That verdict on lawmaking is attributed to various politicians but was invoked as the current Planning and Development bill was going through the Oireachtas. Sinn Féin’s Eoin Ó Broin brought it up during committee stage in the springtime. While we the public might be better off not seeing laws being made, it is vital that there is scrutiny of new legislation. Whatever is not scrutinised properly in the Oireachtas will subsequently lead to all sorts of problems, including drawn-out and expensive sojourns in the courts.

Before the current Oireachtas term ended two bills were rushed through without being exposed to full scrutiny. That of itself, at term’s end, is not unusual and has been the subject of criticism from a European watchdog. What was concerning is the suspicion that in both instances the rushed-through legislation was informed by a political imperative by the government to have exhibits to present at the next election rather than enact laws that are thoroughly proofed.

The first of these was a law to allow the state revoke citizenship from a person who is guilty of a severe transgression. The law required updating since 2021 when the Supreme Court threw out the existing provision on the basis that it was contrary to natural justice. But instead of introducing a new bill, the Minister for Justice Helen McEntee tacked on an amendment to a courts bill going through the Oireachtas. As a result this new provision, required to ensure that justice prevails for all, was sped through the process in just eight days before the end of term.

As   Majo Rivas wrote  in the Irish Examiner last Wednesday, this route of law-making meant “that there was no pre-legislative scrutiny, no second stage debate, and members of the Dáil were not able to bring forward amendments on the substantive issues raised in the original 1956 legislation".

The revocation of citizenship has only occurred eight times since the original law 68 years ago. So what was the mad rush through the Oireachtas in a matter of days three years after the Supreme Court ruling? It may well have something to do with the current atmosphere pertaining to immigration, or more specifically, asylum seekers.

At the Fianna Fail Ard Fheis last April senator Lisa Chambers stated that asylum seekers who were granted residency in this country should be sent home if they were found to have committed a serious crime. There is no evidence of any such crime but the toxic atmosphere prompted politicians to turn up the rhetoric and show that they were going to be “firm”.

Now the government has an exhibit to hold up in this respect. When international protection becomes an issue at the next election Government figures will no doubt invoke the passage of this law as another contribution to their “firm” approach to the issue of immigration and crime. It is just a dog whistle but one that comes with a cost of a failure to properly scrutinise law. If form is anything to go by this law will end up in the courts at some future point and lead to further cost and delay.

Rushed job

The other rushed job was the Planning and Development bill 2023. This is a huge piece of law, the first of its kind in nearly 25 years, and likely to have a major say in planning over the next 25. It is 750 pages long and has attracted over 1,100 amendments. The bill is also controversial, having been the subject of criticism from a number of bodies, including the Irish Planning Institute. Questions have been raised over whether it complies with the EU’s Auhaus convention, which makes allowance for objections under environmental law.

Despite that the bill has gone through the Oireachtas so far in record time. Last month it was guillotined in the Dáil and last week in the Senate. When a bill is guillotined a time limit is put on the debate. This results in some elements of a piece of legislation going unchecked because there is not enough time to get around to it.

Imagine you are buying a house or involved in some major transaction and it is your solicitor’s job to examine the full contract. Imagine her getting so far and telling you that that’s it, she can’t look at it anymore you’ll just have to go ahead with the deal and hope that nothing unexamined pops up at a later stage. So it goes with guillotining a bill in the manner that was done here.

The minister for housing Darragh O’Brien denies that the bill has been rushed. Speaking during the Seanad debate last week he said that the first thing people think of when planning is mentioned is “delays”. This legislation, he told senators, aims to reduce delays including through the courts.

Yet some in the planning and legal businesses are saying that the rushed nature of this lawmaking will almost definitely ensure that elements will be teased out in the courts over the longer term.

Why the rush? An election is coming and housing is inevitably going to be the number one issue. The government needs some wins in this area and one they will pin to election literature is enactment of a new planning bill that they will claim can transform how we are able to build homes. In the context of campaigning, it will certainly look the business. But the lack of scrutiny in a piece of law so vast and complex is likely to present hostages to fortune which will get an expensive airing in various courts down the line.

Proper scrutiny

Rushing the above bills before the summer recess is not a new practice. Two years ago an EU report criticised the manner in which “discussions on new bills tend to be concentrated during short periods of time (in particular, during the two weeks before recesses), with negative consequences for proper parliamentary scrutiny”.

Around the same time 23 civic and social bodies issued an open letter to the government and opposition leaders expressing dissatisfaction at the “practice whereby complex and extensive last-minute amendments have been added by government ministers and no time is afforded to the opposition to examine or discuss…This has meant that large sections of legislation are waved through with no scrutiny.”

Nothing has changed in the interim, except perhaps this year the rushed law-making is overtly political ahead of the expected election in the autumn.