Labhrás Ó Murchú (Fianna Fail)

I will come to that in a moment – this has come from Committee on Procedure and Privileges. Most importantly, it has been brought forward for early discussion. It puts down a marker for all of us to avail of the opportunity not to engage in point scoring or waste time justifying our own existence. We know there is a gap between perception and reality and we can deal with that in a positive manner. There has been an element of that in today's animated discussion but the Official Report will show that most of the time was spent on the method of election. That is important, but the question of reform is more fundamental. As far as the public is concerned, the justification for our existence is whether we have looked at the bigger picture and put the Seanad in a contemporary context rather than that of when it was first established.