Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

I accept that Senator McDowell has always spoken honestly and to a degree for himself rather than for the Labour Party. Nonetheless, I compliment him on coming to a progressive position on this issue. Nowadays older women are going back into the workforce. In Government Buildings I once had a secretary who had been forced to leave the Civil Service on the marriage bar and returned under a special scheme organised by the Department of Finance and public service in her late 50s. I can accept, without any difficulty, the fact that the Minister had other very good priorities.