of Parliament.

The agreement came as Government Senate Leader the Hon. Sen. Michael Winfield presented the 1993 Computerisation and Revision of Laws Amendment Act to the Upper House.

Sen. Winfield explained that the Act merely tidied up provisions in the 1989 Act and simplified the process of updating laws and making them available to those who needed quick access to them, such as lawyers.

As a result of that Act, he added, Bermuda laws were available in hard-back volumes and on computer disks.

But Opposition Senate Leader Sen. Alex Scott said Parliamentarians still had to leaf through volumes of laws without an index.

"I think we have a classic case of the shoemaker's children going without shoes,'' he said.

"At present we (Parliamentarians) labour with a system that is in transition,'' he said, adding that it was difficult to "talk intelligently about amendments without the main legislation before us''.

"If such information is on disk, I'm hopeful that the hardware is not far behind, at least for us here in Parliament,'' he added.

Sen. Scott also asked Sen. Winfield to verify if the computerisation process was done by the Attorney General's chambers or contracted out.

He noted that whoever did it did not deem the production of an index to be part of his or her terms of reference.

And he asked that one be produced as soon as possible.

Sen. Winfield said Sen. Scott was right about the need for an index to the laws and the need for Parliamentarians to have access to the laws via computers.

"If all of us had access,'' he said, "we could call up legislation without going through all the paper work.'' Sen. Winfield said this would also reduce the need for paper.

"I think that the vision that Sen. Scott talks about is not far off,'' he added. More Senate news on Page 6.