Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 142: To ask the Taoiseach if consideration will be given to compiling one access database to incorporate all Acts and statutory instruments appertaining to all Departments to give greater ease and access to this information via the web; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39133/05]

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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Since the mid-1990s the Office of the Attorney General has prepared and updated from time to time an electronic Irish Statute Book, which includes the full text of all Acts, statutory instruments and chronological tables published since 1992 on its website. The office has also from time to time published the Statute Book in CD-ROM format. Currently, the website gives the documentation up to the end of 2003 and the office is making arrangements to have this brought up to June 2005 in respect of Acts and statutory instruments and to end 2004 in respect of chronological tables. A new CD-ROM is also being prepared and it and the updated material on the website should be available in mid-February 2006.

One of the commitments set out in the Government's White Paper, Regulating Better, is to make regulations straightforward, clear and accessible. Accordingly, a working group was set up in July of this year to look at the issue of producing and making publicly available statutory instruments electronically in a quicker and more efficient way. The Office of the Attorney General is also now looking at the future strategy in respect of the Statute Book. In respect of pre-1922 legislation the office is preparing an electronic database which will list the Acts of a public and general nature which remain in force. It is intended to make this database accessible to the public.