Paul Bradford (Fine Gael)

I support Senators Norris and Leyden who asked for a debate on Iraq and on the situation in the Middle East and Israel. Those are reasonable requests and the House should respond with urgency. Another international situation exists where the scale of killing, death, destruction and slaughter is even greater and sadly does not seem to be the subject of major public outcry or numerous letters to The Irish Times, namely, the situation in the Darfur region of Sudan. It would be important to have a full debate on this issue so that a House of the Oireachtas and the country could condemn the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent people in that province.

The House debated Seanad reform last week at the same time as the new Cabinet was being put in place. I ask the Leader to invite to the House in the next few weeks each of the new Cabinet Ministers to outline their policy proposals for the next 12 or 18 months. We could have the same type of discussion we had with the MEPs. Members of this House are spokespersons in various fields. It would be an opportunity for the House to hear what the Ministers are planning and for the political parties to respond in debate with them.