Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 26 May 2004
1 Mr. Rabbitte asked the Taoiseach the proposals he has for the repeal of pre-1922 legislation in regard to his recent address to the IBEC conference on regulation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12595/04]
Amharc ar fhreagra2 Mr. Kenny asked the Taoiseach the pre-1922 legislation he proposes to repeal, as indicated in his recent address to the IBEC conference on regulation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13336/04]
Amharc ar fhreagra3 Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin asked the Taoiseach the pre-1922 legislation it is proposed to repeal as outlined at his recent address to the IBEC; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14371/04]
Amharc ar fhreagra4 Mr. Sargent asked the Taoiseach if he will report on his address to the IBEC conference on regulation in April 2004; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14570/04]
Amharc ar fhreagra5 Mr. J. Higgins asked the Taoiseach the pre-1922 legislation he proposes to repeal as outlined at the IBEC conference on regulation. [15384/04]
Amharc ar fhreagra6 Mr. J. Higgins asked the Taoiseach if he will report on his address to the IBEC conference in April 2004. [15385/04]
Amharc ar fhreagraI propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 6, inclusive, together.
As Deputies will be aware, I launched the Government's White Paper on Regulatory Reform last January. The White Paper sets out six principles of good regulation as well as an action programme to help implement those principles. One of the commitments in the White Paper is an ongoing programme of statute law revision. That aims to identify legislation in need of repeal, revision or consolidation to ensure that the Statute Book is up to date and accessible to citizens and businesses. A key part of that programme is a major project to update pre-1922 legislation.
The statute law revision unit in the Office of the Attorney General has been engaged since 2003 in the process of identifying legislation enacted before 1922 that is still in force in the State. It has identified 500 Acts, of which it has earmarked 100 for repeal. The statute law revision unit is at present engaged in a consultation process with Departments and Government offices to discuss those proposed for repeal and tease out what can be done regarding modernising the others. In keeping with the principles of better regulation, a public consultation process has also been organised on the legislation proposed for repeal.
I was pleased to give the keynote speech at the IBEC Presidency conference entitled "Is regulation killing business? — EU and US Perspectives" on 19 April. A copy of the speech has been placed in the Oireachtas Library. I used that opportunity to announce the beginning of the consultation process on pre-1922 legislation. The list of the legislation proposed for repeal is set out on the web page of the Office of the Attorney General and the consultation process has been advertised in the media.
This project is a time-consuming process involving much research, consideration and consultation. However, my intention is to introduce legislation in the autumn to repeal outdated legislation. At the same time, I expect the Attorney General to give comprehensive advice on what steps, if any, should be taken regarding the remaining legislation. While progressing that work as efficiently as possible, care and attention will of course be paid to those whose interests may rightly be protected by those laws.
The ultimate result of that project will be to streamline and simplify the Statute Book and improve the quality of the legal framework and public administration.
Perhaps the Taoiseach will say what the consultation process involves. Precisely what legislation is he promising for the autumn? Is it merely to strike out the 100 Acts identified to date? Is it part of the process regarding this revision and excision to update legislation enacted before 1922 that may be seriously out of date but still has a purpose and a relevance? What staffing pressure is that putting on the Office of the Attorney General and what effect is it having on the legislation that ought to come through the House?
Though the Government pruned back its promised legislation for this term, it is still not meeting the deadlines. There have been several issues of very considerable urgency that could not be addressed, and it is difficult to know whether that is because of the workload involved or other reasons. I know that it is because the Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, blocked the Minister for Transport, Deputy Brennan, on the Aer Rianta issue. That is political, but regarding normal workload and staff available, how much is devoted to this exercise?
The statute law revision unit is a small, separate unit within the Office of the Attorney General. It is dedicated to such work and although it is involved in other matters, they do not concern drafting legislation. Its other work involves statute law revision and update. The proposed legislation identified by the statute law revision unit for repeal includes over 100 Acts such as the Regulation of Chimney Sweeps Act 1840 and the Baths and Washhouses (Ireland) Act 1846. A whole host of legislation is entirely irrelevant to today's needs.
It is before Royston Brady's generation.
It goes way back even before that of the Deputy and myself. The work goes back to 1250, since legislation from that date is still on the Statute Book. Over 100 Acts have been identified.
That is only 40 years after Ballintubber Abbey was built.
Exactly. There could be far more than 100 Acts. The unit is now going back through many of the other Acts to see if there are relevant protections. The consultation process, the subject of the Deputy's second question, consists of checking with Departments and agencies that could be related to see whether there is power in the Acts that is not in a subsequent Act. That is possible, and the unit must carry out the check. Looking at the list over the past few days, it is hard to see how many more of them could be that relevant, but there may be some power or condition in them that has not been updated. The unit will carry that out during the summer.
The Deputy's third question concerned legislation. We will introduce legislation in the autumn to wipe out all those Acts that are not relevant. In one swoop we will get rid of a sizeable number. Some work has been carried out over the years. Through statute law revision measures enacted by the State in the Statute Law Revision (Pre-Union Irish Statutes) Act 1962 and the Statute Law Revision Act 1983, much of the antiquated and irrelevant legislation was repealed. The unit is examining some of the issues surrounding those and why more Acts were not repealed. It may simply not have been comprehensive enough, but the unit is examining why more were not included. Reading the file on the exercise, the research at that time seems to have been more limited.
The Deputy's next question is where we might go with the rest of the legislation since the exercise will probably leave 350 or so statutes untouched. Much of that could be consolidated as new Acts are brought into place, as we are doing every year. Currently the Water Services Bill 2003 is before the House and there has been an enormous number of such Acts over the centuries, all the way from about 1400. They have not been changed, but they can now be amended by the Water Services Bill 2003. I am sure the Deputy is aware that there are dozens of Acts to do with intoxicating liquor, with one being passed practically every five years from the beginning of time. They are still law in one form or another. There are all kinds of crazy Acts, but they are still there since they have never been consolidated.
Work is now well advanced on the consolidation of all that legislation. That will clean them out of the system, with many other Acts. The benefit is that we can have a far more progressive statute law that does not create problems for many industries, not to mention legal people. They will no longer need to go back all the time to make the most cogent cases.
The conference mentioned looked at other EU countries and the United States where similar work has been done on statute law which helps to facilitate the regulatory process. It is only one issue of regulation but it is a useful process. It is tedious work but it is certainly helpful to keep statute law up to date and make it easier for people to deal with.
As I understand this, a set of revised statutes is a bound or electronic version of the Acts which contains only the Acts which are in force. As such it represents an authentic and up to date version of the law of the land. The process the Government has embarked on will only repeal legislation theoretically. The physical size of the Statute Book will not change, whereas if a set of revised statutes was produced some real work would have been achieved. Will the Taoiseach indicate what actual benefit will result from this, beyond inserting the harp at the top of the page where the crown once stood? Will he agree that the real fruits of a project such as this lie in the publication of a set of revised statutes? Otherwise if legislation is not re-enacted, changes to Standing Orders will be required so that re-enactments may be fast-tracked. Or are we to find ourselves debating legislation such as the Marriage of Lunatics Act 1810 or the Statute of Frauds 1695 on the floor of the House?
I welcome the fact that the Attorney General's office is now carrying out a review of the pre-1922 legislation. I suppose it is unfortunate that no such review was ever carried out in the centuries before that. Will the Taoiseach commit himself to commence and resource a review of post-1922 legislation? A large quantity of post-1922 legislation lies dormant on the Statute Book. Is it intended that all of this will be put on CD-ROM for public availability?
I do not want to give the impression that statute law revision is all it is doing. It has already put all the Acts since 1922 on CD-ROM, in 1998. That is now updated on an annual basis. We have also passed legislation in the House to ensure new laws being introduced are automatically consolidated with existing legislation. Since 1998 or 1999 when we bring in an Act there is automatic enactment of the legislation. We are just keeping matters up to date to obviate the need to go back and consolidate as we did, for example, with the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 or the Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act 1993. There is automatic consolidation. As I pointed out to Deputy Rabbitte every time we did a water Act, we just introduced a new a water services Bill or whatever. What we now do — and it is the same with land conveyancing, liquor licensing and so on — each time a major Bill is enacted is go back and try to clean out the Statute Book. These Acts do not remain on the Statute Book. Once Acts are consolidated they no longer remain on the Statute Book.
As regards the 100 or so Acts I referred to earlier, we will check that there is nothing relevant in this legislation. One never knows, but most of them seem to be out of date now. After checking that, an Act will be introduced which will remove them from the Statute Book.
Most developed countries have been tackling the quality and quantity of their regulations for several years. This is just one part of the regulation. The reason they have done that is that the sheer volume and complexity of regulations has grown rapidly in terms of numbers and length and the pace at which they need to be revised. Significant costs are associated with regulations as well, including the cost to Government of administering the regulatory system and the costs to business and citizens in complying with regulation. Recent surveys conducted by the Small Firms Association and IBEC have shown that half the staff in a small company can be occupied with form filling. Such initiatives are not always consistent. When one Department may be getting rid of particular regulations another is introducing them, for different reasons. There is no co-ordination. Much of the work on the regulatory issues — which are covered in these questions as well — is part of that. The legislation is just one part of the process in clearing up the Statute Book.
I pointed out at the conference that the European Union, too, should look at its own legislative system, given the plethora of EU law, regulations and directives. There should be less of those, too. At least we can try to further develop procedures that focus on economic and competitive issues; review our administration burdens; identify priority areas for the simplification of Community law; develop regulatory indicators to measure the quality and the pace of regulation reform and improve regulatory structures for procedures in member states. A small unit in my Department is examining those issues both the European and Irish contexts. It is not doing that in isolation. It is a group that includes the Netherlands, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom and is covering the next three Presidencies after ours, to try to address these matters as regards EU laws. This exercise is being carried out on our own Statute Book, in our own Departments and agencies and in legislation to be brought forward. The situation will be dealt with, seriatim, for years before we can reach a good position, but at least it will prevent a continuation of what has built up for hundreds of years and try to improve the situation for the future.
In the Taoiseach's speech to IBEC in April, he placed the repeal of the pre-1922 legislation in the context of reducing restrictions on business. He also indicated that he hoped to have a public consultation process. What form will that consultation process take? This is something he has not alluded to already this morning. When will we see a comprehensive list of all the legislation that it is proposed to repeal? We have heard a number of indications of what may be involved. While he addressed the business sector at his meeting with IBEC, does he intend to address other sectors as regards the repeal of pre-1922 legislation?
I have asked the Taoiseach this before and I wonder if he can update the situation this morning. Among the legislation that is proposed for inclusion will we see a repeal of the ground rents? This is clearly a legacy of a bygone day that remains irksome and even worse than that for many in different parts of the jurisdiction. In the Government's White Paper on regulation there is a list of actions relating to the legislative process. One calls for better information on new legislation. Why is it that we do not see this implemented in terms of the provision of heads of Bills and other information as regards new legislation being published? It simply is not happening. We are not getting the flow of information the Taoiseach has spoken about and lauded here, before. It is something that would be of great assistance, certainly to the Opposition, if not to Members on the Government benches..
I just missed the start of the last point.
It is about the Government's White Paper on regulation. In that there was a list of actions relating to the legislative process. One called for better information on new legislation. It promised that Departments——
The Deputy has made the point. Would he allow the Taoiseach to answer?
I was just explaining it.
I take the point. This conference was organised by IBEC. It organised the speakers, both international and European, but it was an open conference. There were large numbers of people from the business sector, but also from the legal world, as well as people involved in consumer affairs. It was an open conference organised by IBEC where there was a large attendance because some of the speakers were world-renowned in the legal and accountancy professions and in consumer affairs so it drew people from all those areas.
The consultation process has started. There have been public advertisements listing the legislation it is proposed to repeal. If it is not already in the Oireachtas Library, I will ensure it is placed there. My list suggests it is available there.
Can the Taoiseach circulate that?
Yes, I will. In regard to the revision there is a cost in having to comply with it which could be as bureaucratic to a trade union member as to anyone running a business. One must comply with these old Acts that are fairly irrelevant and should be updated. Many of the systems and procedures have never been updated to the modern age of technology whereby companies could include much of this legislation and reports with other aspects of their business. This will make it more simple for them. One wonders whether they should have to report on much that is listed in the old regulations. I am not too sure they do, even though it is enacted. I do not know whether anyone checks on it but it is better to remove it from the system altogether otherwise people will feel they are in breach of the regulations.
Small firms in particular have been involved and have cited how this area of regulation affects their businesses, for example shops and garages — small companies with less than ten employees not those with 30 or 40 employees. This hits the small companies and the regulation imposes a serious cost on those who do not have large offices or administrations but are trying to make ends meet. Big businesses will always be able to manage these matters in a different way.
On the Deputy's last point——
The Taoiseach missed one point, namely, the ground rents.
Ground rents are not related to this issue but within the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, and the legal profession generally, opinion is divided on whether one can repeal ground rents in such a way as to abolish them. There is a genuine difference of view among lawyers about this. Some think one can, others strongly believe one cannot do so. They believe the procedure enacted in 1977 and 1978 is fair, and is neither overburdensome nor cost-effective, that it holds and to do away with it completely is not sustainable. It is a legal argument about——
Maybe we could have a referendum on it. I am sure Deputy McDowell would produce one overnight if the Taoiseach asked him.
Legal people will always argue on their own side. Legislators must lead.
We cannot have a discussion on this issue now.
Deputy McDowell thinks we can do away with it. That would be his legal view on it. On the other issue about drafting legislation, raised in Deputy Ó Caoláin's last question, the consultation process now is such that when any new legislation is being drafted there will be an examination of whether the legislation is necessary, whether there is another way of doing it or whether it is inconsistent with other elements in that area. A Department must go through a procedural process. Previously, a Department would look at its interests and prepare a Bill. Now it must be considered more widely. As part of that consultation, as happens with most legislation, social partners and other interest groups give a view. For example, if it is a consumer Bill most Departments will consult with the consumer groups, if it is a trade union Bill they will consult with trade unions, if it concerns business they will consult the chambers of commerce and IBEC. That is the process. The regulation unit says they should do that openly so that people can give their views, and they should advertise and communicate that they are preparing the Bill. That is the new way of doing this.
This may reduce the amount of legislation because the arguments put forward in the White Paper suggest that often it is not necessary to create a whole new Bill and that there is too much legislation. The unit says that rather than wait until a Bill is passed, the process should take place early on and the Departments should communicate with the interest groups. If a Bill is prepared then they should present those views as part of the legislative process.
Many heads of Bills have been promised.
Yes. In many cases, as the Deputy knows from committees of the House, I have been given the heads of Bills. I agree with that.
It is not happening.
I will check with the committees.
I remind Deputy Ó Caoláin there are other Deputies in the House who have submitted questions and they are entitled to have their say as well.
I understand from the Taoiseach's last reply that consultation is taking place. What form is that consultation taking and will he tell us the range of groups to be consulted. While obviously it includes business groups does it also include the social partnership in general, and will it include environmental groups given that it all has a bearing on the regulations? Is the analysis of the pre-1922 legislation which the Taoiseach said would be done by spring of this year complete as far as he is concerned? Will he indicate whether he is making any progress on the regulatory impact analysis? He mentioned it should be published with a Bill and that RIAs would be piloted this year in several Departments. Will he indicate in which Departments they will be piloted, or are being piloted, as his Department is overseeing this? Do the pilot RIAs now running take in maximum retail floor area which has such a significant bearing not just on business but also on the wider planning criteria for the national spatial strategy and so forth? Has that been integrated into the overall RIAs?
As regards the RIAs, the belief is there will be a major improvement in the way new regulations are made. Departments and offices will assess the quantity and the likely impacts of important new regulations and before making regulations will consult more widely and consistently, particularly with consumers when they are likely to be affected. The principle is that the people most likely to be affected in an area will be consulted. They may be social partners but hopefully the consultation would extend beyond the social partners so, for example, if the legislation affects some trade or profession the Department should discuss it with relevant interest groups, not just the social partners, before it regulates willy nilly.
Consideration will be given to downstream compliance and the enforcement consequences of regulations, including monitor and review mechanisms, where appropriate, which covers the issues the Deputy raised about planning. There will be new systematic reviews of existing regulations in key areas. An ongoing series of reviews will be undertaken which will involve assessing the adequacies and relevance of existing regulations and the regulatory arrangements and agencies in place in key areas of the economy and society.
Our approach to sectoral regulation, such as telecommunications and transport, will improve and this will include establishing new independent regulators, only if the requirement for an existing regulator can be clearly demonstrated and responsibility for the sector in question cannot be assigned to an existing regulator. The existing arrangements for appeal of decisions made by sectoral regulators to try and speed up implementation of important projects will be reviewed and there will also be a renewed drive to tackle red tape. Departments and Government offices will be asked to simplify and streamline their administrative processes to report specifically on targets and progress in their strategy statements and annual reports.
There is also greater clarity of accessibility regarding regulation, including publishing explanatory guides to Acts which have major implications for consumers and citizens. I already referred in the reply to a major programme of statutory law revision. Regarding fines and penalties, new legislation will be introduced to ensure that fines imposed by regulations will be kept up to date through indexation, rather than what currently happens where they are always out of date. There will also be a review of the extent to which the criminal justice system is suitable for dealing with issues arising from the complexities of the modern regulatory environment in a commercial and economic context.
A new better regulation group will be established to oversee implementation of the actions outlined in the White Paper that will report back to Government on a regular basis. The group will monitor all the areas and report regularly on the implementation of the principles of the White Paper.
