Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

When this matter was raised on Committee Stage I undertook to consider it between then and the debate in the Dáil, but as the amendment has been raised again here, I have once more taken the advice of the Office of Parliamentary Counsel on the matter. There are many possible approaches to amending Acts that have not been gender proofed and each instance is examined on its own merits, rather than adopting a blanket approach. I am advised in this case that it would be difficult to avoid the use of the pronoun in every instance by referring to the person everywhere, given this is a piecemeal amendment of the Defence Act 1954.

If the "he or she" style were to be adopted in this case it would interfere with the integrity of the Defence Act 1954 because the provisions of that Act that are unaffected by this Bill would continue to read "he" only. If the Act were to be rewritten or consolidated there would be full gender proofing and an effort would be made to avoid personal pronouns where possible. In any case, the Interpretation Act provides that a word importing the masculine gender should be read as also importing the feminine gender. For these reasons I will not accept the amendment.