I move amendment No. 1:—
Before Section 5 to insert a new section as follows:—
5.—(1) A sanitary authority may, by by-laws made by them under this Act, provide that any person guilty of a contravention of such by-laws shall be liable on summary conviction thereof to such reasonable penalty not exceeding five pounds as the sanitary authority may think fit to prescribe.
(2) By-laws made under and for the purposes of this Act by a sanitary authority shall be under their common seal and any such by-law may be altered or repealed by a subsequent by-law made pursuant to the provisions of this Act.
(3) By-laws made under this Act by a sanitary authority shall not take effect until they have been submitted to the Minister and confirmed by him and the Minister is hereby empowered in his absolute discretion to confirm or refuse to confirm any such by-laws submitted to him in accordance with the provisions of this section.
(4) The Minister shall not confirm any by-law made under this Act by a local authority unless—
(a) notice of the intention to apply for confirmation of such by-law has been given one month at least before the making of such application in one or more local newspapers circulating within the district to which such by-law is intended to relate;
(b) for one month at least before such application a copy of the proposed by-law has been kept open for inspection at the office of the sanitary authority by interested persons at all reasonable hours.
Provided that no charge shall be made by the sanitary authority for the inspection under this sub-section of any proposed by-law kept open for inspection in accordance with the provisions of paragraph (b) of this sub-section;
(5) It shall be the duty of the sanitary authority to furnish to any ratepayer in their functional area who makes application therefor and pays the appropriate fee a copy of any proposed by-law or part thereof.
In this sub-section the expression "appropriate fee" means the sum of sixpence for every hundred words or part thereof contained in any copy of a proposed by-law.
(6) Every by-law made under or by authority of this Act by a sanitary authority shall be printed and placed on sale at such price not exceeding one shilling as may be fixed by the sanitary authority.
(7) A copy of any by-law made under authority of this Act by a sanitary authority, signed and certified by the secretary or other chief officer of such authority to be a true copy and to have been duly confirmed, shall be evidence until the contrary is proved in all legal proceedings of the due making, confirmation and authenticity of such by-laws without further or other proof.
On this Bill I want to raise a point which has been raised on a number of occasions in this House. It will be observed that this Bill is a consolidating measure and that parts of old statutes are being repealed. If members will look at pages 26 and 27 they will find a list of repealed enactments. The purpose of the Bill is to re-enact with amendment a number of these repealed measures relating to sanitation. For some mysterious reason, the Department of Local Government always fights shy of certain things, such as definitions, when repealing an Act. A considerable portion of the Public Health Act, 1878, is repealed by this measure, by the measure we were discussing earlier and by other Bills. That Act of 1878 is now a skeleton. There are a few sections left and the Department of Local Government insists that they must remain. Therefore, when anybody wants to look up the procedure, for instance, in prosecutions by a local authority, this Bill will be of no use to him; he will have to look for the Act of 1878 to find out all about it.
I draw attention to the provisions of the sections of the Act of 1878 which are retained. You will observe that Section 5 of this Bill provides that Sections 219 to 223 of the Act of 1878 shall apply in relation to by-laws made under this Act and that these sections provide that all by-laws shall be made in a particular fashion. Notice of the making of the by-laws shall be given and they shall be confirmed by the Local Government Board for Ireland— a body that has been dead for nearly 30 years. Then they must be submitted to the Lord Lieutenant for Ireland. All this clap-trap and jargon is retained. You cannot get rid of it. We cannot get somebody to sit down for five minutes in a Government office to draw up a section in a Bill which gets rid of the jargon and gives us modern language. At great personal inconvenience, I have tried to supply the deficiency. I do not think I will establish my reputation as a draftsman in respect of the amendment which I have submitted but, at least, I have shown that the old provisions can be expressed in modern language. I have shown that all these sections—219 to 223—of the Act of 1878 can be put into one section. That is something which the draftsman might be asked to look at. I take it there is no hurry about this Bill?