Vol. 483 No. 1
5 Mr. Rabbitte asked the Taoiseach the number of parliamentary draftstsmen currently employed in the Office of the Attorney General; his views on whether the number is adequate in relation to the apparent delay in producing promised legislation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19407/97]
Fourteen parliamentary draftsmen are employed in the office of the Attorney General. Included in this figure are four draftsmen engaged on a contract basis, one of whom commenced work on 17 November 1997. There are two vacancies which are expected to be filled shortly following a competition held by the Civil Service Commission.
I cannot accept the Deputy's contention that there is a delay in producing promised legislation. Eleven Bills have been published since this Government came to office at the end of June and five Bills which lapsed on the dissolution of the last Dáil and Seanad have been, or are about to be, restored. Drafting of a number of other Bills, some of which are very substantial, is far advanced. I am confident that most, if not all, of the 21 Bills listed in the Government's press release of 25 September 1997, for publication or restoration prior to the Christmas recess will be delivered along with other Bills.
The Government's legislative programme is substantial and I am anxious that it proceed as rapidly as possible. If it proves feasible to engage additional suitable parliamentary draftsmen to expedite the programme the Government will do so. We are also seeking to ensure the training of recently recruited draftsmen proceeds as quickly as possible.
Is the Taoiseach aware that of the nine Bills published when I put down this question, eight were the work of the previous Government and the one which originated with the Government was a two section Bill to close a loophole arising from a recent court case on kidnapping? Does he accept the previous Attorney General established reforms in the office and that a shortage of draftspersons is not the cause of the delay in legislation? Will the 21 Bills listed in the Government's schedule for this session be published before the Christmas recess?
I hope they will and pressure is being kept on all Departments to make sure that happens. What is important is not the number of Bills put through in a session but that when Bills are included in the legislative programme they are followed through. Former Attorneys General did a great deal of work and the previous one probably did more in the area of technology than anybody else. I give him credit for that. The difficulty is that some of the draftsmen recruited during the time of the previous Attorney General on short-term contracts came from various countries and have moved on. There is a worldwide shortage of parliamentary draftsmen. The Attorney General's office has been engaged in the slow process of trying to recruit and train parliamentary draftsmen. It has always been a slow process. Frequently when trained those people move on. I am not sure what we can do about it. There are two vacancies in the office. One person commenced working in that office this week and another is due to commence prior to Christmas.
Is the Taoiseach satisfied with the preparatory work done in Departments generally prior to the parliamentary draftspersons becoming seized of the matter? Will he agree there are wide variations in the level of competence in the pre-drafting work?
Some Departments have suitably qualified people but maybe not the perfection or standard required to bring legislation before the House, while other Departments use people as advisers to assist in the process. That has been the practice in some Departments for a number of years. Other Departments have no expertise whatsoever. This is a difficulty. When I was Minister for Labour — and possibly in Deputy Quinn's time as Minister for Labour — an outside expert facilitated the legislation we were able to bring to the House in the 1980s. That facility is not used in all Departments. The parliamentary draftsmen in the Attorney General's office state that regardless of how it is done they still have to go through the full process. That process is shortened when a great deal of the preparatory work is done. In other Departments people involved in this work do not necessarily receive additional remuneration. They are people who have legal qualifications, which they set about achieving in their spare time with some small assistance from the State. Such people should be used when available.
Will the Government give greater scope for Bills from Opposition Deputies to be developed through access to the parliamentary draftsman's office to enable them to be passed? That facility would allow matters to be put into a legislative format which could encapsulate the collective wisdom of Members.
In recent years there has been a number of notable examples, from all sides, of Members putting forward legislation. However it still has to be checked and cross-checked. Those Bills are not unhelpful.
The Taoiseach will accept all Members have a common objective in relation to expediting legislation, particularly of the type to which Deputy Bruton drew our attention this morning on the Order of Business which is of critical commercial importance. I refer to the copyright legislation. Without wishing to score political points, I draw the Taoiseach's attention to the fact that in some Departments, one of which I had the honour to be involved in, the former Department of Enterprise and Employment, there was a serious competence deficit in the area responsible for the credit union legislation, the consumer protection legislation and, I suspect, the copyright legislation which has 190 sections. Given that the Taoiseach has direct responsibility for the strategic management initiative, will he look at the operation of those Departments and revisit a Government decision, which I asked the Secretary of the Government at the time to have noted, that there should be a co-ordinated training programme across Departments for the training of civil servants to ensure legislation is prepared to a satisfactory pre-parliamentary draftsman stage, in order not to waste the time of the scarce and skilled parliamentary draftsmen? He will be excoriated by us unless he addresses that issue. It is in the interests of dealing with this country's problems that I ask the Taoiseach to look at that problem, otherwise the legislative programme will not get off the ground.
I recall the Deputy's suggestion and I undertake to look at it. We have a total of 14 parliamentary draftsmen who are involved in legislation, regulations, consolidation of Bills, reviewing cases and dealing with the many issues that arise. Theirs is a heavy workload. There are some 90 Bills in various stages of the parliamentary process. The speed at which these Bills move forward is unsatisfactory and has been for a number of years.
Will the Taoiseach agree — certainly it had been my experience when holding the office he now holds — that one of the biggest problems the parliamentary draftsman's office faces is when a Government changes its order of priority of drafting of legislation? That means that a Bill with 90 per cent of the work completed has to be dropped and something else started from scratch. Will the Taoiseach agree that he should ensure a priority is set for drafting, however difficult that may be? Once set it should be adhered to, otherwise there will be much unproductive chopping and changing of work in the parliamentary draftsman's office which will slow down the total corpus of legislation.
I have done that. That is the reason I chose 21 Bills which we will try to deal with in this session. Some priority Bills have to be dealt with such as the education Bill and the employment equality Bill, which required substantial redrafting. A number of other Bills which have been around for some considerable time dealing with constitutional or other legal issues need to be dealt with. Except for one or two items of urgent legislation where we need to make amendments, I would prefer to adhere to that programme. I accept that a parliamentary draftsman or whoever is dealing with the legislation may have to move on. That happens in the case of finance Bills, social welfare Bills, urgent Bills and regulations that have been challenged. This is part of the ongoing process. Litigation means we are having to do that far more than previously. I read a note by the previous Attorney General which spelled out how often that has happened in the past five years compared with what happened in the previous 50 years.
