Joe O'Toole (Independent)

The Minister should note that an important issue arises in this regard, which reverberates with the issue of provisional licences. While I had intended to raise this matter in the debate on section 1, all Bills that contain a variety of commencement dates should include a covering statement, namely, provided that the Act will be commenced fully by a particular date. An issue comes into operation in this regard regularly. I noted in legislation in the past year the commencement dates of certain sections were not in chronological order. They were not in the order in which the Act was intended to operate. For example, the Minister could commence section 9 officially, even though it would have no effect until sections 5 and 6 were put into operation. This type of situation occurred recently with the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act, and I have seen it affect other legislation as well. We spent years discussing the Local Government Act 2003, yet large sections of it have not yet been implemented. No reason for this has been given. No cost or other difficulty is involved but somebody in the Department does not like it and it is not done.

It would be helpful to address this matter. Many of the issues raised could be dealt with if we knew the Bill, when passed, would be fully commenced by a particular date. Is the Minister prepared to accept an amendment to section 1 on Report Stage stating the Act would be fully commenced by a given date?