Jimmy Harte (Labour) | Oireachtas source

For once, we are all in agreement in this Chamber. Senator Crown pointed out the 1979 referendum which gave graduates from other third level institutions the vote in Seanad university elections. When I asked the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, as to why this referendum was never enacted, he could not answer. He did not bother coming back to me on it either.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, “I have come to bury the Seanad, not to praise it”. That is what Ministers and Deputies did. It is time they came back and said, “We have come to praise the Seanad, not to bury it.”