Seanad debates
Thursday, 27 March 2003
Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland Bill 2002: Second Stage.
In contrast, this Bill is a textbook example of how legislation should not be drafted. It will place on the Statute Book a separate Act that will be completely incomprehensible. This will, quite gratuitously, create a barrier to people's understanding of the legislation and will act as an obstacle to those who will have reason to refer to the legislation in the future. The person who conceived of this approach belongs to the era before the strategic management initiative, which was established six or seven years ago. He or she belongs to a culture which believes that members of the public have no right to easy access to the machinery of Government or to the laws by which they are governed. I hope that this is a one-off aberration and is not a signal of a new direction the Government proposes to take in regard to future legislation. The Bill, in its current form, sends a message to the people that they will not welcome.
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