How to change the law?

loremolis

How does one go about requesting an amendment to an existing statute?
Is there a process?
Write to the relevant Minister?

Grolschevik

loremolis wrote: »

How does one go about requesting an amendment to an existing statute?
Is there a process?
Write to the relevant Minister?

Writing to the minister is highly unlikely to work, though I suppose if you were drawing attention to something of utmost importance that had been completely overlooked and needed immediate attention, there's always the possibility...

More realistically, lobby (in a group of like-minded citizens) your local representatives/TDs/senators and hope that you can persuade them to raise it in the Oireachtas. Even then, simply getting a politician to mention it or to adsk a question about it is highly unlikely to have an effect.

What you'd need is for a TD or senator to care about your issue so much that they draft a private members' bill on the issue.

If the statute you're concerned about is already in force, then it may need to be repealed rather than just amended as it passes through the Houses of the Oireachtas.

Realistically, there's very little you can do.

hullaballoo

Slightly OT, but there had been provision under the 1922 Constitution for an "initiative" process whereby ordinary citizens could suggest legislation. A petition of 50,000 registered voters was sufficient to force the Oireachtas to draft legislation around it and put it before the houses. If the Oireachtas rejected it at this point, a binding referendum was triggered.

However, see below from the Wikipedia page:

Wikipedia wrote:

The Oireachtas did not adopt legislation providing for the initiative within the two years stipulated by the constitution and, eventually, a petition of 96,000 signature was gathered by the opposition in order to trigger a referendum forcing the Oireachtas to introduce an initiative process. The Oireachtas responded by removing all provisions for direct democracy from the constitution, save for the requirement that, once the eight year transitional period had passed, it would be necessary to hold referendums on all constitutional amendments. Then in 1929 the Oireachtas extended this period to sixteen years. This meant that, by the time the constitution was replaced in 1937, the provisions for the constitutional referendum had still not come into force.

In other words, direct democracy has never been established in Ireland and latterly, that's probably a good thing. However, as Grolschevik points out, a significant lobby may have an impact. Although, if you look at the proposals for the "liberalisation of abortion" laws, you can take from it what you will.

coylemj

OP, your best bet would be to lobby a T.D. or member of the Seanad who is not a member of the Govt. parties. Realistically that means getting a Fianna Fail T.D. or senator interested in your case and maybe they would introduce a private member's bill to give effect to the change you're interested in.

If the issue is the responsibility of a specific Govt. department, the relevant minister will usually direct the whips in the Dail or Seanad to kill the bill (Govt. TDs or Senators will vote to not give it time for debate) on the basis that 'similar' legislation is already under consideration by the relevant department in the context of a major review of blah blah blah.....

It's pretty well unknown for a Govt. member of the Oireachtas to introduce a private member's bill for the simple reason that Govt. backbenchers get no time in debates. Parliamentary time allocated to the Govt. is 100% taken up by ministers so the backbenchers basically sit there and keep their mouths shut, hence they are useless for your purpose.

As advised by an earlier poster, writing to the minister is probably a waste of time. Your letter will be read by a civil servant and it will go nowhere as it will fall victim to the dreaded NIH ('not invented here') syndrome i.e. if we didn't think of it first, it can't be worth pursuing.