Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

Does the Taoiseach agree that the kind of powers about which we are talking, which, up to now at least, have enabled Ministers to make orders, regulations, by-laws, statutory instruments, or delegated secondary legislation, are littered throughout the Statute Book? This has been the practice. Arising from the cases I instanced to which the Taoiseach referred, and to the subsequent Carrickmines case since the question was tabled, which was a point I raised in the context of the electronic voting order, and which the Taoiseach and the Government had to subsequently agree required them to enshrine in primary legislation the authority to implement electronic voting and the Bill has now been published, are those types of instances not littered throughout the Statute Book? Might there not therefore be other enactments vulnerable to challenge in circumstances where there is no adequate statement of principle or policy in the parent Act that the Minister is in no way governed or confined in the implementation of orders? Could that render those enactments vulnerable? When might the Attorney General be able to report on the assessment submitted to him by each Department currently involved in the audit to which the Taoiseach referred?

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