Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I suggest another approach to reforming the way we deal with this issue? This House makes laws. It is a Legislature and we seem to have an old-fashioned approach to the initiation and drafting of legislation in that, by and large, 99% of the legislation that goes through this House is initiated by Government. It goes through the Attorney General's office and so on and, as Deputy Flanagan said, it is bottlenecked there. Have we not reached the point where the initiation of legislation might be done here in the House, perhaps in committees, taking legislative proposals from individual Deputies or Private Members' Bills, some of which, in fairness to Government, were accepted on Second Stage subject to refinement later? Would that ensure that we had more and better legislation and a greater involvement of Members of the House in legislation if some Parliamentary Counsel were attached to the Office of the Houses of the Oireachtas instead of to the Office of the Attorney General and were available to committees, individual Members or whatever to prepare legislation which could be put on the floor of the House? Many legislative initiatives could be taken by individual Members of the House from whatever side or by committees that would not necessarily be politically controversial but would ensure a greater output of legislation from the House and a more productive involvement by Members of the House?

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