Brendan Ryan (Labour)

This Bill is one of the most badly constructed pieces of legislation I have seen in my political career. I have no argument with any issues it contains. The Short Title of this Bill is the Irish Medicines Board (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill and it incorporates amendments to the Irish Medicines Board Act, the Control of Clinical Trials Acts, the Misuse of Drugs Acts and the Health Acts. A generation of lawyers will be kept occupied tracking down amendments to the Health Acts alluded to in a Bill that will not refer to that fact in its Short Title. I would like to claim credit for this insight but it came from a lawyer friend who does such work for the Labour Party.

The Government amendment is better than the Labour Party amendment and is necessary. However, I dispute the manner in which the Bill has been introduced although it does not affect this particular amendment. I am very concerned about making amendments to four different Bills. The amendments to the Health Acts concern the provision of health services and have nothing to do with the Irish Medicines Board. This House ought to assert that the short titles of Bills should contain material relevant to what reasonable people would assume to be their content, as opposed to the Department of Health and Children's practice of tacking on every additional piece it can think of to a Bill. It is poor legislative practice that will make more money for more lawyers and will probably expose the Department to increased litigation in the future.

A good symptom of the peculiar way the Department conducts much of its business, which culminated in the financial disaster relating to nursing homes last year, is the fact that it puts legislation together in this way. This Bill is a mishmash and should have been called the Health (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. I agree with the Bill's content, although I have queries regarding nurse prescriptions and professional liability. These issues should have been addressed in separate Bills.