I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. The purpose of this Bill is to eliminate from the statute book enactments or parts of enactments which, although not specifically repealed, are in fact dead or obsolete. The present Bill deals only with Pre-Union Irish statutes, that is, Acts passed by a Parliament sitting in Ireland at any time before the Union of 1800. It is intended as the first of a series of Bills for the removal of unnecessary matter from the statute book. Further statute law revision Bills, dealing with English and British statutes still applying in the State, are in course of preparation.
The passage of these Bills will enable a comprehensive chronological table and index to the whole of the statute law in force in the State to be produced. Such a work is badly needed. At present, a person seeking information on a particular subject of statute law may have to consult three indexes, of which two are out of print. These publications are: the Index to the Pre-Union Irish Statutes, contained in the Irish Statutes Revised, 1885; the United Kingdom Chronological Table and Index to the Statutes (37th edition, 1921) and the latest Index to our own statutes, 1922-58. Every enactment referred to in either of the first two works must be checked against the Chronological Table of Effect of Legislation in our own Index to ascertain its subsequent history and present state. It is not feasible to produce a comprehensive index until the great mass of absolete legislation is cleared away, as is now proposed.
The work of statute law revision has a further great advantage: It will make possible the publication of a series of volumes containing the whole body of the living statute law. At present this legislation is contained in approximately 170 volumes, taking account of the Irish Statutes Revised, 1885, as one volume and ignoring the separate volumes of Pre-Union Irish statutes. There is a British series of Statutes Revised, down to 1920, in 24 volumes, which is extremely convenient but has to be used with caution as it is not fully revised for Ireland. All of the pre-1922 annual volumes are long since out of print; many are difficult to procure; their condition is deteriorating and they contain an increasingly large proportion of dead matter.
Previous Statute Law Revision Acts, dealing with Pre-Union Irish statutes, were enacted by the British parliament in 1878 and 1879. No general revision has since been undertaken although a certain number of them have been repealed by particular statutes, notably by the Gaming and Lotteries Act, 1956, the Administration of Estates Act, 1959, the Defamation Act, 1961, and the Civil Liability Act, 1961.
The Acts of the Parliament of Ireland (1310-1800) are printed in full in the Folio Edition in 20 volumes, which was printed pursuant to an order of the Lord Lieutenant, dated 27th April, 1762. Following on the passage of the Statute Law Revision (Ireland) Acts of 1878 and 1879, a revised edition of the Irish Statutes, in one volume, prepared by William F. Cullinan of the Irish Office, West-minister, was published in 1885. This volume, commonly known as Cullinan's Edition, contains all the enactments then surviving, together with a chronological table of all the statutes.
I think that at this stage it might be useful to Deputies to know why the various enactments in this Bill are considered appropriate for repeal. In the first place a number of the statutes reprinted in Cullinan's Edition were even then clearly obsolete, but were reproduced in that Edition because they had been left untouched by the Statute Law Revision Acts. For example, statutes relating to ecclesiastical courts and ecclesiastical law ceased to be in force on the coming into operation of the Irish Church Act, 1869, by which the Church of Ireland was disestablished. Section 21 of that Act abolished all ecclesiastical courts and provided that on and after the 1st January, 1871, the ecclesiastical law of Ireland, except in so far as related to matrimonial causes and matters, should cease to exist as law. Effect, however, was not given to these provisions by the Statute Law Revision Acts, 1878 and 1879. Again, the various Acts relating to the settlement of Ireland, and others of a similar character, which, having long since served their purpose, would be regarded as spent were left untouched by those Acts and are included in that Edition.
The Pre-Union Irish Acts were, after the Union, continued in force by virtue of Article 8 of the Act of Union which provided: "all laws in force at the time of the Union, and all courts of civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction within the respective kingdoms, shall remain as now by law established within the same." Those which still survived on the establishment of Saorstát Éireann were continued in force by Article 73 of the Constitution of Saorstát Éireann to the extent to which they were not inconsistent with it.
Statutes relating to the Pre-Union Irish Parliament, so far as they may have survived the Act of Union by which that Parliament was abolished, are inoperative since the establishment of the Oireachtas of Saorstát Éireann.
Deputies will, I am sure, have noticed that in this Bill we are, in what might appear to be a somewhat casual manner, repealing the Act of Union of 1800. I am essentially a modest sort of person. I feel that, for that reason, I should make it clear that the effective work in this regard has been carried out long ago by men better than I. However, the Act was still on the Statute Book. I think it is of some interest to us, at any rate at this stage, to note its final passing into oblivion.
