Dáil debates

Tuesday, 10 July 2012

 

Office of the Attorney General

3:00 pm

Photo of Enda KennyEnda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

As Deputy Adams is aware, the Government publishes a list of proposed legislation to be drafted, adopted, published and dealt with in the House. The vast majority of that legislation comes through the Department of Justice and Equality.

The staff of the Attorney General's office is in two sections, the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel and the legal advisory section, serviced by a common administrative secretariat. The same personnel vet and prepare legislation. They have been working continuously for the past number of months dealing with a range of legislation that has been published. Some of that legislation is required by the troika and therefore time-pressured but some is to comply with the requirements of Ministers wishing to push through priority legislation that is part of the programme the Government. We try to achieve the best result from that list but it is not always possible to do so. Some of these things, when one delves into them, are discovered to be more complex than was previously envisaged.

The staff of the Attorney General's office does extraordinary work. There are two vacancies to be filled in accordance with a normal competition. The Office of the Parliamentary Counsel has 29 sanctioned positions and arrangements are being made to recruit two assistant parliamentary counsel, grade 2, and one legislative editor, which will bring staff levels in that office up to its full complement. The office has met the challenges presented in recent years to produce significant amounts of legislation. Last year, for example, the office drafted 55 separate pieces of legislation. It produced 52 Bills in 2009 and 39 Bills in 2010. This year it has, so far, produced 24 Bills. The complexity and extent of the Bills varies. That takes up a deal of time.

It is proposed to comply with the Government's published list of proposed legislation. Both sections of the Attorney General's office are working exceptionally hard, often at weekends, to meet the requirements here.

A review is carried out on a regular basis to see that staff numbers are at maximum level and that staff give of their best, which they do.

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