Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We need the Bill. I listened carefully to the speech made by Deputy Howlin, who is now the Acting Chair. He spoke about the doctrine of the last modern grant. It has been revised and is back in business as the way forward. I read the Bill and, as someone who practised law quite some time ago but not in this particular area, I found it very difficult to do so. I stuck with it to read it. I thank the Oireachtas Library and Research Service for the Bills digest. It points out there was no pre-legislative scrutiny, which is very difficult for me. The Oireachtas Library and Research Service is under pressure. We depend on it completely to educate Deputies, including me, but we are placing repeated pressure on it to produce digests without enough time. I want to say this first.

The Oireachtas Library and Research Service tells us the interim Minister for Justice made an announcement on 21 September recognising the problem and stating something would have to be done. The Minister has now come forward and I welcome it. Interestingly, on the same day, Deputy Mairéad Farrell, my colleague in Galway West who represents Sinn Féin, received a reply from the Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage in which there was no mention of the problem. It was especially with regard to seaweed, on which I want to focus. Seaweed is not mentioned anywhere and neither are the rights of the traditional harvesters. This is something I want the Minister to focus on and clarify when she wraps up. It does not appear in the Bills digest or in the explanatory memorandum. We checked with the Oireachtas Library and Research Service on the interpretation of profits à prendre.

People were consulted, and as a former member of the legal profession I am delighted the Minister put value on the legal profession and listened to it. I would have been even more pleased if the Department had met the seaweed harvesters and the organisations that have been gathering seaweed for a very long time and are facing a deadline of 30 November. Nobody has spoken to them or listened to them. We tried our best as Deputies to explain. My colleague in Galway West was doing her best to try to explain it but it is double Dutch except the part about going to a solicitor, getting advice and making sure to act before the end of November. In the Minister's speech I did not hear any reference to this either.

My interpretation is that these men and women who have been gathering seaweed for a very long time in a sustainable way can relax that the deadline of the end of November is now gone. We can use LOL to describe the Bill: It is legislation of limbo. It will introduce a limbo period. I am happy with this but I want it clarified. Deputies have spoken about rights of way, and rightly so. We also have the rights of the seaweed harvesters. They do not need to worry anymore. They can look at this legislation of limbo with lots of laughs or lots of love. They have a period of grace and they do not need to worry. I will put it as simply as this.

I am so tired of this complicated language and the effort to understand it. There is an ongoing move in the Courts Service to simplify language and make law accessible to the ordinary person because, after all, they are the ones affected by it, whether by punishment or otherwise. Nobody can read this. I cannot read it, even with my experience. Perhaps there are other people who are better than me but it is extremely difficult. The reply to Deputy Mairéad Farrell and similar replies to me make it extremely difficult.

The only thing I understood from that was to go to a solicitor. I am repeating myself again. I was caught on the spot before I got my thoughts together. There are other points I would like to make. Is the message to the seaweed harvesters on the ground that they can relax? I see the Minister is nodding. I ask that she might put that into words later.

There is going to be a review. Will it be published for everybody? Prior to that review, what stakeholders will be consulted? That is very important. Clearly, these stakeholders have not been consulted.

Am I sharing my time with two or three people, or am I in my own slot separate from other speakers?

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