The Clerk of the Seanad is a member of many other bodies, including the Public Offices Commission. Why did we not hand over membership of the Public Offices Commission and so many other bodies to the Clerk of the Dáil? It was because we recognised, until now, the autonomy of the two Houses of the Oireachtas. This is the first time somebody has attempted to merge them together for reasons of either administrative convenience or, as I suspect, a slightly indifferent unawareness of the way the two Houses operate. It is unworthy of the Minister to produce what I would regard as a particularly paper-thin defence.