Vol. 504 No. 2
62 Mr. Rabbitte asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the steps, if any, he will take to deal with the anomaly in the censorship laws which has resulted in many books by authors of international renown in the fields of literature and medicine remaining on the banned list decades after the bans were first imposed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11537/99]
I can confirm to the Deputy that 1 am aware of the situation to which the Deputy refers. I am also aware that the Deputy published a Censorship of Publications (Amendment) Bill last year in this regard.
The principal legislation in relation to the censorship of publications is contained in the Censorship of Publications Act, 1929, and the Censorship of Publications Act, 1946. Under this legislation the Censorship of Publications Board may prohibit or decide not to prohibit publications in respect of which it receives complaints from the public.
The Censorship of Publications Act, 1967 provided for the expiration of prohibition orders, made on the grounds that a book was indecent or obscene, after a period of twelve years. At that time contraception and abortion were still illegal and the Act was, therefore, silent in relation to publications banned on grounds of containing references to contraception and-or abortion.
Subsequently the Health (Family Planning) Act, 1979 amended the legislation in regard to publications advocating the unnatural prevention of conception and the Regulation of Information (Services outside the State for Termination of Pregnancies) Act, 1995 amended the legislation in regard to publications containing lawfully available information relating to the termination of pregnancy outside the state.
While these Acts provided for the situation of publications created on or after the enactment of the respective legislation, neither Act addressed the provision in the Censorship of Publications Act, 1967 in relation to the expiration of prohibition orders already in place in this regard.
