Imelda Munster (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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1303. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the projects undertaken to consolidate or amalgamate existing legislation, including the cost, the duration, the number of staff required and if this process was carried out by his Department or outsourced in each of the years 2007 to 2017 and to date in 2018, in tabular form. [1560/18]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment was established on 6^thMay 2016.  Accordingly, I will include information on legislation prepared since that date.

In 2017, the Law Reform Commission, with the assistance of my Department, published an official revised version of the Electricity Regulation Act 1999. This is an administrative consolidation of the Electricity Regulation Act, 1999. The revised version of the Electricity Regulation Act 1999 reflects all amendments and changes to the text of the 1999 Act up to July 2017. The revised version of the Act is available on both the Law Reform Commission and Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment websites.

The Minerals Development Act 2017 was enacted on 26 July 2017 with the purpose of modernising and consolidating all mineral development legislation. This work was undertaken in my Department by staff as part of their day to day work.

The Aarhus Bill 2018 will update certain provisions further to Ireland’s transposition of the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice. Work has been ongoing on this Bill since the establishment of this Department.  Work to date has been carried out by the Department.

It is not possible to isolate the administrative cost of processing legislation from the overall administrative costs of my Department as this work is carried out as part of the normal day-to-day running of business areas.