Laws dating back to William the Conqueror are among 3,188 Acts from 1204 to 1922 to be repealed in legislation introduced in the Dáil yesterday.
However, a further 1,348 ancient Acts will be retained including the 1471 Parliamentary Privilege Act, which prevents the arrest of members of the House of Lords on their way to parliament. Other retained legislation includes a law "providing free hostelry for the Knights of St John".
Minister of State Tom Kitt, who introduced the Statute Law Revision Bill, said that some of the retained Acts "may be of ongoing relevance", but these would ultimately be repealed or re-enacted in modern form. The list of Acts in the schedule or appendix to the legislation is longer than the Bill itself.
Mr Kitt said the Attorney General's office had to date identified "60,000 examples of pre-independence primary legislation, of which about 26,700 are public and general statutes and about 33,300 are private statutes or local and personal statutes".
He said it was "clear that removing such archaic, obsolete legislation provides greater clarity to citizens on the legislation that remains in force and removes a significant legislative burden from the economy and society as a whole".
The Bill was the second part of a process to remove all unnecessary legislation from before December 6th, 1922.
Fine Gael chief whip Paul Kehoe described as "extraordinary" the Acts deemed necessary for retention including the Dublin Fair Act of 1252 to the Constabulary and Police (Ireland) Act 1919.
"What could possibly be contained in those Acts that is not in legislation enacted since 1922?" he asked.
Labour chief whip Emmet Stagg pointed out that all pre-1922 legislation was only obtainable from Her Majesty's Stationery Office in Belfast.
"The fact that we are retaining an Act to give effect to the peace treaty with Hungary signed at Trianon in 1921 raises a question as to whether this treaty remains in force, whether this State is bound by it, and how many other pre-independence treaties might remain in force," he added.
Green party finance spokesman Dan Boyle suggested it might be "sinister" to retain the Parliamentary Privilege Act of 1471 "which concerns freedom from arrest of Members of the House of Lords coming to Parliament and their servants".
The list of all legislation affected by the Bill is accessible on
www.attorneygeneral.ie
