Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Experienced Senators such as Senator Norris and I will be aware that there is no measurement of the outcome or impact of much of the legislation that is passed in this House. Such measurement should take place. According to an expression that is used in business, "If it is not being measured, it is not being done". We often fail to measure whether legislation that has been passed by this House is being implemented. We need to consider the impact that such legislation is having and whether it needs to be amended to make sure it has the intended impact. I will give some brief examples. As a result of legislation that was passed by the Oireachtas more than 20 years ago, the courts have the power to put electronic tags on people who are out on parole or on early release. However, the necessary statutory instruments were never put in place by the Department of Justice and Equality. We are still talking about electronic tagging. Legislation passed by this House is not being implemented by the Government.

The Minister of State will be more aware of the next example I will mention. The Irish Sign Language Act 2017 gives the Government three years to put in place structures to enable members of the deaf community to access Government services. The Act requires all Departments to put in place interpreting facilities and systems to facilitate any member of the deaf community who arrives at an accident and emergency unit, appears before a court or calls into a Garda station. There are 12 months of that three-year period left, but no provision has been made by any Department to date. We insisted that the legislation would provide for a three-year implementation period. In 2020, when the next 12 months have passed, the Government will be breaking the law. Timelines are important because things do not get done without them.If the Bill required the Government to undertake a report without placing a timeline on it, I guarantee that the report may or may not be done in 2020. It might be an idea to make a further amendment so that there would be a report on problem gambling every year. The recommendations made in a previous year's report and on which we all agreed could be analysed by the Houses and we could ask what had or had not been implemented. That is measurement of progress. We have had too many reports that have made recommendations but on which there was no follow-up. That is why we are insisting on the inclusion of a reference to a report, with all of the recommendations such a report would have, being compiled by the Government within three months of the Bill's passage. All too often, issues are placed on the back burner and are not addressed.