Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I would like to refer briefly to the context of today's debate. This local government reform legislation has been a major undertaking involving many areas of my Department and other Departments, with input from a range of sources and impacts on an extensive body of other legislation. It has been undertaken with a relatively short timescale and, in view of this, I indicated at the outset that additional provisions would be introduced during its passage through the Oireachtas, which has happened, with a substantial number of provisions having been added on Committee Stage in the Dáil and on Committee and Report Stages in the Seanad. It is quite common for Bills initiated in the Dáil to go through the Seanad with little change, almost as a procedural exercise, but this has not been the case with the Local Government Bill; more than 120 amendments were made to the Bill in the Seanad. Therefore, we have an example of the very active involvement of both Houses in the development of this legislation. This seems particularly appropriate given the special link that exists between the Seanad and the local authorities in electoral terms.

Many of the provisions that were added to the Bill in the Seanad were ones that had not been fully drafted for inclusion at an earlier stage, and many of the amendments that are being dealt with today involve relatively minor corrections or technical drafting changes. Others were in response to issues that were raised during the course of the debates. Today's session enables the Dáil to consider and affirm these changes, beginning with amendment No. 1. These are a series of technical and drafting amendments to section 1 and Part 6 of Schedule 2 to the Bill. Amendments Nos. 1 to 4 and amendment No. 8 amend a number of the collective citations provisions in subsections (2), (4), (6), (8) and (13) of section 1. These amendments are necessary because the phrase that is to be included in the collective citation was used in 2013 collective citations at the time of drafting. This text was used because the Acts in question had already been given a 2013 collective citation by another Act earlier that year - that is, they are references to an existing citation for the year concerned. However, as the Bill will now be enacted in 2014, these citations will have to be amended to read "may be cited as" rather than "shall be included in". In other words, the new citation will be referenced in 2014 rather than 2013.

Amendment No. 5 provides for the insertion of a collective citation in subsection (12) of section 1 in respect of the Education and Training Boards Acts 2013 and 2014. This arises from amendment No. 107, which makes a number of amendments to the Education and Training Boards Act 2013 in Part 6 of Schedule 2, consequent on structural reform at county and city level. Consequential amendments are also made to the Energy (Miscellaneous Provisions) Acts 1995 and 2006 in amendment No. 107. Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 correct an existing collective citation contained in section 113 to the Health Acts, which needs to be updated to include the reference to the Health Acts 1947 to 2014 within the collective citation. Amendment No. 10 is a drafting amendment to subsection 21 to replace the word "fixed" with "appointed", which will bring the text into line with a wording used earlier in the subsection.

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