Mr. Art O'Leary:

It sounds to me as if they are reasonable. The Minister wrote to us during the summer to say he would like us to have a look at the issues the Senator mentioned. This is why they are in the draft programme. The commission will make a decision on this in the context of other, wider priorities and additional priorities as well. As I said, our ambition could be quite broad. We can start a number of research projects and each of them will finish in due course, but we will send the research programme to this committee as soon as it has been decided, some time after the February date.

On Seanad oversight, we have responsibility for the post-electoral reviews of Seanad Éireann elections. In the recent Heneghan case, we all got to see much more about how Seanad elections are conducted than perhaps can be good for anybody, but it is a role we will take seriously. As the Senator said, Seanad elections are unusual. They is not typical, so it requires a particular approach to be able to have a look at them as well. They are very much on our radar some time in the next year and a half before we have a Seanad election.