Kieran O'Donnell (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I commend the Bill and acknowledge the people from the deaf community in the Gallery. I wish to speak to amendment No. 41. In essence, such a review mechanism every three to five years is provided for in most legislation. The first review would be three years after the legislation is enacted and then every five years thereafter. I have no doubt that there will be a kind of a formal informal protocol where people can advise as to how the legislation is working in real time. Therefore, when the three-year review is carried out, we will have debugged, for want of a better term, many of the initial issues that may have arisen in the first three years. It is a practical measure. Therefore, when the legislation is reviewed three years after its enactment, a review would have already been carried out and there would be a consensus around the terms of the review, its terms of reference and the outcome of the review. I hope that this will be done in real time over a three-year period. Then there will be the formal mechanism, which is good to have in any legislation. I wish the legislation good passage.