Pat Carey (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

The Bill lists many Acts for repeal which, although now obsolete, have an enduring interest from a historical or sociological perspective and provide a fascinating insight into life at the time and the measures adopted by Parliament to deal with issues which arose. For example, the Bill contains an Act of 1825 which aimed to facilitate steam navigation between the United Kingdom and the continent and islands of America and the West Indies. The American and Colonial Steam Navigation Company was established and the purpose of the Act was to facilitate the beneficial removal of the surplus population of Ireland to a healthy and thinly-populated country.

The Bill contains many private Acts relating to divorces and naturalisations. Until 1844 a resident born outside of the United Kingdom could only become a British citizen by means of an Act of Parliament. This process was known as naturalisation and required individuals to take the oaths of supremacy and allegiance. From 1609 the individual concerned had to produce a certificate testifying that holy communion according to Anglican rites had been received. Contained in this Bill is an Act of 1726 which provides for the naturalization of George Frederick Handel, whose naturalization coincided with him being commissioned to write a piece for the coronation of George II. The resulting piece, one of his most famous, has been used in every coronation since.

I will now discuss the sections of the Bill. Section 1 provides definitions of "local and personal Act", "private Act" and "relevant statute". The definitions of the series of statutes are necessary to distinguish them from statutes of a public general nature which are not affected by this Bill. It can be noted that the definitions relate only to statutes and therefore do not include charters of a local and personal or private nature, and thus such charters are not revoked by the Bill.

Section 2 is the central feature of this Bill. It will provide for a fundamental clarification and simplification of the Statute Book by expressly repealing all local and personal Acts up to and including 1850 and all private Acts up to and including 1750, with only two exceptions. These exceptions are the Acts listed in Schedule 1, that is, the local and personal Acts and private Acts which are still relevant, and the pre-1922 Acts which have already been saved by Schedule 1 to the Statute Law Revision Act 2007 and which are still in force. It is necessary to include reference to the public Acts in order to ensure the scope of this Bill dovetails with that of the Statute Law Revision Act 2007. This is because some of the Acts in the 2007 Act were published or listed both as public and private Acts.

For reference purposes, section 3 provides for the list in Schedule 2 of statutes repealed by section 2 which, wholly or to some extent, were applicable to Ireland. Section 4 will assign Short Titles to any Act which is saved by section 2 and which does not already have a Short Title. Section 5 makes provision for the amendment of any unconventional or inappropriate Short Titles in respect of Acts saved by section 2, in order to facilitate the citation of those Acts in the future.

Section 6 provides for standard savings clauses. For clarity, as with the Statute Law Revision Act 2007, reference has also been inserted to the application of statutes to the State, in order to ensure that the saver clause is wide enough to preserve statutes which have been applied to Ireland by statutes repealed by this Bill. Subsection (2) of section 6 is designed to preserve the status of bodies which may have been established by a charter made consequent on a statute which is being repealed by this Act. Section 7 provides for a Short Title and collective citations. These are standard form provisions.

Schedule 1 provides a list of pre-independence statutes for each period concerned which are not being repealed. Again, those periods are before 1 January 1751 for private Acts and before 1 January 1851 for local and personal Acts. Schedule 2 lists the Acts specifically repealed by the Bill. These are the Acts which, while applicable to Ireland, have been identified in the course of the review as appropriate for repeal because they are spent, have become obsolete or are otherwise unnecessary.

Other local and personal Acts and private Acts for the periods concerned which do not relate to Ireland or have only a tenuous and indirect connection with Ireland will not be included in Schedule 2 but will be impliedly repealed by virtue of the general repeal provision in section 2. Accordingly, this approach, which was also adopted in the Statute Law Revision Act 2007, will improve clarity as to the repeals relevant to Ireland and provide greater transparency with respect to relevant repeals.

This Bill, in tandem with the Statute Law Revision Act 2007, constitutes one of the most extensive statute law revision programmes ever undertaken anywhere in the world. This Bill when enacted will for the first time provide a complete list of all private Acts up to 1750 and local and personal Acts up to 1850 which have not been repealed. I am quite satisfied, from the work undertaken by the statute law revision project, that the Acts specified in Schedule 2 to this Bill are no longer necessary as their purpose has ceased. The time has come to remove them from our Statute Book and with it to take a step closer to our ultimate aim of a clear, concise, coherent and accessible Statute Book.

As of last Sunday, it is 87 years since Ireland gained independence. This Bill is a step in a process which will ultimately see pre-independence legislation removed from the Statute Book. While some of it will be reproduced in a modern form, it will be a form which more appropriately reflects the conditions of a sovereign, independent Ireland, as we begin the approach to 100 years of independence. I commend the Bill to the House.