Willie Penrose (Westmeath, Labour)

I move amendment No. 12:

In page 20, line 22, after "registrar" to insert "if required to do so".

Amendments 12 to 14, inclusive, are related. The purpose of amendment No. 12 is to make the Bill more accessible and bring it into line with the realities of the process of registering a birth. The Bill retains, as I said on Committee Stage and indeed, on Second Stage, the Victorian precept that persons registering a birth must attend in person at the registrar's office and cannot send in the information by post. It is somewhat anachronistic and unrealistic. Amendment No. 12 addresses that reality. Amendment No. 13 is to give effect to what is contained in amendment No. 12. Amendment No. 14 is again related, but the purpose of this amendment is to facilitate the transmission of information by post, with a fallback power for a registrar to require a person to attend at his or her office, which is important. That is the thrust of those amendments.

I understand why the Minister must insist on people attending in person at particular times and we try to facilitate that by having the fallback position. That was in the old 1844 legislation. Some 160 years later, we should not be dependent on Victorian concepts of what was right at that time. We now have a modern postal network and are in a position to take modernisation to a new level and accept that the old "penny post" is reliable in getting the information in this context. I know the Minister will argue she has cut down periods of time and has broadened the requirements as regards people who may act as informants etc. I appreciate that as positive progress in the Bill. We are moving this to see if the Minister has changed her mind in the interim. We await her comments with bated breath.

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