The language used in legal documents and parliamentary Acts should be simplified and modernised, Dan Neville (FG, Limerick West) said.
"After years of reading Acts as legislators, we often must read a section some four times before getting the full implications of what it means. Some countries have modernised legal language," he added.
"While it would be a marathon effort with the legal profession to undertake such an exercise, it would be a very valuable one in ensuring citizens, affected by all laws, understand them."
Mr Neville was speaking during a debate on the Statute Law Provision (pre-1922) Bill which, Chief Whip Tom Kitt said, would repeal 219 Acts predating the foundation of the State.
"These are statutes that were enacted before December 6th, 1922, that are no longer in force, and are considered to be spent, obsolete, or no longer to be of practical utility," he added.
"It is the result of detailed research on the part of the Office of the Attorney General and extensive public consultation."
Mr Kitt said that the Taoiseach had laid out an ambitious plan to remove from the statute book the remnants of legislation pre-dating independence and, where necessary, to replace it with legislation more suited to a modern, democratic state.
The plan, he added, was one part of the Government's wider commitment to better regulation and regulatory reform, a commitment laid out most clearly in a White Paper published in January 2004.
Mr Kitt said that as legislators, they had a tendency to add laws to the statute book, but rarely to take any away.
"Statute law revision Bills, such as this one, help to redress this imbalance by lightening the load of regulation on our society," he added.
