Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I often am a little curious about this standard provision. The amendment states: "Every regulation ... shall be laid before each House of the Oireachtas as soon as may be after it is made and, if a resolution annulling the regulation is passed by either such House within ... 21 days on which that House sits after the regulation is laid ... the regulation shall be annulled accordingly, but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done thereunder." Does the Minister of State know whether this happens very often? From my experience as a Deputy, statutory instruments are listed regularly and while they probably are placed in the Oireachtas Library, no one really knows about that. I wish to suggest a good practice for the House. I was Chairman of the Joint Committee on the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and we asked the relevant Department to ensure all statutory instruments being issued by the Minister were forwarded to the joint committee. They came to us by way of correspondence, although I note we were obliged to fight to be put on the mailing list. It was wonderful because the joint committee had sight of statutory instruments that were relevant to local authorities in particular and it regularly commented on them and tabled them for discussion. However, I am not aware of any case in which we sought to annul such an instrument. I am unsure of the procedure but one probably would be obliged to have a vote in this House to so do. Is the Minister of State aware of this ever happening?

It can happen, especially during the holidays, that even if a committee was aware of a statutory instrument, three months might elapse before it got around to discussing it. As part of the reform process, the Minister of State might consider taking the suggestion back to the Chief Whip or whoever that instead of simply laying a regulation before the Houses, it should be sent to the relevant Oireachtas joint committee for information and possible discussion. There used to be complaints to the effect that the Joint Committee on European Scrutiny, as it used to be known, did not scrutinise European Union regulation sufficiently. However, I am absolutely certain that Oireachtas committees do not examine statutory instruments at all. Other Members who attended meetings of the Joint Committee on the Environment, Heritage and Local Government used to be intrigued by the manner in which we dealt with such issues. I should note that 90% of them were fine and it was good information of which to be aware. However, were issues to arise, one then could get further information or advice or could either tease out the matter or alert people to it. The Minister of State might discuss the general position in this regard. I realise this amendment simply proposes to add a standard procedure to the Bill. However, while the standard procedure in the House may work to an extent, it does not work to the benefit of all Members of the House.

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