Restatement

Restatements are administrative consolidations of legislation. The Statute Law (Restatement) Act 2002 provides a process for making legislation more accessible by updating existing Acts to incorporate all changes subsequently made into a single text which is certified by the Attorney General. Restatements do not alter the text of the legislation in any way.

Restatement and Better Regulation

In 1999, the Government adopted the recommendations in Reducing Red Tape – An Action Programme for Regulatory Reform in Ireland. The report focused on the importance of regulation to continued economic growth and greater competitiveness. A key recommendation of this report was to make "legislation more coherent and more easily accessible to those who need it". The report marked the beginning of a new national programme of regulatory reform which recognised the benefits of having "Statute Law consolidated in a form that is both easily accessible and available," and led to the drafting of the Statute Law (Restatement) Act 2002. This theme was developed in the 2004 Regulating Better White Paper, which identified the advantages of online access to legislation, the Legislation Directory, Oireachtas debates and related material.

The Cost of Accessing Legislation and the Economy

In Ireland, the law is changed by the enactment of legislation which often makes piecemeal amendments to previous legislation. Both Acts and statutory instruments (for example regulations delegated to be made by a Minister) are amended in this way. This patchwork of legislation can be very costly to assemble, read and understand. The cost is borne by all users of legislation in the public service, by lawyers and their clients, by the many sectors heavily regulated by legislation and by anyone else who wants to look up the law. Restatement will make savings across the economy by making the cost of doing business cheaper and more efficient.

First Programme of Statute Law Restatement 2008-2010

The Commission started working on the Restatement project in 2007. In 2008, the Commission published its Report on Statute Law Restatement (LRC 91-2008), which followed the 2007 Consultation Paper on Statute Law Restatement (LRC CP 45-2007). The Report contains the details of the Commission’s First Programme of Statute Law Restatement 2008-2009, subsequently expanded and extended to 2010 to accommodate re-capture, conversion and XML markup of the legislative repository. The expanded First Programme encompasses restatements of 74 Acts, including groups of related legislation. Details here

Second Programme of Statute Law Restatement 2010-2012

The Commission adopted a Second Programme of Restatement in November 2010, based on suggestions from a User Group and submissions received.  The Second Programme will run for two years from January 2011 to December 2012.

The Second Programme involves 12 groups of Acts and an additional 3 groups, to be undertaken if there is time.  The groups of Acts are as follows:

1. Aquaculture
2. Children
3. Criminal Law (Bail Act and Offences Against the State)
4. Dumping at Sea
5. Electoral (if there is time)
6. Employment
7. Environmental Protection Agency
8. Eurpoean Communities
9. Family
10. Foreshore
11. Irish Nationality and Citizenship
12. Mental Health
13. Planning and Development
14. Waste Management (if there is time)
15. Water (if there is time)

Details of the legislation included may be accessed here

Publication of Pre-certified Restatements for Comment and Feedback

Prior to publication by the Attorney General under sections 2 and 8 of the Statute Law (Restatement) Act 2002, the Commission has decided to make its pre-certified restatements available on its website, inviting comment, corrections and user feedback from the legal community and the public. The first pre-certified restatements were made available from January 2011, linked to the lists of Acts in the First  and Second Programmes. As pre-certified restatements become available, links will be added to the website.

Restatement and Information Technology

The repository of legislation is held in XML (Extensible Markup Language) and the Commission has upgraded a large part of the repository where the markup was insufficient for editing in XML. It has also taken delivery of an XML authoring system, which allows greater productivity in the preparation of restatements.

Restatement and eLegislation have a key role to play in the wider context of the Government’s eLegislation strategy. Significant elements of this strategy are already in place. These include the electronic Irish Statute Book (eISB), the electronic Statutory Instrument System (eSIS) and the Legislative Workbench system in the Houses of the Oireachtas. Currently there is no access to a database of “in force” versions of Acts such as the UK Statute Law Database, but restatements will be the foundation for such a database in due course.