Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)

That is up to the voters.

It is a pleasure for me to bring the Statute Law Revision Bill 2012 before this House. I contributed actively to the debate on a previous Statute Law Revision Bill in 2007 when I was privileged to be a Senator and I recall the substantial debate and cross-party welcome on that occasion for the important work of statute law revision. The officials in a number of Departments have been working on revising the statute law in this area for some time. The Bill is another phase of that work. It is appropriate to acknowledge the extraordinary work they have done to ensure we modernise, codify and bring up to date the legislative code before the foundation of the State.

Statute law revision concerns the removal of obsolete legislation from the Statute Book which is no longer relevant or whose purpose is exhausted, or which has ceased to be in force otherwise than by reason of express repeal. This Bill is being brought forward on behalf of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform further to the commitment made in the programme for Government to progress the statute law revision project in order to enhance public accessibility to the Statute Book.

The Bill identifies 796 Acts which are not suitable for repeal at this time and will be retained on the Statute Book. It will repeal all other legislation within its scope. It proposes expressly to repeal 2,983 Acts in total, including 1,358 obsolete local and personal Acts and 1,625 private Acts, while implicitly repealing 18,953 local and personal and private Acts. If the implied repeals are included, the Bill is the largest and most extensive repealing measure not only in the history of the State but also the most extensive single statute law revision measure ever brought forward in any jurisdiction.

This Bill which deals with local and personal Acts from 1851 to 1922 and private Acts from 1751 to 1922, is the final element of the review of primary legislation enacted prior to Independence and as such clears the way for my Department to proceed to review the large body of secondary legislation that pre-dates Independence.

"Private Acts" are those concerned with the affairs of a single individual or body. They are enacted under a different procedure from that used for public and general Acts. The private Acts listed in the Bill include many naturalisations, divorces and provisions in relation to certain landed estates. "Local and Personal Acts" are concerned with matters affecting a very limited section of the community such as a single local authority, local area or company. Local and Personal Acts were published in a separate series between 1797 and 1922. In addition, it should be noted that prior to the enactment of company registration law in 1844 and the introduction of limited liability for companies in 1855, most commercial companies were incorporated by an Act of Parliament.

The statute law revision project has now assessed all 60,000 pieces of primary legislation enacted prior to Independence, of which 22,885 come within the ambit of this Bill, of which 153 were found to be already repealed. Of the 60,000 statutes, approximately 40,000 were identified as not having applied to Ireland. These Acts, though not listed in Schedule 2, have been implicitly repealed by virtue of their exclusion from Schedule 1. Of the 20,000 Acts identified as applicable to Ireland, approximately 10,000 were found to have been repealed already, leaving 10,000 Acts of potential ongoing relevance to be assessed. Of the 10,000 Acts with potential ongoing relevance, the Bill when enacted and its predecessors will have repealed approximately 7,800. The remaining 2,200 Acts have been assessed as not suitable for repeal and each have been listed for retention in Schedule 1 to the Bill or in the relevant Statute Law Revision Acts 2007 and 2009.

I wish to outline to the House the major provisions of the Bill. Section 1 provides definitions of "statute", "local and personal Act" and "private Act". The definitions of the series of statutes are necessary to distinguish them from statutes of a public general nature which are not affected by the Bill. It should be noted that the definitions relate only to statutes and therefore do not include charters of a local and personal or private nature. Such charters are not revoked by the Bill. Charters in the nature of public general Acts are, however, included.

Section 2 is the central feature of this Bill. It provides for fundamental clarification and simplification of the Statute Book by drawing a line at Independence on 6 December 1922 and repealing all Acts passed prior to that point, with three exceptions. The first exception comprises those Acts listed in Schedule 1, which sets out a list of local and personal Acts from 1851 onwards and private Acts from 1751 onwards that were passed before Independence in 1922 and which are still relevant. The second exception comprises pre-1851 local and personal Acts and pre-1751 private Acts retained by the Statute Law Revision Act 2009 by virtue of their inclusion in Schedule 1 to that Act and which were not subsequently repealed. The third exception comprises pre-1922 public general Acts that have already been saved by Schedule 1 to the Statute Law Revision Act 2007 and which were not subsequently repealed.

Section 3 provides, for information purposes, a list of all statutes repealed by section 2. It is based on section 3 of the 2007 and 2009 Acts. This section proposes to list the specific Acts identified in the course of the review as being unnecessary or as being spent or obsolete. These obsolete Acts will be listed in Schedule 2 to the Bill. This section is not a repealing section, as the repeal is effected in section 2.

Section 4 will assign a Short Title to any Act saved by section 2 which does not already have a Short Title. This section is based on section 4 of 2007 and 2009 Acts.

Section 5 makes provision for the amendment of certain unconventional or inappropriate Short Titles in respect of Acts saved by section 2, in order to facilitate the citation of those Acts. This section is based on section 7 of the 2007 Act and section 5 of the 2009 Act.

Section 6 provides for the standard saving clauses. Sections 6(1) and 6(3) are similar to the corresponding subsections in section 9 of the 2007 Act and section 6 of the 2009 Act. They are standard forms in Bills of this nature. For clarity, as with the previous Acts, reference has also been inserted to the "application" of statutes to the State to ensure the saver clause is wide enough to preserve statutes which have been applied to Ireland by statutes repealed by this Bill. Section 6(2) 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. It corresponds to section 9(2) of the 2007 Act and section 6(2) of the 2009 Act.

Section 7 provides for the remedying of an omission in the Adaptation of Enactments Act 1922. This provided for the automatic adaptation of pre-1922 statutes with a power to make further adaptations by order. The definition of pre-1922 statute was couched in terms that applied only to Acts of the Parliament of the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland" and did not apply to Acts of the Irish or English Parliaments or the Parliament of Great Britain - that is, the Parliament after the union with Scotland. The amendment rectifies this omission. I am sure that meets with the approval of all sides of the House.

Section 8 provides for a Short Title and collective citations. This is a standard provision and is equally based on the 2007 and 2009 Acts.

Schedule 1 provides a list of pre-Independence statutes for each period concerned which are not being repealed. Those periods are from 1 January 1751 to 6 December 1922 for private Acts and from 1 January 1851 to 6 December 1922 for local and personal Acts.

Schedule 2 lists the Acts specifically repealed by the Bill covering the same period of time as those in Schedule 1. The Acts listed in Schedule 2 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 that do not relate to Ireland, or have only an exceptionally minimal connection with Ireland, will not be included in Schedule 2 but will be implicitly repealed by virtue of the general repeal provision in section 2. Accordingly, this approach, which was also adopted in the Statute Law Revision Acts 2007 and 2009, will improve clarity as to the repeals relevant to Ireland and provide greater transparency with respect to relevant repeals.

Having regard to the volume of legislation involved and the careful analysis given to each Act, it is clear that this Bill is the culmination of significant work for those involved. I thank the researchers and management of the statute law revision project, as well as the staff of the Parliamentary Counsel and the Office of the Attorney General for their dedicated work on this Bill. As I said, this extraordinary piece of work has spanned the terms of a number of Governments over a ten-year period, culminating in the Bill before the House and the two previous Acts I have mentioned. It has required meticulous research on the part of those who have worked to bring our statute revision up to a standard which is well beyond what other Parliaments have provided for. I congratulate all concerned for that work.

I would like to acknowledge the indispensable assistance provided to the State by the UK parliamentary archives at the House of Lords and the House of Commons in Westminster. Over a number of years, the parliamentary archives have kindly lent the statute law revision project various texts of Acts which are not available in any form in Ireland. When project members travelled to the archives last year to view specific texts on site, they were provided with every assistance by the staff there. In extending my sincere appreciation to the staff of the UK parliamentary archives, I acknowledge that without their generous and public-spirited assistance and co-operation, it would not have been possible to produce this Bill. The project staff also received texts of Acts and valuable assistance and co-operation from the Honourable Society of King's Inns, the Oireachtas Library, the National Library and the National Archives. I wish to express my gratitude to those institutions for their support and assistance.

Ireland's unique legislative past has left us with a complex stock of legislation with enactments from the Parliaments of Ireland, England, Great Britain and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The importance of simplifying this complex stock was noted recently by the OECD in its 2010 review of better regulation in Ireland, which reported that initiatives such as the Statute Law Revision Acts were impressive efforts to address this challenge and to improve accessibility and understanding of the law. This Bill, in tandem with the Statute Law Revision Acts 2007 and 2009, constitutes the most extensive set of repealing measures in the history of the State. As far as the Office of the Attorney General is aware, it is the most extensive statute law revision programme ever undertaken anywhere in the world. That is a large claim to make. I am sure the authorities in some country will pop up and say they did a more extensive trawl. We should make the claim anyway.

These repeal proposals were developed following a rigorous research and consultation process. All of those interested in the proposals, including members of the public, were given an opportunity to contribute their views. The process of statute law revision will help to simplify and modernise our law and make it more intelligible. It will save time and costs for lawyers and others who need to know what the law actually is. It will make it easier for citizens to access justice. The Bill, when enacted, will achieve the following - facilitate the process of regulatory reform; ensure that the Irish Statute Book is significantly more modern and enhance public accessibility to the Statute Book in line with the programme for Government commitments; facilitate future legislative measures to repeal, re-enact, where necessary with amendments, and consolidate the statute law of the State; assist the Law Reform Commission in its task of preparing the legislation directory; and enable, for the first time since the foundation of the State, the compilation of a complete list of all primary legislation up to Independence that has not been repealed.

I am satisfied, from the significant work undertaken by the statute law revision project, that the Acts specified in Schedule 2 to this Bill are now either spent or obsolete. It is time to remove this legislation from our Statute Book and take another step towards the ultimate aim of a clear and concise Statute Book which reduces the regulatory burden on business and enhances accessibility for the general public. I commend the Bill to the House.