Michael McCarthy (Labour)

I thank the Minister of State for his reply. This amendment is in the interests of consistency. The Government had a clear policy to end the dual mandate in the context of membership of the Oireachtas and local authorities. When the legislation was introduced there were some good debates in this House and the legislation was subsequently enacted. Accordingly, the dual mandate finished. There is a small number of exceptions and Senator Bannon might be one of them but, by and large, that policy has been implemented.

We have been lectured about the dual mandate at local and national level and the dual mandate at national and European level will finish in a number of years. However, if there is something morally wrong with the dual mandate it is worse to have it at European level than at local level. The Minister is one of the few people who finished with domestic politics and took that gamble. Then he returned, which was a selfless thing to do.