Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Attorney General of the day advises the Government appropriately in regard to any referendum. In this case the High Court gave its decision and was very clear in its judgment. The Supreme Court gave a different view shortly afterwards. The Supreme Court is the ultimate determining body for the constitutionality of our legislation, and the Government accepted that and reacted to its decision quickly. We need to discuss the question of holding referendums and what the Government can and cannot do. Elements arising from the McKenna judgment of years ago limit the process of explaining what the referendum is about. In preparing for future referendums we need to have a clear view of the steps the Government must take in introducing legislation to give effect to a Bill to hold a referendum. The process of seeking advice and guidelines from the Attorney General is important. The process by which anybody in the country has the right to appeal that to a court, and on to a higher court if necessary, always stands. This year there will certainly be one referendum, if not more.

The Constitution Convention made several decisions a couple of days ago and I await its report. The question relating to the Office of the Attorney General deals with the extent of staff there. In responding to earlier questions I spoke about the process of provision of legislation in general and that has obviously been taken into account here. There are 57 permanent and four contract administrative posts in the Office of the Attorney General, eight contract employees, four staff in the Attorney General's office and four legal researchers. A review took place and the extra staff were provided because of the current position arising from the exceptional requirement for legislation driven by troika demands to meet our programme requirements and due to pressure from different Departments and Ministers to get necessary legislation through.

One of the real challenges facing the Government is to give impact to legislation that will affect the creation of jobs, and even that gets pressurised in the bottleneck at the end. It is a case of hoping that the employment of extra staff will result in a greater throughput of Bills that will give effect to necessary legislation. It would be opportune to review how this process works in the first place in order to achieve better co-ordination and results from people who are experienced but who might be working in unconnected sectors until the end, when all the paperwork must be squeezed through the Parliamentary Counsel process. I intend to speak to the Attorney General about that, which might result in a better output.

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