THE GOVERNMENT has published a little over half the 30 Bills it has promised to bring to the Oireachtas since last September.
Among the major pieces of legislation that were not published were the Children First Bill, which will give statutory footing to the major programme for government commitments to protect children, and the related National Vetting Bureau Bill.
Both are now scheduled to be published in the early part of 2012.
A third Bill that has arisen from the Cloyne Report – the Criminal Justice (Withholding Information on Crimes against Children and Intellectually Disabled Persons) Bill – was also earmarked for publication but has also been held back until this year.
In a statement released before Christmas, Minister for Justice Alan Shatter said all will be put on a statutory footing this year.
In addition, the legislation to formalise the controversial amalgamation of the Equality Authority and the Human Rights Commission has yet to be published, despite being included in the A-list of priority legislation. That Bill is also expected to be ready for passage through the Dáil and Seanad in the next session of the Dáil, which begins tomorrow.
However, in all some 24 Bills were published during the autumn session of the Dáil which began in September and will end today. In addition to the 17 listed Bills that were published, some seven other Bills not included in the A-list were published. They included the two Bills backing the constitutional referendums held last autumn – on the Abbeylara judgment and on judges’ pay. In addition, the Government published a Bill to give effect to the amendment to the Constitution on judicial pay, soon after the referendum was passed.
The major Bills that were passed included several that were required as part of the four-year bailout programme with the troika. They included Bills to prevent restrictive practice among general medical practitioners in relation to GMS contracts, as well as the Legal Services Bill, which provided for the regulation of the legal profession. The latter has proved to be contentious and is expected to face considerable opposition in the Dáil.
Among the other Bills that have yet to be published are legislation updating animal welfare legislation and the Temporary Partial Credit Guarantee Bill.
The “strike rate” of published Bills in the last session was high in a historical context, especially as more than 30 Bills were slated for publication.
Government Chief Whip Paul Kehoe will publish the new legislative programme for the spring parliamentary session tomorrow, to coincide with the return of the Dáil.
Speaking ahead of the last publication, Mr Kehoe said that job creation and economic recovery were at the heart of the priorities for legislation but that “vital non-economic issues such as child protection” also needed a strong statutory response.
