Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

I am making my point; the Senator will have plenty of time to make his. There are some councillors who do not want to take decisions on matters that will affect their electoral prospects. They like to have somebody they can put in the stocks and at whom they can throw rotten turnips. In this case, it is the county manager.

The Minister of State, Deputy Noel Ahern, is welcome to the debate. I understand that he was wondering last week how the Seanad was being run. It is being run excellently. We have good debates here, which I will tell the Minister about at another time. He had wondered why there were no speakers present for an Adjournment debate. During Adjournment debates in the Dáil there are two speakers present, the Minister and the Member who seeks the Adjournment debate.