David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 7:

“Report of the Minister 5.Not less than two weeks before any motion for a renewal of the provisions of this Act, a report on how they have been applied or enforced shall be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas. The report shall include:

(a) information, including statistical breakdown, on implementation of these provisions;

(b) information, including statistical breakdown, on breaches of these provisions;

(c) information on how public duty of equality and human rights has been reflected in their application; and

(d) concerns identified and recommendations for improvement.”.

We have discussed some of this already, but this is a different element to what we have looked for. When regulations and statutory instruments are put in place by the Minister, they are laid before the House before they come into effect. They are debated, voted on, and so on. This amendment seeks to provide for this to happen not less than two weeks before any motion for a renewal of the provisions of the Act. As the Minister will be aware, on several occasions motions had to be brought forward to extend the sunset clauses. Very often the criticism from the Opposition, which was justifiable, was that those renewals were sought without any information being laid before the House regarding the statistical breakdown on the implementation of the provisions that were in place, breaches of the provisions, if any, and how the public duty of equality and human rights had been reflected in their application.

Several Deputies spoke about this earlier. We have had no look-back at any of the previous regulations or statutory instruments that were introduced. Essentially, this amendment is seeking to have a look-back and a report that will examine all of this and recommend improvements. That is a reasonable request from the Opposition. If the Minister does not accept the amendment, I will be pressing it.

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