Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I have previously given a detailed account of the number of parliamentary draftspeople. There are issues relating to the main Bills of the year, such as the finance and social welfare Bills, and other key Bills like referendum and immigration Bills. Such legislation ties up parliamentary draftspeople for a considerable number of months each year. When such Bills are given priority, other Bills are put on the back burner. While each year's social welfare Bill may not be complex, other Bills can take up a substantial amount of time. Each year's finance Bill can tie up senior draftspeople for the best part of four months, which is a significant portion of the year. The drafting of the Immigration, Residence and Protection Bill 2008 also took a long time.

Delays are not always caused by the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel — legislation can be held up by discussions within and between Departments on various issues. All of that has to be agreed before the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel can start to draft a Bill. When compared to other Parliaments, the Oireachtas passes a large number of Bills each year. The point was made earlier that we need to be more concerned about the quality of legislation rather than the number of Bills which are drawn up.

See this speech in context