Lorraine Higgins (Labour)

I welcome the Minister of State to the Chamber and thank him for his detailed and informative submission in which he went through the provisions of the Acts. It was good to hear their relevance to today's debate.

I welcome the opportunity to lead this debate on behalf of the Labour Party group in the Seanad and to contribute on such an important piece of legislation. As legislators, we have a tendency to add laws to the Statue Book, but rarely do we remove any. On that basis, I commend the Minister of State and his Department on this legislation. As he claimed in his speech, this is the most extensive statute law revision ever attempted anywhere. We can be proud to undertake this course of action as it marks us out as reformers in the true sense of the word. It is clear that a great job has been done in combing through the Statute Book for material which should no longer be there. I understand that throughout this process a number of Bills have come through the House in previous years in this regard and that in total, approximately 8,000 Acts have been identified for repeal. Together with these, some 40,557 Acts have been automatically repealed by the legislation.

Along with the Office of the Attorney General, the Minister and his Department have outlined a purposeful project to review all legislation on our Statute Book and to repeal any legislation that is spent, obsolete and no longer of practical use. As a barrister - I think I speak for most members of my profession on this - I welcome this development. At least, now I do not have to worry about some ancient, archaic law tripping me up in the courtroom when fighting a case. This is welcome. More seriously, the Statute Law Revision Bill 2012 is designed to repeal all such obsolete Acts, such as the Local and Personal Acts enacted between 1851 and 1922 and private Acts enacted between 1751 and 1922. This constitutes almost 3,000 obsolete laws which were passed before Ireland gained independence. It is part of an earlier programme undertaken by the last Administration in 2003, whereby 5,000 obsolete Acts were eliminated.

As with earlier phases, this Bill has been widely canvassed and accompanied by a consultation process with the various Departments, local authorities and other relevant companies, bodies and organisations. Some of these laws date back to 1542. While these are completely obsolete, they have enjoyed the full force of law, notwithstanding their age and the fact they were designed for a different era. One might question why these laws survived our independence from the British Crown. However, by virtue of an Act passed in 1922, many ancient laws were transposed into Irish law. While we might be thankful that time has moved on, in legal terms it has not, until now. The Schedule to this Bill contains a comprehensive list of both the Acts to be repealed and those to be retained. In particular, Schedule 1 contains those Acts which continue to have some relevance and are provisionally proposed for retention, because they have been identified as neither wholly spent nor wholly obsolete. Schedule 2 contains a list of Acts which when enacted, or subsequently, have had some relevance to Ireland but are provisionally being identified as wholly spent or wholly obsolete and, therefore, suitable for repeal.

For instance, some of the laws which are to be scrapped relate to the removal of the 700-year old obligation for every citizen of Ireland to own a bow and arrow and to practise archery, as mentioned by Senator O'Donovan. The Act concerned with locking people into stocks so that they could be pelted with tomatoes is another Act to be repealed, as are the private divorce Acts, which are obsolete in light of our judicial divorce Acts of 1996, and the statutes relating to conferring of citizenship on non-nationals, where Ministers had no power to confer naturalisation. This had to be done by Parliament. While I have outlined only some of the Acts to be consigned to history, this Bill will also specify approximately 780 old Acts which are to remain in effect. These include the Saint Stephen's Green (Dublin) Act 1877, which formally opened the green to regulated public use, and the Dublin Science and Art Museum Act 1877, which formally established the entities now known as the National Museum of Ireland and the National Library of Ireland.

As well as shedding light on Ireland's economic, social and political life this constant renewal of legislation saves time and money. Our Parliament passes laws to deal with current circumstances and when these circumstances no longer apply the legislation should cease to apply immediately. It is important that we remove legal deadwood from our Statute Book to facilitate a process of regulatory reform. A modern democracy requires us to replace outdated legislation with laws that are passed by the democratically elected representatives of the people. Obsolete laws have survived for too long because of the belief that they were not causing any harm. That is where people are wrong, however. Many of these archaic laws have frustrated the legal and judicial system and hampered its efficient operation because of the time legal practitioners were required to spend in the Law Library to determine the legal standing of a particular point. This Bill reflects the Government's agenda for better regulation. I thank everybody who has worked on this Bill and I commend it to the House.