merrion street

The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Mr Brendan Howlin T.D. today announced that the Government has approved a major programme to overhaul the Irish statute book and repeal thousands of obsolete regulations and laws.

The programme commits the Government to the objective of ridding the statute book of all obsolete measures, and working ultimately towards consolidation and codification of our statutes. It comes on foot of a commitment in the Programme for Government to progress the Statute Law Revision Programme, which is the process by which the dead wood is cleared from our law and the stock of legislation is simplified. The process has been strongly praised by independent observers such as the OECD.

As a key part of the programme, the Government has approved the drafting of four new Statute Law Revision Bills which will simplify and improve accessibility to the statute book.

On welcoming the Government decision Minister Howlin stated:-

“I am pleased that the Government has approved my legislative proposals to continue with our task of simplifying the statute book and improving its accessibility in accordance with our commitment contained in the Programme for Government. The new Statute Law Revision Bills will further reduce the outdated and unnecessary legislation cluttering our statute book and pave the way for further modernisation measures”.

The four Bills that have been approved will review different sectors of our statute book, including post 1922 primary and secondary legislation as well as pre 1922 secondary legislation and charters. The intention is that the final texts will be rolled out and brought to the Oireachtas from 2014 onwards.

The new Bills will build upon the clarity brought by the Statute Law Revision Acts 2007 to 2012 which reviewed all primary legislation enacted prior to independence and repealed those which were spent or obsolete.