Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Government will not run an information campaign. Clearly, we need to abide by the Supreme Court rulings in respect of a previous referendum and the Government will comply with that fully and completely. However, the parties of Government will run a campaign in respect of information for the public about the abolition of the Seanad. The referendum commission is now working on the basis of the provision of information about the Seanad and about the issues relating to its abolition or to its not being abolished. It will be properly resourced and in that sense it will do its work completely independently of Government.

The question of Dáil reform is a matter for Government and for the Oireachtas. I have been doing some work on a number of issues in regard to Dáil reform and I would like to talk to the party leaders and their Whips about that. It is in everybody's interest that we make decisions about a more effective running of this House to use the time more effectively to provide opportunities for people to get involved in legislation in a way that has started with the Friday sittings and the production of Private Members' Bills and so on. On an average week of 24 hours' legislative work here, approximately 11 hours goes to the detail of legislation. We have to make arrangements for people who want to raise priority issues, Topical Issues, Priority Questions and Leaders' Questions. We need to take a serious look at how we focus on the operation of the House here to make it more effective and more energetic. I know the Ceann Comhairle has had a number of ideas over many years. I am certainly not one to say that we should not change the way that we run the business of the House. Over the course of this month I hope to have the opportunity to sit down with other leaders and present our own set of proposals that might make the running of the place more effective.

As Deputy Broughan knows, having been a Deputy for a long time, we have had many proposals over the past two and a half decades, some of which worked well for a short while and some of which did not. It is very hard to put in place processes that allow for new Dáileanna and new representatives when they are elected. However, I hope we can improve somewhat on where we are now.

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