Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

The current system confers on the Minister the power to make regulations or statutory instruments from time to time as he sees fit. This is not the modern way. I know it is the way Mr. Justice Gannon saw it in 1986 in the Osheku v. Ireland case, the favourite judicial excerpt of every Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. However, we have moved on considerably since then. It is the function of the Oireachtas to make laws and it cannot delegate to any other person or body its law-making power. This is also the view of the courts.

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