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The Government has outlined an ambitious project to review all the legislation which remains on the statute book and to repeal all such legislation which is spent or obsolete, which may lead ultimately to the codification of the Irish statute book.
To that end there was established within the Attorney General's Office the Statute Law Revision Project to conduct an analysis of, and consult on, statutes which may be appropriate for repeal.
The Statute Law Revision Project has 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.
The Project identified about 63,000 statutes which come within its remit for examination. The Project operates on a phase by phase basis. For each phase the Project operates under a Project Director in the Office of the Attorney General and includes a Project Manager, Assistant Project Manager and a number of Legal Researchers.
current programme of statute law revision commenced in 2003 with the formal establishment of the Statute Law Revision Project following in 2005. The Attorney General's Office in tandem with the Department of the Taoiseach and now the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has prepared four statute law revision measures to date. Further phases of the Project will be subject to future Government decision at which time the question of addressing the remaining Acts and Charters, Letters Patent and Statutory Rules and Orders will fall for consideration.
The Statute Law Revision (Pre-1922) Act 2005 repealed a total of 207 specifically identified pre-independence Public General Acts. The text of the 2005 Act can be accessed here
Following the formal establishment of the Statute Law Revision Project in 2005, a review was undertaken of all 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 Apart from these 1,364 statutes, all other pre-independence Public General Acts are now repealed. The effect of this was that more 3,225 statutes were expressly repealed by the Act, making it the largest statute law revision measure ever to apply to Ireland, and, so far as the Government is aware, the largest single repealing Act ever enacted anywhere. In addition a total of 12,562 Acts which were deemed inapplicable to Ireland were impliedly repealed by the 2007 Act.
See here for further information on the Statute Law Revision Act 2007
Following the enactment of the Statute Law Revision Act 2007, the Statute Law Revision Project embarked on a further phase of review which examined Local and Personal Acts up to 1850 and Private Acts up to 1750. Unlike Public General Acts, Local and Personal and Private Acts are not of general application. They are enacted in relation to a specific area, person, family or company for example. They do however contain rights and duties which are legally binding in same way as Public General Acts. Emerging from this review, the Statute Law Revision Act 2009 was enacted repealing all Local and Personal Acts up to and including 1850 and Private Acts up to and including 1750 that were deemed spent or obsolete. In total 1,351 Acts were expressly repealed while a further 8,965 were implicitly repealed by the 2009 Act.
See here for further information on the Statute Law Revision Act 2009
Following the enactment of the Statute Law Revision Act 2009, the Statute Law Revision Project embarked on the final phase of the review of primary legislation enacted prior to independence. The proposed forthcoming Statute Law Revision Bill 2012 will repeal all spent or obsolete Local and Personal Acts enacted between 1851 and 1922, and Private Acts enacted between 1751 and 1922. As with the proceeding phases, this phase is accompanied by a consultation process with Government Departments, Local Authorities and other relevant companies, bodies and organisations. In addition, in advance of publication of the Bill, the Office of the Attorney General has made available the draft schedules to the proposed Bill which list those Acts which it is proposed to repeal and also those which have been identified as necessary for retention.
Subject to consultation and Government decision it is proposed to retain approximately 800 such Acts enacted between 1750 and 1922, to repeal approximately 2900 such Acts, and to implicitly repeal approximately 19,000 such Acts which are deemed not to apply to Ireland.
Schedule 1 contains those Acts which continue to have some relevance and are provisionally proposed for retention because they have been identified as neither wholly spent nor wholly obsolete.
Schedule 2 lists for information purposes those Acts which, when enacted or subsequently, had some relevance to Ireland but have provisionally been identified as wholly spent or wholly obsolete and therefore suitable for repeal.
Link to Schedule 1 in PDF format (263 Kb)
Link to Schedule 1 in MS Word format (1 Mb)
Link to Schedule 2 in PDF format (551 Kb)
Link to Schedule 2 in MS Word format (3.1 Mb)
Observations on this project may be submitted in any of the following ways. In order to ensure that they are received prior to Government consideration of the text of the Bill, observations should be submitted prior to 5 p.m. on 31st January 2012.