Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

Senator Quinn said how difficult it is for employers to get information on an employee and we heard about the sad case he mentioned. The Senator thought the Garda should use technology to get the facts on a particular person. He also said that the nuclear waste from Sellafield is being buried in 500 sites and is familiar with Dr. Ed Walsh's report, which I too saw.

I said yesterday that there is an orchestrated attempt to make nuclear energy nice and present it in a favourable light. This will come into a debate but on behalf of the Government I can say we do not intend to promote nuclear energy as a policy. I am not rebuking the Senator. He is right to say we should discuss it but we do not intend to make it a policy.

Senator Leyden is worried about the prisoners in Roscommon getting their votes, which is correct, as that is now the law. He spoke about the census collectors. There is some legal difficulty on that point. It is correct that everybody should be enumerated wherever they should be, which is useful.

Senator Coghlan also mentioned the franking of the ballot papers. He and Senator O'Toole are very involved in the Official Languages Act and the translation of all the documents into Irish which are then dumped.

The Senator asked me about Bills. I do not have the precise information other than to say that 147 Bills have been published since the Government came to office almost four years ago, and 58 of those were Seanad Bills. I realise that is not the information the Senator requested but I will endeavour to get the required information. I did not have time to do so this morning.

Senator Scanlon supported Senator O'Toole's point about the over-regulation of small butchers. We can always rely on the Senator's voice to be the voice of sanity for small businesses in rural Ireland.

On the matter raised by Senator Tuffy, the Senator's colleague raised the matter of James Connolly yesterday and the Labour Party being the oldest party in Ireland, which it is, but his gripe was that the Taoiseach's website did not mention James Connolly.