I am speaking from the basis of an enthusiasm for something of which I had been unaware and which I did not fully understand before 1997. With all that due consideration, I would say today is one of the saddest days of my experience as a Senator. Colleagues will know me as a perennial optimist. Over the past ten years, I have generally found it possible to welcome most of the Bills which have come before us for scrutiny. I was able to do so because, for the most part, those Bills represented a step forward – a step which was sometimes hesitant but, nonetheless, a step into a new Ireland and a changing world.