Ruairí Quinn
Question:5 Mr. Quinn asked the Taoiseach the length of time it is taking to prepare Bills in the parliamentary draughtsman's office; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12027/98]
Ceisteanna—Questions. - Preparation of Bills.
The time taken to prepare a Bill in the office of the parliamentary draftsman depends on a number of interrelated factors. These include the length, nature and complexity of the proposal in question, the urgency accorded to the proposal in the Government's legislative programme, the instructions given by the sponsoring Department and the extent to which Departments are in a position to respond to queries or issues arising during the drafting and the existing workload of the office. The responsibilities of the office include Bills, statutory instruments, indexes to the statutes and law revision and consolidation.
I thank the Taoiseach for his reply. Has the Government made any effort to ensure that a trained person is appointed in each Department to liaise with the Attorney General's office and the parliamentary draftsman's office so that there is adequate pre-legislative planning in the drafting of legislation? Has that proposal been implemented, and, if so, in what Departments? What is its present status and state of play?
I am aware of the proposal. It is one with which I strongly agree and had it developed in a few Departments. It has not been implemented in all Departments but I will certainly continue to drive it. It has been implemented in Revenue, the Departments of Social, Community and Family Affairs, Health and Children, Environment and Local Government and in most of the main Departments. It is an extremely desirable proposal.
That it is not in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform is one of the problems.
That Department has over 30 legislative measures and the problem is that there is always so much legislation and litigation on hand because of the nature of the Department. There are many staff in the Department who could do that type of work but they are forever tied up in other work. In fairness to the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, as it has done in recent years, it deals very quickly with specific Bills but may not be as successful as it should be on all Bills. This is due to the volume of legislation but the officials do a tremendous job. It is our aim to continue to have the proposal implemented in all Departments. The more work that can be done of a preparatory nature, cross referencing and so on, while it will still have to go to a parliamentary draftsman, the quicker we will get through the legislative measure.
Deputy Quinn will be aware of the long-term problem, the shortage of parliamentary draftspeople across the world and particularly in this country. Even when they are trained they move on so it is a continuing problem. It takes about three years to train a parliamentary draftsman to a useful level.
It is time to consider the decentralisation or the extension of the staffing arrangements to all Government Departments in a manner not dissimilar to that which operated when the Government Information Service had a centralised service with spokespersons for Departments being located in the GIS and not in the Department. When the Taoiseach was last in Government a decision was taken to decentralise and each Government Department took on its own information officer service who had a knowledge of cross-departmental activities and the interdepartmental activities in each Department. Is it time to formally ensure each Government Department has a legal officer who would prepare the draft of documentation in a quasi draft legal parliamentary format which, when it goes to the parliamentary draftsman's office, would be capable of more speedy dispatch, because that is part of the problem? Will the Government give consideration to that suggestion? The Government will not meet its legislative programme given that it is running so far behind. We were trying to be helpful earlier today on the Order of Business. The Government is heading for legislative paralysis unless something is done about it.
I will try to answer the question but before the Deputy gets carried away, the only paralysis we might hit is time. Every day we have seen people scrambling because there is so much legislation. The House has already been sitting late for several weeks and, if the Whips agree, it now looks as if there will be Friday sittings. All the committees are bogged down in legislation. We are trying to force extra time slots for the committees to meet. I have been urged by Opposition leaders, including the Deputy, to try to force the chairmen to allocate more time. Recently I have been forced to allocate time slots to the chairmen and say they have to take them because there is so much work. I am afraid that part of the Deputy's question is incorrect.
I share the Deputy's view in terms of his analysis in that the more work that can be done on a decentralised basis the better. The Deputy's suggestion of formally doing that would have to be considered by the Attorney General. Given the way our system operates, the Attorney General is the law officer and all legislation has to come back to him. Parliamentary draftspeople, and this has been proved over the years because of the number of challenges to legislation that end up in litigation in one form or another, have to cross reference it. If they get it in a form that makes that process quicker I am in favour of it. If there is some way in which that could be formalised I would be in favour of it but at the end of the day the decentralisation process must come back and be checked rigorously by the parliamentary draftsman. I have experience of how much time could be saved.
The Revenue model is the one we are talking about.
It still took 12 months but it was consolidating 30 years of legislation. Both the Deputy and I did some of this work as Minister for Finance. The work was franchised out and checked in the final form. That is ideal for consolidation Bills. Consolidation Bills, while difficult, are only consolidating. We are not trying to go back over many of our legislative measures as we do here every day. We are still referring back to the 1750 legislation. I do not believe the expertise for that work would be in a Department, it would only be in the Attorney General's office.