Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

A number of points are raised; if there were a far bigger staff maybe it would ease the burden on the office. It is and always has been a very busy office. As Deputy Gilmore said, its title has changed from the Office of the Parliamentary Draftsman to the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel. In three of the past four years it received increased posts and an increase in staff but overall numbers have not changed a lot — in my reply I mentioned regrading.

The office's legislation output keeps up with a very high average. If one looks at the capability of the office to produce legislation over a longer period rather than recent months one sees much of the legislation was enacted prior to the election, which cleared up a lot of the Government's legislation programme. Some 109 Bills were enacted in the 29th Dáil and plenty of Bills are before the House. Recently, the office finished very substantial Bills. The Finance Bill, the Social Welfare and Pensions Bill, the Motor Vehicle (Duties and Licences) Bill, the Student Support Bill have all been published and the Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill also took a great deal of work, not to mind all the statutory instruments the office works on.

It is an enormously busy office. Last year again it turned out a higher number of Bills than in the previous period and a whole range of Bills are coming through. Often it is a question of Departments organising the data and the work rather than the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel which I find to be efficient and quick in dealing with the issues once they are clear in Departments. Bills such as the Finance Bill, the Social Welfare and Pensions Bill and the Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill are major Bills and priority has to be given to them. Obviously other Bills will fall back, that is inevitable.

With regard to contract workers, at present there are a small number of staff under contract, I think it is four. Four people left for career breaks or secondments and two of them have returned. It is intended to phase out contract staff over a period of years because sufficient permanent trained parliamentary counsel are in place. The figure will remain at four — this year is a difficult year because one of the contract staff is not available for the year. Two more will finish up their time during the course of this year. The office is trying to engage more from common law jurisdictions. I am told there has been a positive response to a trawl of these jurisdictions and there are two potential drafters. They are working with four at present, with two of those due to go.

The difficulty, as Members know, is the length of time it takes to bring in and train experienced drafters. Most of these contract drafters brought in are people who have retired in common law jurisdictions who come here for a few years. They are and have been hugely important to the system. Obviously, as they are retired people, they stay a number of years and will move on. They are essential to building up the base. The office hopes to be able to get out of this situation. I have seen this develop over a number of years; the number is as low as it has been any time in the past 20 years.

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