Mary Henry (Independent)

I, too, want to pay tribute to Mr. Fitzgibbon who has been such a help to me since I came into this House. I agree with Senator Brian Hayes and the Leader. I do not know how the reporters and the editors manage to make sense of what we say here. What is even worse is when they ring up to inquire about the proper spelling of a particular word, and we are not sure ourselves. Like the Leader, I have never sought to make a change to any of my contributions and it would be a great pity if that were to happen.

Reading the old Seanad debates one can see that Members were much more fiery then than we are now. I would not like to think that we had toned down our contributions in any way or made libellous statements about anyone. We know that all is well when such an important record as the Official Report of the Seanad is in the hands of people like Mr. Fitzgibbon.

The Leader thanked all of us for being so co-operative but it would be difficult not to be co-operative with her because she has put a great deal of work into the running of the House over the past year, on which I congratulate her. I thank all the staff for their help. I am sure when the Clerk and the Assistant Clerk see me coming into their office with a sheaf of amendments they think that by now I should be able to write them correctly. Sadly, that is not always the case. I thank the Captain of the Guard and the ushers also for all their help during the year.