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. 

IT’S 13 YEARS this week since I departed the full-time staff of this publication. Yet, I’m often approached – and often bewildered – by the seeming half-life of some of the pieces I wrote here.

Civil servants regularly admit to consulting a guide I wrote in early 2013 outlining, literally, how a Bill becomes a law. You might think civil servants are all familiar with this process, but not all of them are bureaucrats, and not all of them are intimately comfortable with the minutiae of how cerebral ideas take on the force of law. Those who are new to the field are often referred to my 2013 explainer to understand the process.

Of a similar variety is another explainer, from 2012, about how a lot of law becomes law without actually going through this process at all. This latter piece discussed the lesser-known phenomenon of ‘Statutory Instruments’ (SIs). That explainer is there if you want to delve in further, but suffice to say, SIs more technical pieces of law issued by ministers to fill in the gaps of the Acts passed by the Oireachtas.

There are a couple of crucial things to know about SIs.

Firstly, while they might be a lower class of law (they are “secondary legislation” in official parlance), they still have the power of law and are fully binding within the State.

Secondly, ministers don’t just have the power to issue SIs willy-nilly: they can only do so where the Oireachtas has already granted them this authority. Sometimes the rules of the road are amended by SI: this is only possible........

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