Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

It is a pleasure to bring the Statute Law Revision Bill 2015 before the House this morning. As Deputies will be aware, the main effect of the Bill is to revoke all Government orders or other secondary instruments made prior to 1821, apart from a specific list of 40 instruments that are being preserved. The Bill expressly revokes 5,782 secondary instruments and implicitly repeals thousands of others. This makes it the largest ever repealing measure, by express repeals, in this jurisdiction or any other. The Bill is part of a broader series of measures which have been enacted since the establishment of the statute law revision programme 13 years ago. Further measures are planned by the Government to complete the review of this country's Statute Book.

As Members will recall, a number of previous statute law revision Bills have dealt with primary legislation, primarily Acts of Parliament from before Independence. This Bill now moves the process on to deal with secondary instruments such as proclamations and orders. The revocation proposals set out in the Bill were developed following a detailed research and consultation process. As part of an overall programme of statute law revision, the Bill will help to simplify and modernise our law and make it more intelligible. It will save time and costs for lawyers and others who need to know what the law actually is. To put it simply, it will make it easier for citizens to access justice. When the Bill is enacted, it will facilitate the process of regulatory reform; ensure the Statute Book is significantly more modern; enhance public accessibility to the Statute Book; facilitate future legislative measures to repeal, re-enact - with amendments, where necessary - and consolidate the statute law of the State; and enable, for the first time since the foundation of the State, the identification of a complete list of all legislation that remains in force here. I think it is a very sensible measure.

The details of the instruments revoked by this Bill give a fascinating historical insight into the regulatory environment of the period in question. The subject matter of the instruments varies from pardons for information received in relation to specific crimes to the imposition of quarantine requirements to prevent the spread of plague and orders for the summoning of the first Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. One of the earliest references in the Bill is to an order concerning the publication of the Magna Carta in 1215, which is a long time before the Acting Chairman was around.

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