Fiona O'Malley (Independent)

I remind Senator Bacik of the one cohort of people she forget to compliment when she was talking about the success of the dublinbikes scheme. The good people of Dublin have made the scheme a success and also visitors such as Senator Ned O'Sullivan who have become members of the scheme and without this support the scheme would not be the success it is.

I wish to echo what Senator Bacik said about Mr. Sutherland's comments on third level funding. The House should use the opportunity to have a good, rigorous and honest debate about university funding. I pay tribute also to her party colleague, Deputy Ruairí Quinn, who has a very interesting article in one of today's papers about the future of the Catholic Church in Irish schools. This is another debate we should have. I would welcome the Minister for Education and Science but I would prefer if he were to come to the House under these separate headings because they all deserve particular attention rather than the Minister coming for one audience with the Seanad.

I do not wish to strike a discordant note on the question of what is happening in the North but we need to think about what is happening up there. Every time there is a crisis, the British and Irish Governments and the Taoiseach and Prime Minister go there to try and sort it out. How are people ever going to face up to their own responsibilities as elected representatives if this continues to happen? It exposes the inherent problems in the system of governance in the North of Ireland, the D'Hondt system, in that it rewards people from the extremes and does not reward people who bring together communities and serve all of the people within their communities. While we continue to prop up a dysfunctional system, frankly it will never work and there will be crisis after crisis because everyone knows the upcoming Westminster elections are foremost in the minds of politicians in that area. In one sense it is a matter for themselves, but frankly the dual and triple mandates show how the North of Ireland is over-governed. It is an opportunity for both Governments to consider how we need to build in a system of governance with a true Opposition because until we do, we will never have independent and successful governance in the North of Ireland.