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The Taoiseach has outlined an ambitious project to repeal all the legislation which remains on the statute book which was enacted prior to Irish independence in 1922, leading ultimately to the codification of the Irish statute book. The Government has approved in principle a broad programme of statute law revision measures to achieve this and other improvements to the statute book.
As an element of that project, the Attorney General and the Taoiseach are engaged in a wide-ranging analysis of all legislation of the various Irish, English, British and United Kingdom parliaments which exercised authority over Ireland prior to Ireland achieving independence, as well as legislation passed since 1922.
To that end the Attorney General has established within his Office the Statute Law Revision Project to conduct an analysis of, and consult on, statutes which may be appropriate for repeal. To date the Project has identified about 63,000 statutes which come within its remit for examination. The Project operates under a Project Manager in the Office of the Attorney General and includes a Project Consultant and a number of Legal Researchers.
An important distinction is between Public General Acts (which are statutes with general application) and Local and Personal Acts or Private Acts which have more limited application.
The first phase of this project involved a review of Public General Acts enacted prior to Irish independence on 6th December 1922. This process led to the publication and enactment of the Statute Law Revision Act 2007. The Act provides a list of 1,364 statutes which were to remain in force after the enactment of the Bill. Apart from these 1,364 statutes, all other pre-independence Public General Acts are now repealed. The effect of this was that more than 3,200 statutes were repealed by the Act, making it the largest statute law revision measure ever to apply to Ireland.
See here for further information on the Statute Law Revision Act 2007.
The Attorney General is now embarked on a second phase of review which seeks to examine certain Local and Personal Acts and Private Acts in the first instance. Subject to Government decision in due course the question of addressing the remaining such Acts and subsequently Charters and Letters Patent and Statutory Rules and Orders will fall for consideration. However in anticipation of dealing with these other measures, public submissions on all such Acts/instruments are now sought.
It is intended to publish a Statute Law Revision Bill in 2009 which will repeal any Local and Personal Acts up to and including 1850 and Private Acts up to and including 1750 that are now obsolete.
The Attorney General is also seeking public submissions at this point on any other pre-1922 Private or Local and Personal Act, any pre-1922 Charters or Letters Patent, or Statutory Rules and Orders, which may be of continuing relevance. As there is not, at present, a complete list of such material, the Attorney General wishes to give maximum time for consultation on this material. The review of such instruments would fall for consideration, subject to Government decision, following completion of work on the forthcoming Bill.
The categories of Local and Personal Acts and Private Acts which are now being assessed include 10,725 statutes, To facilitate that assessment, the Statute Law Revision Project would welcome any observations on any of these Local and Personal Acts or Private Acts. In particular, if any individual or body is in possession of the text of any Irish Private Act, the Statute Law Revision Project would be grateful to receive a copy of same. The original copies of many of these statutes are no longer available, so privately held duplicates will be an important source of information.
The following files contain lists of all Local and Personal and Private Acts which have been identified. Note however that only Acts enacted up to and including 1750 (Private Acts) and 1850 (Local and Personal Acts) will be dealt with in the forthcoming Bill. The following lists also include statues passed after those dates, for information.
MS Word format (381kb). MS Word format (1,617kb). MS Word format (3,786kb). MS Word format (3,613kb). MS Word format (289kb). MS Word format (4,818kb). MS Word format (5,236kb). MS Word format (4,002kb). MS Word format (5,341kb).The Statute Law Revision Bill 2009 deals with all Private Acts enacted up to and including 1750 and all Local and Personal Acts up to and including 1850. It sets out two lists of such Acts - those to be retained in force and those to be repealed. Public submissions were sought on these Acts, particularly those proposed for repeal. The lists of Acts proposed for retention or repeal are set out as follows:
MS Word format (29kb). MS Word format (29kb). MS Word format (35kb). MS Word format (203kb). MS Word format (232kb). MS Word format (400kb). MS Word format (398kb). MS Word format (554kb).Consultation has now closed. The Statute Law Revision Bill 2009 was published in May of this year and is available at this link.
Observations on this project may be submitted in any of the following ways.