Deputy Woods seems to have some trouble with the seat in front of him. It is not just the Minister he is kicking; it seems to be the furniture as well. Before the sos, I was dealing with the concerns expressed by him about what he regarded as the retrospective nature of one of the provisions in this Bill which is designed to ensure that appeals lodged before the passing of the measure would be heard by the High Court on circuit sitting in Galway next week. I was saying that the provision does not seem retrospective in the accepted definition of the word. What we are doing is simply recognising the very reason why the Bill is in the House and making sure that appeals that were lodged before the passing of the measure, and in some cases before the declaration of the status of Galway as a county borough, could properly be heard by an appeal court in the designated town after the passage of this measure. It is not retrospective legislation in that it does not look back. I would contend that it is forward-looking in its nature because it provides for the closing of a loophole that might otherwise exist. If we did not have this provision in the Bill it could be the case that a number of appeals would fall into a kind of limbo in which they could not properly be heard.
I am not at all convinced by Deputy Woods's contention that the situation that has pertained since 1 January last has left citizens on any side scale in a state of uncertainty. As I mentioned, the situation which the Bill is intended to cope with was brought to my notice by legal advice, by people who saw the emergence of the problem some time after the conditions for the problem's existence had come about. I do not think there is any great degree of uncertainty about it. The passage of this measure will remove any uncertainty that might exist.
Deputy Woods, and indeed other Members of the House, take issue with the Bill not in terms of its substance but in terms of what it is doing because they believe that this is an example of piecemeal legislation. I would have to say that that kind of comment elevates the Bill to a status which it does not deserve. It is not piecemeal legislation in that it does not address any of the more fundamental issues of the administration of justice which have been mentioned by various Deputies on both sides of the House. It deals only with one very particular situation that has arisen and provides that the administration of justice, as we now know it, can continue uninterruptedly as far as people who have litigation in the city of Galway are concerned.
The other concerns which Deputies have mentioned are in most cases valid, even though the language used by one or two Members has been a shade picturesque. The concerns underlying their remarks are valid and would need to be addressed. I can assure the House that Members of this House will find in me a ready listener to those concerns. I would be anxious in so far as possible to make progress along the general lines they have set out. I am not a great ornithologist and I am not sure if I would know the difference——
