Tom Kitt (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

I understand they were passed by the Parliament but not sent to the royal publisher at the time. I will provide Members with some interesting facts in this regard. The volume of old legislation is so great that the only way to approach the question of statute law revision is to proceed in stages. We have already dealt with some of the legislation in an earlier stage of our discussions. Repeal of the pre-1922 public Acts is the obvious first stage. Other Acts will be dealt with in later stages, as will the repeal of the Acts in Schedule 1 — the white list.

The most interesting figure I want to share with the House is that there are more than 33,000 local, personal and private statutes which must be assessed, in addition to the 26,730 public and general statutes which have already been assessed. It was thought appropriate to preserve these statutes as an entire category at this time. They will be assessed at a future stage and will be the subject of further statute law revision measures. Also, over 3,000 statutes passed since independence will need to be examined. Local, personal and private statutes relate to particular people, places and institutions and do not affect the community generally. Revision of these laws is less urgent. That is our position on the legislation.