The Final 25

Whether they make it or not, this is what the government say will come before the Dail before the end of Term. 25 bills covering some huge and some not so huge areas of legislative importance.

The big question is with FF sitting pretty in the polls, will Bertie feel that maybe waiting around much longer isn't in his interests. He's always said Summer and he has gone full term each time, but if he got another bounce from the Peace Process and in the face of a possible Tribunal appearance who would blame him for an early jump.

Anyhoo heres the list.


Arts Sport and Tourism
1
Sports Council (Amendment) Bill
To provide the granting of powers to the Irish Sports Council to establish subsidiary companies. This power is required to give effect to decisions by the Government to establish an Institute of Sport, and to restructure the National Coaching and Training Centre as Coaching Ireland
Communications Marine and Natural Resources

2
Communications Regulation (Amendment) Bill
To provide for the creation of indictable offences for breaches of enforcement measures imposed by the Commission for Communications Regulation, to strengthen ComReg's powers of enforcement and investigation, to provide for regulation of the IEDR and to provide for the establishment of an emergency call answering service
Community Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs

3
Charities Bill
To regulate charities, so as to ensure accountability and to protect against abuse of charitable status and fraud
Defence

4
Curragh of Kildare Bill
To provide for the establishment of a statutory body to manage the Curragh, with the exception of the military establishment at the Defence Forces Training Centre, and to update the existing Curragh of Kildare Acts
Education and Science

5
Student Support Bill
To place all student support schemes on a statutory footing, to designate VECs as awarding authorities, to provide for a system of appeals and penalties for fraudulent applications for grants and to repeal the Local Authorities (Higher Education Grants) Acts 1968 to 1992
Enterprise Trade and Employment

6
Consumer Protection Bill
To establish the new National Consumer Agency, to transpose the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and to update and modernise the current framework of consumer law

7
Control of Exports Bill
To update Ireland's export control legislation in the area of strategic export controls in line with recommendations of the 2004 Forfás review of Ireland's export controls system

8
Protection of Employment (Exceptional Collective Redundancies) Bill
To address cases of collective redundancies where specific situations apply requiring the establishment of a new body, the Redundancy Panel
Environment Heritage and Local Government

9
Electoral Bill
To address the issues arising from the recent Supreme Court judgement concerning assenting to the nomination of non-party candidates at Dáil elections
Finance

10
Asset Covered Securities (Amendment) Bill
To amend the statutory framework for Ireland's covered bonds regime, as established by the Assets Covered Securities Act 2001, so as to ensure Ireland's competitiveness in the wake of recent international and EU developments in the covered bonds market

11
Ethics Bill
To amend current ethics legislation to require office holders and Oireachtas members to seek the opinion of the Standards in Public Office Commission before accepting a significant gift or loan from a friend, and to abide by that decision

12
Finance Bill
To give statutory effect to Budget Day decisions and to make other changes to tax law

13
Markets in Financial Instruments Bill
To transpose certain provisions of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive which require primary legislation and to make necessary technical amendments to various Acts
Foreign Affairs

14
Passports Bill
To regulate the issuance of passports, to assist in the introduction of biometric Irish passports and to address the need to introduce a series of new offences relating to the fraudulent use of passports
Health and Children

15
Adoption (Hague Convention, Adoption Authority) Bill
To ratify the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children, to provide for the creation of the Adoption Authority as the Central Authority required under the terms of the Convention to oversee the implementation in effecting intercountry adoptions and to deal with miscellaneous issues regarding domestic adoption

16
Pharmacy (No. 1) Bill
To provide for fitness to practice regulations for pharmacists and the removal of the restriction on pharmacists educated in other EU and EEA countries from managing or supervising a pharmacy in Ireland that is less than 3 years old and to deal with a number of issues raised by the Pharmacy Review Group

17
Voluntary Health Insurance Board (Amendment) Bill
To address VHI's corporate status and related matters
Justice Equality and Law Reform

18
Coroners Bill
To provide for reform of the Coroners Service and to replace the Coroners Act of 1962

19
Courts and Court Officers (Amendment) Bill
To provide for an increase in the number of judges of the High Court, Circuit Court and District Court

20
Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill
To provide for miscellaneous changes to the criminal law and to give effect to a number of international instruments

21
Immigration and Residence Bill
To update the law on immigration, residence and other matters relating to non-nationals
Social and Family Affairs

22
Social Welfare Law Reform and Pensions Bill
To provide for certain outstanding Budget measures scheduled to take effect during 2007
Taoiseach

23
Statute Law Revision Bill
To remove 3,000 obsolete and redundant primary Acts that predate the foundation of the State from the Irish Statute Book
Transport

24
Dublin Transport Authority Bill
To provide for the establishment of a transport authority to oversee the implementation of Transport 21 in the Greater Dublin Area

25
Roads (Amendment) Bill
To amend legislation relating to roads and the National Roads Authority

A Leak Less Orde In Awry

The PSNI Chief Constable, Hugh Orde, in a leaked memo to senior staff has apparently criticised SF and the SDLP for their attacks on RUC members for covering up loyalist killers. Now leaving aside the fact that 'leaked' is normally a euphamism for 'press release', someone needs to grab Hugh and say NO NO NO.

You can't spin this one as being Sinn Feins fault. You cant accuse nationalists in the SDLP of making up these reports and over reacting. This isn't unfortunate or unlucky in the Malcolm McArthur sense, this is collusion, this is perversion of justice. Blaming those who criticise you is missing the wood for the splinter on the edge of the twig, on the branch on the tree in the bog down in the valley - oh.

Not Enough Pencils M'Lud

Not satisfied with making a balls of e voting and the electoral register update, the Department of Environment has now realised that we dont have enough polling booths for the forthcoming elections!?

The decision has been made therefore to remove the franchise from those over 85 and residents of Leitrim.

SBP Poll

More doom and gloom for Inda in this Sundays poll.

FF 42 UP 3
FG 21 DOWN 2
LAB 12 NO CHANGE
SF 7 DOWN 1
GREEN 7 NO CHANGE
PDS 3 DOWN 1
INDS 8 UP 1

FF are now within a few per cent of majority territory, 45% might be enough to secure such a feat, considering they got a 7%+ seat bonus at the last general election.

I'm still finding it hard to believe that something won't come up between now and polling day, but time is rapidly running out. Unless the tribunals land a direct hit on the Teflon one, it looks certain that FF will be back.

The PDs are impossible to guage, they are effectively a collection of independents, so you can never bank on them one way or another. I'm still thinking wipe out and lucky to hold onto three seats.

Labour aren't doing much in the polls, but one way or another if the PDs die on their ass the red (ish) army will be in a position to do business with FF. Thats if FF need a partner of any size.

SF are on 7 and that number will rise. Not only will they get a bump from the recent decision on policing, they are also set to get two months of publicity with the assembly elections in NI.

Greens hold steady and should pick up a few seats here and thar. But if FF keep gaining then it really wont be an issue.

Independents, we'll see what the issues are closer to the day. Not likely to do as well as last time, no matter what the figures say.

Sulky Trevor Needs to Wise Up

I have a slight liking of the Greens. You have to like them a bit, even if you're not mad on their policies. I mean they were formed by a load of hippy types, who disavowed politics such as we know it, they're pretty ramshackle in their organisation and yet they keep going. And in fairness they have managed to shift the agenda, somewhat to the left in many areas. They have even developed a little bit of organisational and political nous.

The country seems ready to have a Green Party in Coalition. We were ready to give them the necessary votes and transfers to make them king makers and then Trevor opens his gob. Young Trevor has given out about not being allowed on the shows like the Late Late and Tubridy Tonight prior to the election. Now this kind of huff has worked in the past with Podge and Rodge, but it's all getting a bit whiny now. Instead of sounding like a leader, he is merely drawing attention to the fact that the National Broadcaster (such as it is) do not take his party seriously.

Surely someone else could have made these comments if they had to be made. Try to leave the leader with just a smidgeon of dignity.

Unionists Accuse SF / SDLP of Grandstanding Tactics - No Debate on Collusion

The two main unionist parties in Norn Iron have ruled out any attempts to debate RUC collusion in the murder of Catholics on the grounds that it would lead to Grandstanding by Nationalist parties.

This is of course a similar tactic to that used by Stalin in an attempt to remove critics of the fourth five year plan, (the one that was big into tractors and betamax video machines) by ruling out all debate and ruling in pogroms.

To compound their sins on this one, the DUP are defending the rights of police officers to obstruct the investigation into this matter.

The DUP's Ian Paisley Jnr claims they were within their rights to withhold co-operation because Ms O'Loan was engaged in a "fishing exercise" without any hard evidence of collusion.He has also rejected suggestions that they had moral obligation to co-operate, saying: "At the end of the day, it boils down to what is your legal right."

This is of course akin to saying a murderer being questioned by police has a legal right not to assist the policeman with his investigations, because a. the cop is only fishing for information without the evidence to prove it and b. he is acting within his legal rights.

As stupid positions go, this one really takes the biscuit.

You Are Now Entering Free Londonderry

Derry City Council have failed in their bid to change the city to Derry (dropping the London bit). In a decision which is certain to piss nationalists off from a height, Mr Justice Weatherup ruled that just because the council had changed its title to Derry, this did not mean the name specified back in the 17th century was changed. The council had wanted the government to accept its view that the name of the city is Derry rather than Londonderry.

Londonderry was established in a Royal Charter granted by King James I in 1613. The name has naturally been a source of contention. Such contention is understandable considering that London is internationally recognised as a deeply troubled area, largely populated by 'chavs' (an English variety of the common or garden spide).

Unionists can now shelve plans for they're 'I Cant believe it's not Londonderry' Ad campaign. Derry's County Board are to meet tomorrow night to determine whether the County will use the name on Jerseys in next summers Championship.