Feargal Quinn (Independent)

We occasionally make the mistake of rushing legislation through these Houses. The point was made that less law is sometimes better law. We do not automatically believe that because we pass legislation we are doing good.

I have no problem with the 90 Acts that are being repealed, but it does raise a question. How many pre-1922 statutes will remain in force after this measure takes effect? I ask that question because, ideally, the answer should be none at all. However, I know that is not the answer I will get to the question. I take the view that 83 years after independence, the only laws to which we should be subject are our own laws and those of the EU. Quite frankly, I feel that way due to nationalistic reasons. I am uneasy about British laws still being in force in this supposedly independent State. Nonetheless, from a more practical point of view, there are two reasons we should not be governed by any pre-1922 laws at all. First, we are living in the 21st century and it is unlikely that any laws passed in the 19th century will still be fully appropriate to our needs today. Second, any law passed since 1922 is readily accessible on our Statute Book, even more so in recent years because that book is now available on CD-ROM and on the Internet. The same is not true of laws passed before 1922. Indeed, they can be very hard to find, especially for the lay person. That is not a good situation, as I believe fundamentally that our laws should be readily accessible to every citizen.

While welcoming this Bill, I have to make the observation that the cleaning up of our Statute Book seems to have a very low priority with the Government. The Oireachtas is still processing the Interpretation Bill, which was published in 2000. It seems to have disappeared into a limbo between Second Stage and Committee Stage. What is the reason for this delay? It is not as if we were overburdened with work in this House. Another way to clean up the Statute Book is to consolidate Bills more often. I have spoken before of the difficulties we create for citizens by passing laws in a piecemeal manner, by amending previous Bills that amended previous Bills and so on back in a chain that sometimes seems to go on for ever. This approach reduces greatly the accessibility of our legislation, which is a bad thing.

There are two obvious candidates for consolidating legislation. One is the case where there has been an extensive reform of the law on a particular subject, but for one reason or another that reform has been split up into separate Acts. I believe that when the reform is concluded, we should go back and consolidate all the individual Acts into a single piece of legislation that people can access easily whenever they want to find out what the law is on that subject. A prime example of that is to be found in the area of family law where, for practical and perhaps even tactical reasons, we tackled reform in dribs and drabs. In this instance, legislation is spread over a large number of separate Acts. We should consolidate them into one Act.

Another example of where consolidation is needed is where the law on a subject is continually evolving with frequent new Acts that amend the principal Act. We already have the practice, of which I fully approve, of consolidating our tax laws, which I understand happens every ten years. We should extend that practice, however, to the field of company law.

On the question of company law, the Minister has referred to last year's document on better regulation. Company law has changed almost as often as the tax laws. Tomorrow we will be taking Second Stage of the Investment Funds, Companies and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2005, which is the latest amendment to company legislation that was passed by the Oireachtas last year. The need to make company law more accessible is strengthened by the fact that it now impinges on a wide range of businesses which are crucial to our future economic success. Compliance with company law is a big issue for most businesses and it starts with an added cost if legislative measures are spread all over the place, as they are now. Like family law, company law should be accessible in one place so that a person can find out about all the relevant law on a particular subject.

Every time I mention consolidating Acts, I am told that this will no longer be necessary since we have the restatement facility in place, but do we? I remind Members who may understandably have forgotten, that restatement is the process of publishing an unofficial consolidation of Acts, which can be used in the courts without the process of passing through the Oireachtas. It is a good idea, which we all applauded at the time. The Statute Law Restatement Bill was published in 2000 and was finally enacted on Christmas Eve 2002 but that was the last we heard of it. Nobody expected that such legislation would appear overnight but none of the restated laws has seen the light of day in the past two and a half years. That is not good enough. It underlines my earlier point, that cleaning up the Statute Book seems to be a very low priority for the Government. While welcoming this Bill, I regret that is the case and therefore urge the Government to pull up its socks on this matter. I would like to see a little more action in this area.

However, I am pleased to see the Bill before the House, including the measures it envisages. It was good to have our eyes opened by the history lesson from other speakers, particularly the Leader of the House.