Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

Ba mhaith liom focal nó dhó a rá ar an ábhar seo. Ní aontaím leis an méid deireanach atá ráite ag an Aire. A significant amount of legislation is now introduced by means of secondary legislation. When I first became a Member of the House many moons ago, there was an all-party committee on secondary legislation. I think the courts have examined this matter. Enabling legislation that has been debated and been the subject of great scrutiny in this House is often vastly outweighed by the authority divested by this House, which is the constitutional body for making law, to a Minister who makes secondary legislation by means of statutory instrument.

We are talking about the possibly vast extent of the regulations to be made under this legislation. As a member of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission, I am very conscious of the generality of oversight and scrutiny. The Minister has rightly stated nach bhfuil go leor ama ná airgid ag na Teachtaí, ná na coistí atá ag obair sa Teach seo agus sa Seanad, chun an jab a dhéanamh go rí-mhaith. We have to consider the issue of resources if we are to provide the proper democratic scrutiny of secondary legislation. The Minister often rightly says that the Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights would not be too pleased to be given a certain job. A hugely voluminous and demanding amount of secondary legislation is coming from the EU by means of instrument and we have to organise this democratic House to cope with such legislation, rather than reduce the level of scrutiny we give to it.

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