seems to be a default approach to transposition by way of statutory instrument. If the Minister of State could speak to the last point I raised, are there any cases which could sneak in during this period and be addressed, therefore, under the lesser penalties?