Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

Senator Brian Hayes, the Leader of the Opposition, praised one of the finest public servants the country has ever had, Mr. Kevin Murphy. I agree with the Senator in this regard. Mr. Murphy talked about parliamentary scrutiny and said he felt Deputies and Senators were not holding the public system sufficiently accountable because they are rushing around doing constituency business. These words were quoted in the newspaper and I can only presume he said them. I suppose he never had to run for public office. I am not being snide in saying this but I am just making a comment. One of the abiding dilemmas for public representatives concerns the division of time and labour between parliamentary duties, including business in the Houses and committees, and keeping one's seat, getting it back or getting on the ticket. These tasks all eat into one's time. I noted Mr. Murphy's remarks on public accountability. He would know about this from experience. He also had some good points to make, born of his vast experience within the parliamentary democracy system.

Senator Brian Hayes also referred to the relaxation of the Whip system in committees. This would be a feature of the ideal world, in which we could vote as we wanted rather than according to the policies of our parties. It would be heaven to be able the vote the way we wanted, rather than according to the party line. However, that is not allowable.