However, de Valera was later advised by the Attorney-General and senior advisors that the amendment was not sufficient to abolish the office entirely, which still continued by virtue of Letters Patent, Orders in Council, and statute law. Though officially insisting that the office had been abolished (de Valera instructed Ua Buachalla to act as though he had left office and to leave his official residence), de Valera introduced a second law, the Executive Powers (Consequential Provisions) Act 1937, to retrospectively eliminate the post from Irish law. Under its own terms, the act applied retroactively, so that the office would be deemed to have been fully abolished on 11 December 1936.