Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Speaking as a solicitor, I can say that one would not expect one's clients - Ministers in this case - to circulate extracts from advice in such a fashion. It was most inappropriate and disrespectful to the Office of the Attorney General that they were sent around the Oireachtas by e-mail. I think the advice given by the Attorney General is arguable.

Senator Daly has adopted the procedure here. It is noteworthy that the procedure was adopted last year, immediately on the signing of these regulations, on 27 August, the last possible date available to the Minister, but the Seanad was not recalled. Legal advice was sought by the Cathaoirleach and the Clerk of the Seanad at the time and I have a copy of that advice here. That legal advice is confidential, but it essentially confirmed that the procedure is correct and that Senator Daly is doing the right thing. This is the only avenue open to us to do anything about statutory instruments which are signed by Ministers during a recess. There is nothing else one can do.

In the Seanad today, the Order Paper has a list of 12 pieces of legislation that are open to annulment. These are 12 pieces of legislation that have been passed by various Ministers over the summer on which there has been no debate whatsoever. It is interesting that among these is at least one from the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, the European Union (Microbiological Criteria for Foodstuffs) (Amendment) Regulations 2013, SI 301 of 2013. This was passed a month late by the Minister, but notwithstanding that, we got no opportunity to debate it or any of the other pieces of legislation, many of which create serious criminal offences. The Minister for Finance signed a regulation into law on 6 August this year relating to customs inspections and intellectual property rights. These laws, which are passed by Ministers, deserve scrutiny. They create penalties for people who break the laws and deserve scrutiny in our Parliament.

The essential question today is whether we should discuss organ donation or make laws. Are we a law-making body or do we break laws? Our only function is the making of laws, not that of a debating Chamber. One of the statutory instruments published during the summer break was the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (Construction) Regulations. Only for the fact the Irish Examiner,and perhaps some other newspapers, highlighted these, there would have been no scrutiny of these whatsoever. Therefore, it is highly appropriate the Seanad be recalled today and I hope it annuls the legislation being discussed today. This would put the ball in the Dáil's court.

There is an inherent legislative power for us to legislate on anything we want and this will then bring pressure on the Minister to rectify the flaws in the legislation. The flaws have nothing to do with consent but with the infrastructure cited by Senator Keane. The problem is not with the directive, which we support, but with the way the Minister implemented the directive into Irish law. There are more than 10,000 words of implementing regulation, but the Government side of the House suggests we should not debate them at all. I suggest that is wrong. We should debate the regulation. In our view, we should annul the regulations which we believe are flawed. I thank Senator Daly and his nominating body, the Irish Kidney Association, for all their work on this issue.