Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister of State for moving amendment No. 3, as well as for circulating a brief description of each of the Acts to be repealed by the Schedule. It is fair to say that this is quite a radical departure from the initial Bill. As the Minister of State has said, the existing Schedule contained 91 Acts, while the new Schedule contains 218 Acts to be repealed. The question any good Opposition Member should pose is whether, if the Bill was not passed until next year, there would be a further 50 Acts in the Schedule?

It is clear from the Minister of State's speech that some Departments are better than others at identifying obsolete and impractical Acts that fall within their remit. I join with the Minister of State in giving credit to his staff in the statute law revision unit and the staff of the Office of the Attorney General for having achieved an amazing amount of work. This work should remain under the aegis of the Department of the Taoiseach, through the Office of the Attorney General. I am aware of one piece of legislation that was promised in 2002 by the Minister for Justice, Equality and law Reform, to codify liquor licensing, yet we are still awaiting it three years later.