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\n Gavan Reilly<\/p>\n
Politics by Numbers is a new series for The Journal where broadcaster, author and spreadsheet stan Gavan Reilly takes a data deep dive into a political point of the week.<\/p>\n
LET\u2019S START WITH the upside. By the time this column is published, barring any unexpected drama, 36 bills<\/a> will have been signed into law so far in 2026.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a sign of a government finding its groove. Last year only 21 Bills completed their journey through the Houses of the Oireachtas, which is the lowest number for a full year in the history of the State. Only in 1922 were fewer bills passed, but the State only existed for three weeks before Christmas of that year.<\/p>\n There were some mitigating circumstances to this: the never-ending dispute over the allocation of D\u00e1il speaking time meant a delay in forming \u2018technical groups\u2019, which in turn meant a delay in forming Oireachtas committees, which had a knock-on consequence on how prospective new laws can be scrutinised.<\/p>\n On the other hand, while the government was only formed in January, the excuse of needing to find its feet wears a little thin: though almost every minister had a new portfolio, the government appointed in January 2025 was effectively re-elected to continue the work of the previous one.<\/p>\n In any event, the pipeline is beginning to get busier now. 2026 compares favourably with the second years of previous administrations: in 2021 the comparable number was 32, back in the era of the D\u00e1il sitting at the Convention Centre; in 2017, in the first springtime of confidence and supply, the number was 26.<\/p>\n The D\u00e1il\u2019s summer recess inevitably coincides with an urgent push to clear the decks. Among the Bills finishing their passage this month were \u2018Jennie\u2019s Law<\/a>\u2019, to create a public register of domestic violence offenders; \u2018Valerie\u2019s Law\u2019 which strips parents of guardianship rights for a child if they are found to have killed the other parent; the controversial rewrite of the Occupied Territories Bill; the \u2018right to be forgotten\u2019 for cancer survivors seeking insurance products; and the official dissolution of NAMA.<\/p>\n Any undergrad student (and any current affairs columnist) will testify: nothing focuses the mind like a deadline. But this end-of-term legislative frenzy isn\u2019t entirely positive: rather, it\u2019s a relapse into a bad habit of old.<\/p>\n Rushing the homework<\/p>\n Five years ago, Michael D. Higgins made an unusual and striking intervention into the lawmaking process. While convention is that the President does not comment or meddle in the debates around prospective laws, Higgins offered a meaningful critique of how legislation was being presented to them.<\/p>\n Alamy Stock Photo\n<\/p>\n If the President\u2019s main job is to be some sort of constitutional guardian \u2013 a fact we were all reminded of last autumn as we elected a new one \u2013 then the way business is done in Leinster House puts the first citizen on the back foot. Higgins\u2019 critique was that little or no legislation was being put on the \u00c1ras desk in the first six months, before a figurative mountain of paperwork would show up in just a few days. It was either a feast or a famine.<\/p>\n This is not just a cosmetic argument. The Constitution gives the President a binding time limit to do their job: as soon as a bill arrives in the \u00c1ras, the president has between five and seven days either to sign it into law, or to convene the Council of State and discuss whether it\u2019s in keeping with the Constitution itself.<\/p>\n Higgins\u2019 critique \u2013 which only came after he\u2019d seen the same splurt of legislation every summer, and every Christmas, for a decade \u2013 was that giving each Bill the appropriate scrutiny was much harder if multiple large drafts were being sent at the same time. His concerns came to a head when, in July 2021, he received nine individual Bills for consideration on the same day.<\/p>\n![\"president-michael-d-higgins-opening-the-national-plaoghing-championship-2024-credit-karlis-dzjamko\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784849236_508_.jpeg\")
\n Former president Michael D. Higgins was critical of the Alamy Stock Photo<\/p>\n