Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate that the Minister has taken many of the arguments made on Committee Stage on board. Amendment No. 9 is dependent on amendment No. 13, and vice versa. The substitution of "shall" for "may" here makes it imperative that the Minister publish or approve a code of practice. The Minister and Deputy Clare Daly both have the following amendment No. 12 to delete "may" and substitute "shall, as soon as practicable after the coming into operation of this section". Both the Minister and Deputy Daly agree with substituting "shall" for "may". The Minister and Deputy Daly are essentially accepting that it may take time to publish or approve codes of practice, which is understandable. It is arguable that "as soon as practicable" is a little vague and I would be a little concerned about a possible delay in the publication or approval by the Minister of the code or codes of practice. However, it is not something that I believe is a huge problem. The main point is that the three of us are seeking to substitute "shall" for "may".

If we accept that there should be no single definitive code of practice, which is implicit in amendment No. 9, my amendments Nos. 15 and 17 would operate in the same way or have the same function as amendments Nos. 14 and 16 in the names of Deputy Daly and the Minister. In fact, it is possible that inserting "a code or codes of practice" instead of "codes" as proposed in my amendments leaves open the possibility of a single code of practice. Therefore, I am happy to accept the Minister's amendments Nos. 14 and 16. My amendments to insert "codes" could possibly oblige the Minister to publish or approve multiple codes, even if turns out that only one code is required.

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