I move:
That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to make further provision in relation to the office of the Attorney General.
The Ministers and Secretaries (Attorney General) Bill 2023 is a Bill we prepared some months ago following the highlighting of the practice of illegal charging for older people in nursing home care and the removal of disability allowance payments from vulnerable persons in institutional care. At the time, we in the Labour Party called for a change in the law to ensure that the State's litigation strategy must have regard to the public interest. We called for a change in particular to be made to the Office of the Attorney General. This is the Bill we prepared in order to reform the Office of the Attorney General. It seeks to ensure that any legal advice provided to Government would have due regard to the vindication of people's rights and to the common good. It recognises that the Attorney General is not in the same position as a commercial law firm, and provides that defence strategies for litigation against the State have to be prepared with a proper consideration of the public interest.
The explanatory memorandum to the Bill makes clear that this is permitted to be done under the Constitution. Article 30 of the Constitution establishes the Office of the Attorney General and provides that the Attorney General "shall exercise and perform all such powers, functions and duties as are conferred or imposed on him by this Constitution or by law." Clearly it is therefore a matter for the Oireachtas to legislate as to the role of the Attorney General, which is what we have sought to do here. In particular, section 3 of the Bill provides that the Attorney General has responsibility for ensuring that his or her functions in connection with the conduct of claims in litigation are performed in the public interest. We provide a definition of that and say that the Attorney General must have regard to this as well as to the interests of the person or body receiving the legal services. We are appealing for cross-party support for this important Bill.