I was a Member of the Dáil for 13 years before I was elected to the Seanad and can compare my experience in both Houses. I was in a position to assess debates in the House when I was in the Dáil and there was a great deal of spontaneity involved. There were many good contributions. That happened because there was an absence of scripts. When I was in the Dáil, many speakers made contributions using prepared scripts lasting 20 minutes which they had not written. I regularly expected a Member to finish his or her contribution by saying "ENDS". All that mattered was the quantity, not the quality of the speech. Analysis of Dáil contributions is carried out by a Sunday newspaper every Christmas and if one was in the top ten in terms of words uttered, it looked good, but the quality of the contributions was not reflected. I agree with Deputy Deasy's comments on this issue.