Michael Kitt (Fianna Fail)

It contrasts with the debate in the other House this morning but that is democracy in action. I thank the Senators for their appreciation of the work carried out on this Bill and echo their sentiments regarding our research team.

The Senators expressed an interest in the electronic database, which is being examined in the Office of the Attorney General. This Bill is a tidying-up operation and has involved very interesting work. The Senators were correct in highlighting certain pieces of legislation and I thank them for commenting on the data made available to them. The snippets of legislation referred to by Senators give us a cameo of what took place at a given time in Ireland, England, Wales and Scotland.

Much more work needs to be done on this issue. We have taken a piecemeal approach to repealing legislation, which has been the traditional approach to statute law revision. The Bill was prepared in 2004. My last appearance before this House was in May 2005.