Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The section grants sweeping powers to the Minister to make "regulations prescribing any matter or thing which is referred to in this Act". The provision is unduly broad and does not put in place adequate guardrails that would limit ministerial discretion in respect of such regulations. I accept further regulation may well be needed and would indeed be welcome on a number of issues. Our later amendments recommend the Minister conduct a review of various elements of the Bill with a view to potentially regulating further on certain matters and, therefore, I am aware of, and supportive of, the idea such powers of regulation should be available to the Minister. However, best practice in most legislation is to grant regulatory powers to the Minister under certain sections. For example, in section 47 on the disclosure of data, there is a provision that the Minister "may prescribe suitable and specific measures for the processing of special categories of personal data under this section".This is a section-bound provision which grants specific powers of regulation on a specific issue and under a specific section. It is not clear then why regulatory powers need to be granted to the Minister in such a broad and unfettered way in section 3 rather than on a section-by-section basis, as is the norm. As legislators, it is important when we approve a Bill to leave the House that we do so knowing what effect of that legislation may be as much as possible. Such sweeping and non-specific regulatory powers undermine the legislative principle. For this reason we oppose section 3.