Ruairí Quinn
Question:15 Mr. Quinn asked the Taoiseach the plans, if any, there are to publish the Acts of the Oireachtas on CD-ROM; the timetable, if any, for publication; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14948/98]
Ceisteanna — Questions. - Publication of Acts.
The Office of the Attorney General is currently undertaking a project to publish the Acts of the Oireachtas on CD-ROM and it is envisaged that the CD-ROM will be available in mid-November this year. It will include Acts of the Oireachtas from l922 to l997 and Statutory Instruments from l973 to l997 and will cost approximately £20.
I thank the Taoiseach for his reply and give credit to the former Attorney General, Dermot Gleeson, who brought this project to my attention.
I am concerned that the statutory instruments on the CD-ROM will date only from l973. Does the Taoiseach agree it is impossible for some people to comply with the law as set out in Statutory Instruments because they simply cannot obtain copies of them, particularly from l922 to l973? Does his brief state when the statutory instruments for the period not covered on the CD-ROM will be published? Will the Taoiseach reconsider the merits of this partially completed project? Does he agree that failure to publish statutory instruments from 1922 to 1973 on CD-ROM undermines the value of this worthwhile project?
I accept there is a problem. I have set out what will be achieved this year. There have been a number of meetings over the past month between the Office of the Attorney General and Juta & Company Limited which has the contract for this work. The work involves transferral of 177,000 pages. Dealing with the issue is a matter of logistics. I accept it is desirable that the remaining statutory instruments should be included as soon as possible. I have no date for this but it will certainly not happen this year. I understand the same company will deal with them. It was believed that inclusion of all Acts from 1922 and statutory instruments from 1973 was the best product which could be delivered in 1998. We are talking about an additional 42,000 sheets. On the basis that the company has managed to do all the work within the ten month contract period, it should not take much longer to include the additional material. I will check the projected date with the company.
A retail price of £20 seems ludicrously low relative to the enormous value of the documents in electronic form. If the price reflects the amount required to recoup the cost of the current project, it would be desirable that a premium be added to finance the completion of the project which would involve putting on CD-Rom all statute law predating 1922 and remaining statutory instruments. Thereby, a company carrying out a due diligence search of legal exposure, particularly from a FDI point of view, would have available to it on a single CD-Rom the entire legal framework within which their operations function. Law firms and legal practitioners would die to pay for the CD-Rom even if the price was doubled to £40. Perhaps the Taoiseach might seek the information and communicate it to me.
I will check the matter. I do not think it will take long as the company is already examining further work, including pre-1922 material. The Deputy raised a good point in relation to costs. Statute books alone take up 4.5 metres of shelf space and amount to 35,000 volumes. Regarding statutory instruments, there are 177,000 sheets to transfer to electronic form. Having the material in electronic form will be a tremendous asset. The full contract to date has cost £825,000. I will examine the retail price of £20. The original argument was that the material should be made available on CD-Rom with some of it being placed on a website. It is impossible to have it on the Internet due to its volume. Ordinary people would not be dealing with the CD-Rom. Perhaps the additional material and that relating to pre-1922, including statutory instruments, could be put on CD-Rom at a higher cost, something I will examine