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

I know that in legislative terms and in terms of where we have come with this piece of legislation, the 12-month difference might not seem significant to me and the Minister of State, but given that we are talking about young people in many cases, as well as others who may fall foul of what we have produced, all we are asking is that the review be initiated. It means that work will be done on this for the 12 months, whether by the Department itself or by the committee, which did very good work on the original legislation and proved in many ways that parliamentarians could grapple with legislation at an early stage. This was one of the first pieces of legislation that came under the pre-legislative scrutiny model and it proved that we could do that. It allowed us to engage, as parliamentarians and on a cross-party basis, with advocates who had heard the horror stories and so on of people who have been struggling with our society and our society's views over years.

The likes of Dr. Lydia Foy, FLAC, BeLonG To, TENI and Focus: The Identity Trust, came to us individually but have also made submissions to the committee. That is the type of work I am talking about. The committee can do it anyway, but at least if it is in legislation that there is to be a statutory review so quickly, we can start the work. We already know some of the issues. It will still be fresh, unlike in two years' time. I hope some of us will be around to help that work, but if we were all to go, there would be at least some committee members who are advocates. The nature of this type of work is that Members advocate for a while and then move on to the next issue. We have not dealt fully with this issue and that is why we should come back to it as quickly as possible - so that there is a currency to it.

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