Brendan Ryan (Labour)

It is absurd for the Attorney General to be worried about the sunset of legislation, given that there is an amendment to the Bill which is precisely intended to deal with marginal or shoulder notes. It states that none of the following shall be taken to be part of the enactment. I am not sure why the Attorney General was worrying about marginal notes when there is an amendment stating that they are precisely and unequivocally excluded from the meaning of the enactment.

Having said that, I do not agree with the Fine Gael amendment. If there were a three-year lapse on the Freedom of Information Act, the Government would quite happily let it lapse and there would not be a resolution in both Houses of the Oireachtas to renew it. If we tried to do so, we would be voted down. I would rather have the legislative inheritance of a good Government preserved, like the last time we had one, rather than automatically——