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

-----going from 50% to 80% is not bad progress and is much more progress than is being made with Seanad reform, draining the Shannon and those other matters.

As Deputy McDonald pointed out, the Seanad can be used to allow those of us in the Oireachtas to hear more diverse voices, including those of the diaspora, and I am delighted that my forebear appointed Senator Lawless to represent the diaspora, and also more voices from Northern Ireland. The Free State Senate reserved seats, at least in its first term, for people from a southern unionist background like W.B. Yeats. I believe it would enhance the Oireachtas and the Seanad if we had more people from North of the Border in the Seanad. It would be important also that they would be from both communities.

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