Dr. Gavin Barrett:

Absolutely. We have choices to make in that regard. We cannot expect to have a system that functions as well as the system in these countries if we are not prepared to pay for it. We cannot do democracy on the cheap. We have to foot the bill for it.

I apologise to Deputy Byrne about the length of the report. It is meant to be dipped into and not used as bedtime reading. I do not share his view of the Seanad being undemocratic, but we had better not go into that because we all have different views on it. He raised the issue of the difficulty of scrutiny in a parliamentary system in which we have the single transferable vote.

I agree with the Deputy's point of view and in chapter six I make more or less the same point in that regard. Some people are of the view that the current voting system is a good one while others disagree. In my view it exacerbates the tendency towards excessive localism in Irish politics. If it is not possible to get Members of the Dáil to participate to the same extent as Senators in scrutiny because of the greater pressures on them it might be a way we could use the Seanad. The people have decided to keep the Seanad so maybe we should use it if necessary as a means of compensating for the excessive localism that PR by single transferable vote imposes on all Deputies. It is not their fault.