Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

I used to be a historian before I became a politician. A Bill like this is exciting and interesting and well worthwhile. They have only begun to make a small inroad into the mess of old legislation. For the first time the Bill gives a comprehensive list of the laws predating Independence. It has two parts — a "white list" of Acts retained and as we are not allowed to mention "black" I will say a "grey list" of Acts repealed. There are 3,188 Acts in the "grey list", making this Bill by far the largest statute law revision measure ever completed in Ireland. One would wonder why this and other governments that have been in power since 1922, when we had stopped fighting one another, did not start to address this matter. I know we were trying to live, build houses and schools, and get people sorted out. However, this matter should have been ongoing because we are governed by laws. It is the bedrock on which we exist.

As the Minister of State said, the Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Bill 2006, which has been passed by the Seanad and is shortly to come before the Dáil, will repeal 130 of the Acts on the white list. One modern composite Bill can do that. In coming years, the Government intends that all pre-Independence legislation will be repealed and replaced with modern laws. If the awful thing happened and we had a change of government — that would be on the grey list — I hope the incoming Government would continue this very fine work. It is shocking to hear that we do not know for certain, in this modern era, which laws currently apply to this State. Senator Brian Hayes asked how far along the path we were on this odyssey. Looking at the titles of the Acts and thinking about them represents a kind of odyssey. What will be achieved by the Bill is long overdue.

We are at last moving towards having all of these old laws repealed. These laws simply do not have the democratic legitimacy we are entitled to expect in a modern democracy. Many of the Parliaments which passed these laws were made up exclusively of wealthy aristocratic men. While we can say they were exclusive and elitist, they still passed some very decent laws. We cannot simply put them in a corner with dunces' hats. They passed laws that were relevant to their times.

There appear to be many laws from the 13th and 14th centuries which blatantly discriminate against the native Irish and which try to make illegal the Irish language, Irish law and Irish traditions. It is right and proper that all of these laws should be repealed. We think of the Penal Laws and other laws that had very sad consequences for the Irish people. We learn too of the laws which broke up the Irish monasteries because the English kings decided they were hotbeds of sedition. They thought that in the middle of their prayers the monks were cooking up plots to shoot everyone they met. Many laws were discriminatory and reflected prejudices against certain groups in society. One 11th century statute provides for "Frenchmen to pay 'scot and lot' ", which was a discriminatory tax applicable only to the French.