Skip to main content
Normal View

Dáil Éireann debate -
Monday, 18 Dec 1922

Vol. 2 No. 8

EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE BILL.

I beg to ask leave to introduce a Bill called the "Expiring Laws Continuance Bill." It provides for the continuance of certain Acts which would, in the normal course, expire at the end of this year, or in the course of next year. The Acts which it is proposed to continue, or part of which it is proposed to continue, are set out in the Schedule, and I would simply ask members to take my assurance that there is nothing controversial in these Acts. They are Acts which for the most part were renewed from year to year as a matter of course and, in the unprovided lapse, would cause a certain amount of dislocation. Some few of them I might mention. There is the Corrupt Practices Act, the Locomotives Act, the Parliamentary Elections Act, the Labourers Act, the Licensing Act of 1902, which was an Act renewed from year to year, the Motor Car Act. And I would draw special attention to the Act in the First Schedule —the Aliens Restriction Act—and it will be noted that only Section I of that Act is sought to be continued. Section I is that giving certain discretionary powers to the Home Secretary or his Department to impose restrictions in the case of conditions of war within the country, and the vindictive restrictions that that Act does entail, passed as it was in the English Parliament at the outbreak of the late European War, are not continued; merely Section I is continued. It is not perhaps in order to go into details of the Acts of the Schedule at this stage, but I can give an assurance that these are very largely routine measures that it was usual to pass in the past from year to year as a matter of course. We have not sought to insert in the Schedule any Act that would be controversial or that there would be likely to be difference of opinion about.

Question "That leave be given to bring in a Bill entitled `The Expiring Laws Continuance Bill,' " put and agreed to.

In the circumstances one assumes that it will be necessary to take all the stages of this Bill, the Expiring Laws Bill, this week.

It will be necessary to take all its stages this week, because a great many of the Laws set out in the Schedule expire on the 31st of this month, and if they are to be continued they will have to be completed before then.

Top
Share