Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

An ongoing problem exists in obtaining, holding and training drafters. On a number of occasions over the past few years, approval was given to the Attorney General to obtain additional drafters. In my reply I mentioned some drafters were brought in from the younger people assigned to other Departments to help in the legislative process.

The issue of key experienced people is an extremely difficult one. The Deputy correctly stated a number of drafters are contracted. A number of them have become quite elderly over the past number of years. Their service has been magnificent and not having had them would have created a difficult problem for us. It is correct to state we had to seek drafters from outside the country.

We have a problem getting through legislation. I believe 21 Bills are on the A list at present and a large number of them are advanced. The complexities of modern legislation tend to get more complex each year. A drafter assigned to a Bill tends to remain working on it for a considerable time. This means other Bills are put aside and put back.

To the best of my knowledge there has not been a great number of people who want to take on drafting. This is despite the fact that the salary grades were improved quite substantially in an agreement made a few years ago. Even when they come in to the job, drafters want to move on to other areas. Drafting is a tedious and very tension-filled job involving reviewing legislation. I talked to a number of drafters over the years about this. It is a specialist position. Many of the people who have come in move on when they are still young. The retention level of drafters is not good even though on the face of it the career looks fairly good.

The advisory counsel's side is considered far more interesting and attractive than drafting on the Parliamentary Counsel's side and that is not changing much. From what I know, other jurisdictions have the same problem. Most of the people we get on contract would be retired people from other jurisdictions. We are not managing to lure them from the other grades. They are mostly people aged over 60 or 65. That continues to be a problem.

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