I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time.
The principal object of this Bill is to strengthen Parliamentary control over statutory instruments by prescribing that documents laid in accordance with provisions in which the period for Parliamentary intervention is not clearly expressed shall lie before the Oireachtas for a minimum period of four weeks in each of which the House in question sits.
In the case of most statutory instruments, the statute under which the instrument is made prescribes a specific period during which the document must lie before one or both Houses of the Oireachtas. The enabling statute usually provides that, during this period, the instrument may be annulled or prevented from coming into force.
In some statues, however, the period is loosely expressed in terms such as "days" instead of "days on which the House sits". In such cases it could happen that the period for Parliamentary intervention could run its course when neither House was sitting. To avoid this, the present practice is to treat the period as commencing on the day on which the House concerned next sits. Despite this, however, Parliamentary control could still be largely ineffective because a sitting day could be followed by a lengthy period of non-sitting days. Section 3 of the present Bill will strengthen the powers of the Oireachtas in such cases by prescribing a definite period of four sitting weeks during which the instrument will be before the House concerned. I should like to emphasise that this will apply only in cases where the existing statutory period is uncertain and therefore unsatisfactory. It will not affect the great majority of instruments for which the period is precisely expressed.
A further object of the Bill is to define what is meant by the laying of a document before a House of the Oireachtas. Section 2 of the Bill states that this means either the action specified in the Standing Orders of the House concerned as constituting the laying of a document, or, if no such action is specified, the procedure followed and accepted by virtue of the practice of that House.
Advantage is being taken of this Bill to clarify the period during which orders prescribing the fees to be taken in the Registry of Deeds must lie before they can come into force. The fees in question are prescribed by orders made by the Minister for Justice under section 35 of the Registry of Deeds (Ireland) Act, 1832 and section 9 of the Land Transfer (Ireland) Act, 1848, as adapted. The presentation provision is contained in section 1 of the Registry of Deeds (Ireland) Act, 1875. On one view of the existing provision, such orders could not have effect until they had lain before both Houses of the Oireachtas during 40 sitting days, a period which might well run for more than a year in the case of the Seanad. There will, I feel sure, be general agreement that such an extended and uncertain waiting period would be quite unbusinesslike in the case of a fees order.
The provision in section 4 of the Bill will enable the Minister for Justice to specify in the orders themselves, as in the case of court and Land Registry fees orders, the date for the coming into force of Registry of Deeds fees orders. So that adequate notice will be given to all concerned, it is being provided that an order shall not come into force earlier than three months after it is made. The present provisions of the law requiring presentations to both Houses are not affected by this provision nor does it curtail in any way the existing right of either House to pass a resolution annulling a particular order.