Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will set up the implementation group in the next few weeks. It does need a chairperson who would have broad respect and be broadly accepted across the Oireachtas. I have not yet had an opportunity to approach anyone but I intend to do so once I get a moment if I can to do something that is not already top of the agenda in the next couple of days or in the next week or two.

The programme for Government commits to reforming the Seanad in line with the Manning report and I will honour that commitment. I am bound by the programme for Government, just as all my Ministers are and everyone who is on the Fine Gael and Independent Alliance benches and some Independents as well. That is why it is included in the strategy statement.

I will not lie to the Deputy. I will not lie to anyone in this House. Frankly, I do have reservations about the Manning report. The Manning report proposes that there would not be a referendum on the Seanad and that it would be reformed within the confines of the existing constitutional provisions. That requires retaining the panels, which date back to the 1930s, and which to me are archaic. I cannot remember all of them but they cover administrative, industrial and commercial areas.

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