Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

The documents are original and have been signed and dated. They are not regularly updated, except by other instruments.

Senator Tuffy asked about the policy on annexing or scheduling texts. It is desirable to do so in principle if the terms of a convention are being incorporated into Irish law. In circumstances where somebody is interpreting the Irish provision, he or she should be in a position to consult the original document. It is desirable in principle that one should do so. In this case the Schengen Convention is so extensive and the parts of it we are incorporating are so non-extensive that it would be unnecessary to put all the additional material onto our Statute Book. That would make for a very cumbersome Statute Book, particularly as people would point out that the great majority of it was not applicable to Ireland.

In the circumstances, while I agree with the Senator that in general terms it is desirable that if there is any incorporation by reference then there should be a statement of the material being incorporated by reference or, where it is useful to interpret something, it should be available to somebody consulting the statute, in this case it would be disproportionate to put the entire instrument into a Schedule when only tiny fractions of it are being incorporated into Irish law.