Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

To be totally honest, I would prefer to have extra staff in the parliamentary draftsman section. The Deputy will be aware that in recent years, the average production from the section has been approximately 40 Bills per year, as it has produced approximately 40 Bills in each of the last three years. The A list of the current Government legislation programme gives a commitment to publish 30 Bills in this session alone, the reason being that quite a number of them are timelined as a requirement from the EU-IMF-ECB deal. For instance, a Bill for the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform was published on 29 September, a Bill for the Department of Justice and Equality was published on 12 October, a second Bill for the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation was published on 29 September, the Health (Provision of General Practitioner Services) Bill was published on 30 September and the European Financial Stability Facility and Euro Area Loan Facility (Amendment) Bill 2011 was published on 16 September.

I would like to think we will have a more leisurely approach to the production of legislation but obviously I refer to the constraints and pressures on the people involved. As Deputy Martin will be aware from his own time, the staff concerned have come into work on weekend after weekend and have worked on Saturdays and Sundays to deal with this. The business case that has been submitted to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is for two additional contract drafting staff. They would have a high level of drafting experience and would be engaged on short-term contracts of approximately one year's duration to assist with the immediate demand for drafting complex legislation. For the longer term, the ambition is to seek to recruit two additional permanent staff. These staff would receive extensive training as drafters and as a consequence would increase the office's drafting capacity for the medium and longer term. I agree this section is under real pressure to get some of these legislative items out. For instance, I note the Legal Services Regulation Bill is 300 pages in length and, consequently, the pressure on the personnel working there is quite intense. They have measured up in an astounding fashion to date. The business case made to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is for two additional contract drafters and, for the longer term, for two permanent appointments.

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