Classified List of Legislation

http://revisedacts.lawreform.ie/classlistWork of the Commission on the Classified List

The development of a Classified List of Legislation (Acts-In-Force) in 2010, followed by a Classified List of Legislation comprising Acts and Statutory Instruments in Ireland in 2016, arises from the Commission’s general statutory mandate to keep the law under review and also from the Commission’s participation in the eLegislation Group, chaired by the Department of the Taoiseach. It complements the Commission’s work on Revised Acts and the Legislation Directory, and can also be seen in the wider context of Better Regulation principles, as discussed in the Better Regulation in Europe: Ireland (OECD, 2010).  The Commission is committed to updating the Classified List on a regular basis.  Earlier versions were published in PDF documents, and in November 2019 an online version will be made available, with the facility to generate PDFs of sections or of the entire.

Warning: the online version of the Classified List and Statutory Instruments does not include all the statutory instruments made under the European Communities Act 1972, section 3.  These were previously listed under their parent Government Departments.  In the interests of not delaying publication, they will be added by degrees as work on their initial classification under the 36 titles proceeds.  A list of European Communities Section 3 statutory instruments is published on the eISB at http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/isbc/s3eutoc.html.

Using the List, users of legislation will be able to quickly ascertain all legislation in an area of law.  The List contains over 2,000 in force Acts, and over 15,000 statutory instruments which are in force or appear to be in force, of the known 35,000 instruments made since 1922.  This means that around 20,000 instruments are revoked and need no longer concern users of legislation.  The List further identifies around 3,000 of these as probably obsolete, spent or superseded. 

The Draft Classified List was prepared following consultation with all Government Departments.  The Commission is publishing it as a draft List in order to receive further feedback and comments on its content, and will update it periodically.

Background to the Classified List

In September 2010, the Department of the Taoiseach (on behalf of the eLegislation Group and the Commission) circulated an initial draft Classified List of Extant Post-1922 Acts in Force in Ireland to all Government Departments.  Each Department’s reply made important corrections to the draft List, notably by identifying any errors in the assignment of Acts and as to the appropriate heading under which Acts were listed.  After this process was completed, in early December 2010 the Commission placed the amended draft Classified List of Extant Post-1922 Acts in Force in Ireland on this website.

Consultation Paper on a Classified List of Legislation in Ireland

The Commission followed this process by publishing a Consultation Paper on a Classified List of Legislation in Ireland (LRC CP 62-2010), which placed this initial process of developing a Classified List in a wider national and comparative setting.  In particular, the Consultation Paper notes that classified lists of legislation, or legislative codes as they are often called, have been developed in other States, notably at both federal and state level in the United States of America.  Building on the draft classified list of post-1922 Acts, the Commission included a second version of the Classified List in the Consultation Paper and added over 100 pre-1922 Acts (derived from the definitive list of pre-1922 Acts that remain in force, as set out in the Statute Law Revision Act 2007), resulting in a total list of over 2,000 Acts.