Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

As previously stated in respect of the St. Andrews Agreement, the Attorney General wishes to wait to examine the legislation, when it emerges in its final form, before declaring his position on constitutional and other issues. The deadline is set for two weeks from Friday next, so there should be something shortly thereafter. Legislative issues could well arise but they will probably not be dealt with by my Department. However, I will have a co-ordinating role in respect of them. We will wait and see what emerges.

On the statute law revision Bill, there have already been four restatements of legislation in the areas of consumer law, defence, tourist traffic and succession. Earlier in the year, the Government gave approval for the Law Reform Commission to commence a programme of restatement and established the restatement steering group, which is made up of representatives of the commission and the Office of the Chief Parliamentary Council and which is chaired by my Department. In May, we announced a public consultation process to obtain the views of members of the public on areas in which the law should be restated, as a priority. There will, therefore, be restatement in other areas. The consultation process to which I refer has concluded and the restatement steering group will consider the submissions it has received and will soon agree rolling out a programme of further restatements.

While the group will have amended various statutes, deleted those from pre-1922 that are redundant or listed in a positive fashion the 1,350 to which I referred earlier, it believes that the latter should be transformed, on a restatement basis, into more modern legislation. It is not that these Acts are redundant — they are not — but many of them are written in old language and are not easily available. Many of them are only available in bound volumes.

It makes much more sense that over a period of time — the changes cannot be made simultaneously — they would be updated, on a restatement basis, in more modern legislation. That process has already started. I do not know how many years it would take but, obviously, whenever a particular aspect of the law is touched on, any of these old Acts should be restated in modern legislation. That is the way they hope to update it.

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