Ivana Bacik (Independent)

As Deputy Leader, I am deeply honoured to be asked to make some brief concluding comments and thank Dr. Robinson on behalf of the Leader of the House, Senator Cummins, and all our colleagues. We are so grateful to Dr. Robinson for accepting Senator Cummins's invitation to come before the Seanad to address us. We all thank her very much for her powerful advocacy over many years in promoting and advancing human rights and equality. She has made such an immense contribution and, as others have said, she has been an inspiration and an iconic figure to many across the world.

I thank Dr. Robinson also for her very full, considered, gracious and warm response to the wide range of questions and comments that colleagues have put to her today. We very much appreciate her responding so fully and for coming close to the wire, as she said, on a number of occasions. We all find her words very moving, particularly when she referred again to her visit to the Horn of Africa and to the impact she saw there of climate change, war and poverty on so many children in particular. We will all take inspiration from what she has said.

Just as Dr. Robinson was a transformative President and her work continues to transform the human rights landscape internationally, so too, I hope, we can be a transformative Seanad in this 24th Seanad. Her words have certainly given us all an inspiration and an example. Her contribution today has been greatly encouraging to all of us in trying to make the 24th Seanad a more accountable, democratic and effective body in future. I very much hope we will welcome her back to a truly reformed and transformed 25th Seanad at some point in the future. I wish Dr. Robinson the best of luck and thank her.