Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The Department of the Taoiseach traditionally does not have much legislation. However, it is involved across Departments in a great deal of legislation. Despite legislation not being under the name of the Department, we are involved in a significant range of Bills at any time, probably more than any Department, and mainly through Cabinet committees and our position there. That includes what comes through the Law Reform Commission report, even though most of the legislation tends to pertain to the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform.

We have been involved in a great deal of work. The White Paper on better regulation covers not only the Bill I mentioned but also issues concerning the Statute Book and statutory instruments as well as legislation that affects the various areas of competition. At least ten different Acts are in train but none of them is in my Department. However, the better regulation group within my Department will drive most of those.

The first phase of the project was completed with the enactment last year of the Statute Law Revision (Pre-1922) Act. The statute law revision (pre-Union) Bill is the second phase where all legislation dating from before 1801, when the Act of Union came into operation, will either be retained or repealed as appropriate. The Bill will state, by means of a white list, all those pre-1801 statutes that are to be retained as they are still in force. At the moment the white list refers to approximately 300 statutes and all others from that time will be repealed, about 2,300 in number.

In fairness to the people involved in this, a very small group within my Department working with one individual in the Attorney General's office, they have done an enormous amount of work on this. They have had to go through all the Acts, close on 2,500 in total. What they have done will be of huge benefit for legal houses, finance houses and others. It is a cleaning up of what has been a very complicated Statute Book. I accept this work started a decade ago but we are now in a very good position where a CD-ROM of current legislation is available which has proved to be very beneficial for those who regularly deal with legislation, that is, most of the legal and finance houses in the country. It has been very useful work although it will still take a good number of years to complete. I was surprised to see that so many pre-1801 Acts remain, even after the examination. It is a very useful exercise and removes many issues that affect the regulatory and competitive areas as well as other sectors. It is useful work by a small number of people.

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