John Perry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael)

There has been significant debate on this issue all morning and there is much objection to the introduction of the Bill. There was also much debate over a sea fisheries Bill, with the Supreme Court finding it in breach of a directive. That debate focused attention on other Departments and was at the time very controversial because the Minister stated there was difficulty in imposing EU laws in light of the Supreme Court case.

The Bill would include a provision for retrospectively dealing with issues from 1972 onwards. It is regrettable that there would be no debate in the Dáil on this nor a forum for debating the issues. Parliamentary scrutiny, which is very important, will be lost. There is also the matter of constitutionality, as treating all statutory instruments as Acts of the Oireachtas is a sweeping change.

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