Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There are.

As I said, I welcome this legislation. I wish the team well for the future in terms of the work that remains to be done, as set out earlier by the Minister of State, in relation to the drafting of three or four more Bills dealing with this issue, although they will not be as detailed or as lengthy as this one. One of the Bills to follow will deal with the post-1920 period, information on which is hopefully more accessible. It should be remembered, however, that some records for this period have been lost or were never filed properly. In terms of records pre-1922 the burning of the Custom House and the attack on the Four Courts during the Civil War led to the destruction of many of them. Many supplementary documents were lost. In some cases, we will never have complete documents.

However, once this project is finished, we have a job to do to make our legislation accessible, by using easy to understand language. Not only should we have all statute law in one place but perhaps we should have all explanatory memoranda in the same place so that people can at least gain some insight into some of the complicated language involved.

The more we consolidate Acts, the easier it will be for practitioners, whether in this House or in the courts, to argue cases. The consolidated Bill on the sale of alcohol is due, as is the consolidated Bill on social welfare. The work is done bit by bit and it will make it easier in that one will not be jumping from one piece of legislation to another. At least now we can discount everything, bar the 40 instruments included in this legislation and those in the three or four previous Statute Law Revision Acts.

I might have questions on Committee Stage, mainly relating to what is left and what is being retained. I also mentioned the Defence Forces and the organisations which receive legislation when published, as a right. I do not know how much detail the Minister of State, Deputy Simon Harris, received in this regard. I hope he did not get too much because several thousand pieces of secondary legislation are referred to in this Bill. Giving citations to each of them is useful and that can be done in a short period of time.

I thank the Minister of State and previous Ministers who have undertaken this work and wish the part of the Department which has undertaken it well. I hope we will see the next Bill as soon as possible so that the work is completed and we can move on to other work, although as a historian, I love to delve into this. There are months, if not years, of work there for local and national historians if it is all online in the future.

See this speech in context