Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his response and his assurance that the forthcoming legislation will close this loophole. As I said earlier, I do not question the Minister bona fides in regard to this issue. He is sincere and committed. As he said, we have soldiered together on many of these issues over many years. The reform of the legislation in this area is important and I accept the Minister wants to incorporate this into his Bill. It makes sense to do that and to deal with the issues in the forthcoming legislation. I accept what the Minister said in his contribution and thank him for it.

The Minister has been more than accommodating in trying to facilitate the enactment of legislation by members of the Opposition. I hope we will see more Members of the Oireachtas, whether on Opposition or Government benches, bringing forward legislation.

The Minister raised the issue of a technical flaw in the drafting of this Bill in that it does not take into account the Criminal Law Act 1997. There has been an ongoing problem in that accessibility to legislation has been difficult. No official record is maintained of amendments to pre-1922 legislation. The legislative directory, formerly known as the chronological table, on the Office of the Attorney General's website does not track changes to pre-1922 legislation. We still have a substantial amount of legislation which pre-dates the foundation of this State. If I, as a legislator, find it find it difficult to access that information, what hope has a member of the public?

I am glad the Minister is accepting the principle of the Bill and is not throwing the baby out with the bath water and rejecting it on the basis a technical issue. One would want to be an expert in the field to have made the connection between the two because of the weaknesses in terms of the transparency of the legislation. I hope that can be addressed by modernising the laws and bringing them up to date and by ensuring that if there are amendments to legislation which pre-dates 1922 that it is easy to see them.

Although the Minister said it was not a criticism, he made the point about cherry-picking this issue, which I want to take up. In the legislation I brought forward in October, which the Minister accepted, I made proposals to close off some of the gaping loopholes. The difficulty is that members of the Opposition do not have the resources available to them. I would like to have brought forward far more comprehensive legislation but if it is taking the Minister's Department five years to do so, what hope do I have as an individual? I hope that by bringing forward these two Bills, they highlight flaws in the current legislation.

If the Government is not forthcoming with legislation, these could be used as vehicles to close off some of the substantial problems with the current legislation.

I am as impatient as anyone can be in Parliament because legislation is slow to be enacted. However, there are loopholes in the current laws that need to be closed. The biggest one, on which are agreed, relates to the sex offenders register. The Minister is committed to reforming the law in this area and said during his contribution that the legislation would be published later this year. However, it will be at least 12 months before it is enacted.

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