Sport Ireland Bill and legislation
Bernard Durkan asks when the Sport Ireland Bill will be introduced and seeks better prioritisation of outstanding legislation. The Taoiseach expects the Bill next year and describes efforts to accelerate legislative drafting.
When is the sport Ireland Bill, with regard to the restructuring of sporting organisations, likely to come before the House?
Similarly, I want to acknowledge that some 120 Bills have been passed into law since the current Government came into office.
In the area of justice, there is a plethora of Bills on the Order Paper for some time, some going back to the days of the people who are now in opposition, and they inherited some of that from their predecessors as well. Would it be possible to have consultation with the Whips with a view to trying to take the most important elements of the proposed justice legislation before the House, either in a consolidation Bill or in a series of Bills that might be brought in as a matter of urgency?
Comment on this
The Sport Ireland Bill is next year. There has been quite a deal of discussion about the production of legislation with the Parliamentary Counsel in regard to the priorities that are attached to pieces of legislation. Deputy Durkan is aware that, obviously, the Government was required to produce several pieces of legislation, some quite technical and complex, because of the troika arrangements, and a lot of that has been done. The Attorney General's office has provided some capacity within individual Departments to work on the preparation of legislation to speed things up here.
The priorities of Government for this session have been set out, including in the justice area. I might add that the Minister for Justice and Equality has put an extraordinary amount of effort into the preparation of some complex legislation, which has assisted that process. This comes through the Parliamentary Counsel for eventual consideration by Government. The discussions have taken place and priorities are laid out for this session.
I take Deputy Durkan's point into account. We are conscious of the bottleneck that arises either in Departments or at Parliamentary Counsel level before legislation is actually produced.