Seán Ryan (Dublin North, Labour)

I move amendment No. 8:

In page 19, lines 2 to 6, to delete all words from and including "functions" in line 2 down to and including "other" in line 6 and substitute "the".

We discussed this on Committee Stage and gave much consideration to it. I hoped that arising from our detailed presentation, the Minister would be in a position to deal with this issue. The purpose of the this amendment is to redress a flaw in the existing Bill. As it currently stands, the functions of a registrar are not spelled out in full but must be deduced by referring back to the 1844 legislation. This is totally inappropriate when we are trying to update the legislation. It is a recipe for complete confusion and effectively nullifies the goal of the Bill which is to modernise legislation. Under section 17(4) as it stands, all of the old legislation would have to remain in effect because it would have to be consulted in order to determine the functions of registrars. Our amendments would delete the reference to the old legislation and, therefore, force the Minister to spell out in this Bill what are the functions of registrars. It is not acceptable, when we are trying to put together the best possible Bill, for the Minister to state that this can be done by regulation. It should be defined in the Bill. On that basis I am disappointed that the Minister has not to date accepted this principle. I hope she will see the merit of our case.

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