Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

It is a pleasure to bring the Bill to the Seanad today.

The BiIl is the latest in a series of measures that have been enacted to modernise and improve public accessibility of the Statute Book and secondary legislation. It is vital that laws and regulations in Ireland are both fit for purpose, and regularly reviewed and updated.

The statute law revision programme is Ireland’s national programme to identify and remove obsolete and spent primary and secondary legislation from the Statute Book. The aim and purpose of the programme is to repeal legislation that has ceased to be in force due to changes in circumstances or the passage of time and legislation that, while technically in force, is no longer of relevance in practice. There has been a particular need for such revision in Ireland because our unique legislative past, which has left us with a complex stock of legislation, with enactments from the Parliaments of Ireland, England, Great Britain and the United Kingdom as well as our own Oireachtas. The statute law revision programme is responsible for six distinct but complementary Statute Law Revision Acts between 2005 and 2015, which have successfully repealed all obsolete primary legislation enacted prior to independence and, in addition, have revoked all obsolete secondary legislation made up to 1 January 1821 To date, more than 100,000 Acts and secondary instruments have been reviewed and either expressly or implicitly repealed under the programme.

This Bill, when enacted, together with the six previous Statute Law Revision Acts, will collectively be the most extensive set of repealing measures in the history of the State and the most extensive set of statute law revision measures ever enacted anywhere in the world. The benefits of statute law revision are well-documented and include the creation of certainty as to which laws remain in force, the modernisation of the Statute Book, the enhancement of public accessibility to the Statute Book and the codification or consolidation of the statute law of the State.

It is in the public interest to proceed with this Bill in that the proposals will assist in reducing the regulatory burden for business, industry and citizens by simplifying the complex stock of legislation currently on the Statute Book. The Bill will also help provide legal clarity to the area. The importance of simplifying this complex stock was noted with approval by the OECD Review of Better Regulation in Ireland 2010, which reported that initiatives, such as the Statute Law Revision Acts, were impressive efforts to address the challenge and improve accessibility.

The principal purpose of the Bill is to repeal spent and obsolete secondary instruments enacted on or after 1 January 1821 and before 1 January 1861. The Bill will also repeal those instruments enacted before 1 January 1821 that are still in force and were not repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act 2015.

The process leading to the Bill involved a review carried out by the Law Reform Commission and sponsored by this Department of more than 40,000 secondary instruments to ascertain if they were obsolete or were to be repealed or retained. Of those, 3,367 will be repealed by the Bill attached to this memorandum and are listed in Schedule 2. Six instruments will be retained and are listed in Schedule 1.

I would like to make a correction to the explanatory memorandum. The fourth paragraph of the introduction mentions "5 instruments will be retained and are listed in Schedule 1." This should state, "6 instruments will be retained and are listed in Schedule 1". My apologies for the error.

I wish to outline to the House the main provisions of the Bill. Section 1 provides definitions for terms used throughout the Bill.

Section 2 revokes all instruments passed prior to 1 January 1861 other than the six retained instruments specified in the first schedule. These instruments are suitable for revocation because they have no ongoing relevance in this jurisdiction, and-or are spent ,that is, have ceased to be in force, or are obsolete - dealing with a subject matter that no longer exists, that has been superseded by subsequent legislation or that is no longer regulated by legislation.

The instruments set out in part 1 of Schedule 1 were formerly set out at reference Nos. 2, 3 and 7 of Schedule 1 to the Statute Law Revision Act 2015. This latter Schedule retained 43 instruments. A total of 40 of these instruments were "Names and Arms" instruments. The Law Reform Commission conducted further research which revealed that these "Names and Arms" instruments did not in fact require retention and these are now being revoked.

Two of the instruments being retained in Part 2 of Schedule 1 are notices defining the parts of the River Shannon over which the Shannon Commissioners may exercise their powers under the Shannon Navigation Act 1839. These were made pursuant to section 39 of the Shannon Navigation Act 1839, which remains in force. They remain valid for regulatory purposes as they define the parts of the River Shannon to which the Shannon Navigation Act 1839 applied.

The third instrument being retained in Part 2 of Schedule 1 is an 1807 order regarding the prevention of smuggling.

The revocation in section 2 of the Bill s a general revocation provision that will revoke all instruments made prior to 1 January 1861, even where those instruments are not expressly included in the Schedules.Section 3, for ease of reference, refers to the secondary instruments specified in Schedule 2, which are revoked. There are 3,367 instruments listed in the Schedule following the review of all available secondary legislation from 1821 to1860.

Section 4 allows each instrument listed in Part 1 of Schedule 1 to be officially cited using the citation provided in column 4 of this Schedule.

Section 5 provides savings clauses. Section 5(1) and (2) provide that the inclusion of an Act in the Schedule shall not be construed as meaning that the Act, or any provision of it, was of full force and effect immediately before the passing of this Act.

Section 6 supplements existing evidence laws, allowing for prima facieevidence of instruments made before 1 January 1861 to be presented in courts and legal proceedings by producing a published copy from specified sources like the Dublin Gazetteor The London Gazette.

Section 7 provides a Short Title for the legislation when enacted and collective citation for all the Statute Law Revision Acts to date.

Schedule 1 lists the specific instruments that are to be retained. Schedule 2 lists the instruments identified in the course of the review as appropriate for repeal at this stage because they have ceased to be relevant or have become unnecessary.

To conclude, this Bill is a rather technical piece of legislation, but an important and necessary one. It represents another step in the journey to clarify and simplify the Irish Statute Book. The Bill’s enactment will deliver benefits in facilitating the process of public governance reform, reducing the regulatory burden on businesses and citizens. It will also ensure that our Statute Book is significantlymore modern and will enhance public accessibility to the laws that govern our people as they go about their business in their daily lives. I commend the Bill to the House.