Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Tom Kitt, to the House and commend the officials from the Office of the Attorney General who have dedicated themselves to this initiative over the past several years. The Minister of State has previously come to this House on a similar mission of obliterating non-applicable historic legislation. I find myself in the extraordinary and historic situation of repealing more legislation than was ever enacted in post-independence Ireland. We are taking on ourselves an astonishing and near dictatorial power.

Many of the difficulties outlined by the Minister of State with regard to assessing which of the laws passed prior to independence were relevant to this process could have been avoided had the Four Courts not been burned in the first act of the Civil War. I will say no more except to note that almost 90% of the records, including many ancient ones, were destroyed over a very short period during that episode of our history.

I do not underestimate the task faced by the Minister of State and his researchers in the Attorney General's office with regard to assessing the potential relevance of historic Acts and statutes to modern Ireland. Clearly, the majority were part and parcel of our history, but it could be argued that a small number of the laws we accepted on independence, despite having been at war with Britain, could have had a marginal effect on domestic legislation. The Minister of State and his colleagues had, therefore, to tread carefully and meticulously research each and every Act and statute, regardless of whether it contained one or 100 sections. This House is indebted to the work done behind the scenes over the past several years to bring this project to fruition.

The Minister of State noted that in excess of 1,000 statutes remain in force and have not been included on the list. We will learn in the future whether these will be addressed in similar legislation to this Bill and the Act that preceded it.

Every modern democracy imposes a responsibility for achieving high standards of regulation. Systems have to be put in place whereby ordinary citizens can be fully aware of the law of the land. The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform is beginning to roll out new codified criminal justice legislation which will amalgamate virtually all the statutes affecting the criminal justice system, so that matters such as sentencing are clearly outlined. We need to take that approach on a range of other issues because citizens must be able to comprehend the law without reference to previous legislation. As legislators, we often face the challenge when amending legislation of trying to review several Acts at the same time to make sense of the law. We need to establish unified codified legislation so that practitioners and citizens alike can identify precisely the status of legislation.

The Minister of State said:

Our ultimate objective is to provide the Irish people with a single legislative code which is clear and accessible. This code will contain only laws enacted by the democratically elected Oireachtas.

I am aware of the progress made on pre-independence legislation but how far have we travelled in terms of achieving the ultimate objective? In the course of his remarks he said that one of the few delicacies of this House is our ability to put in place Private Bills. As he rightly reminded the House, the last Bill enacted in that way was the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland Act 2003. In such Bills, a Senator acts as a sponsor for a private institution or company that makes a petition to the Seanad as a means of bringing the legislation through the House. Even though in recent years we have had few examples, it is an important role of this House.

I will make some general observations about the process of legislation. The Oireachtas got a very severe reprimand from the Supreme Court some years ago and was correctly given a rap across the knuckles for the way in which ministerial orders and statutory instruments in particular are routinely signed off by Ministers without recourse to debate in this House. We have far too much primary legislation in both Houses of the Oireachtas, which leaves very little time to debate secondary legislation — statutory instruments and ministerial orders. The Supreme Court rightly pointed out that the process of decisions by Ministers not being debated in the House either by way of a 21-day rule or resolution must be checked. Where government becomes more sophisticated and complicated and has more application in terms of EU law, there is a responsibility for secondary legislation to be debated in this House and the other House in a much more substantial way than is the case now. We must take heed of the Supreme Court warning.

I was interested to hear what the Minister of State said about the review of post-Independence legislation. It must also be the case that many of the Acts passed since 1922 no longer have particular relevance and application and have been outdated by either new Acts or significant amendments. I would be interested to hear how the Minister of State is doing on that project. The entire revision of our Statute is not just a matter relating to pre-Independence Ireland but also a matter for post-Independence Ireland. On Committee and Report Stages we will have the opportunity to go the various statutes listed in the Schedule, which in effect is the substance of the Bill. At this stage I welcome the ongoing project. This side of the House will always welcome any codified statute that puts to one side redundant statutes and Acts of a previous Parliament. The Minister of State deserves to be congratulated because it is always difficult for the Government Whip to get time on the legislative calendar between his myriad of meetings with Opposition Whips and his duties in the other House. We welcome today's efforts and I give particular congratulation to the staff in the Office of the Attorney General and the unit that has been dealing with this project.