Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

They are simply footnotes that reference difference sections. The first hash refers to the first section that is being changed and the second hash refers to the second change. It is just to differentiate the amendments that are being made. The Bills Office did so to make it clearer what was happening with these amendments.

If I could make a point which might be helpful to the discussion about the various changes in the Bill. The Senator commented on the number of amendments in relation to one page. That was a reference point for a large number of amendments that were made by the House on Committee Stage on the subject of complaints. It is a virtual page number to allow for the insertion of the various amendments that had been made but it was not changing any of those amendments. It was literally just providing a place where those amendments were going into the Bill that had been agreed on Committee Stage so it was not actually amendments to one page.

A huge number of the amendments I am bringing in here are to do with the drafters. It was always going to be necessary at this point in the Bill to look at the overall development of the Bill and the kind of changes made and see how it all stood together. Many of the changes in these amendments are genuine, as Senators will see when they look at the amendments. We are not brining in any policy changes. The policy discussion we have had, both on Second Stage and on Committee Stage, is very much the drafters looking over the Bill as a whole. I appreciate that there are many amendments. The drafters have looked over them and effectively made the technical changes and the minor corrections that are needed for the Bill to flow as a whole. I apologise that there are so many of them but it is very much the drafters looking at the Bill as a whole and making the various changes. I accept that it is a complex and large Bill with many amendments. These ones we are discussing at this point are very much the technical ones about the numbering changes where one puts the amendments in and so forth.

I have detailed notes which I am happy to share on some of the other amendments that have to do with inserting monitoring elements, for example, which we will deal with in the Bill at a later stage, and some of the other key points about transitions and the kind of periods of transition we are putting into the Bill when we move from the Bar Council and the Law Society of Ireland to the LSRA. I hope I have been helpful.