Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Fine Gael)
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Question 35: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if he will report on the work to date of the Criminal Law Codification Advisory Committee; when it is expected to finish its work; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35091/08]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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The Criminal Law Codification Advisory Committee was established on 1 February 2007 under Part 14 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006 to oversee the development of a programme for the codification of the criminal law. It is chaired by Professor Finbarr McAuley of the School of Law in UCD and consists of representatives of the judiciary, the legal profession, legal academia, the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, the Office of the Attorney General and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

The codification project is long-term and is estimated to take up to 10 years to fully complete. Thereafter the Advisory Committee will continue in existence to advise on the maintenance of the code.

The code is to be enacted on a phased basis. The first codification Bill will consist of a general part dealing with the principles of criminal liability and a special part containing non-fatal offences against the person, public order offences, theft and fraud offences and criminal damage offences. The Advisory Committee will consider the feasibility of including homicide offences in the first Bill. Additional offences will be added to the code by subsequent codification Bills.

The Advisory Committee's first Programme of Work, for the two-year period 2008 and 2009, was approved in January of this year. It is expected that much of the substantive work on the general scheme of the first codification Bill will be completed by the end of 2009.

The Advisory Committee's first Annual Report, for the year ended 31 December 2007, was laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas in May 2008. The Annual Report can be accessed on the Advisory Committee's website www.criminalcode.ie. The Programme of Work 2008-2009 is appended to the Annual Report.