Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Question 90: To ask the Taoiseach the circumstances in which legislation promoted by his Department was approved that continues to allow for separate provision to be made in law for citizens on grounds of religious faith or lack of religious faith; if he has satisfied himself that adequate effort was made in statute law revision measures promoted by his Department to remove from statute law separate arrangements for persons by reference to their religious identity, for example, references to Jews, Quakers, Moravians, Christians, Catholics, and so on. [13323/07]

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Statute Law Revision Bill 2007 is currently before the Oireachtas. The Bill will repeal more than 3,000 statutes enacted before 6 December, 1922. Included in the statutes for repeal are many statutes which differentiate between people on the basis of their religion.

This Bill is a statute law revision measure. As such, it repeals only statutes which are appropriate for repeal, namely, those statutes which have ceased to have legal effect or which are obsolete. Statutes which have some continuing legal effect may not be repealed by statute law revision measures. The current Bill will retain in force more than 1,000 statutes which have (or may have) some continuing legal effect.

A small number of the Acts which will be retained relate to particular religions. The majority of these are statutes relating to the Church of Ireland which date from a time when that was the established church in Ireland. These statutes are being retained because they may have some continuing effect on matters such as the administration of particular churches, or of particular trusts, or of parish boundaries which relate to land ownership. In consultation with the Church of Ireland, these have been selected for retention until alternative arrangements may be made for such matters.

Other retained statutes which refer to named religions are statutes which were enacted at certain points in time to overcome religious discrimination which had previously affected those religions. These include laws making arrangements for validating marriages of people of certain faiths and providing for the giving of evidence by people whose faiths did not permit the making of traditional-form oaths. These various statutes will all be repealed in due course, but only in the context of more wide-ranging repeal and re-enactment measures relating to the relevant areas of law, such as oaths and marriages.

The Government, at my request, has agreed that all of the statutes which will be retained in force by the current Bill will be proposed for repeal in subsequent legislation. That subsequent legislation must first replace with modern legislation those statutes which have continuing legal effect. My ultimate objective is to repeal all legislation enacted before Ireland achieved independence.