Mary Henry (Independent)

I welcome the Minister to the House and am very glad that the Labour Party has put forward this interesting suggestion, which would certainly formalise all the initiatives brought to our attention by e-mail, letter, telephone call and so forth. It would be very useful from that perspective. They will also be interested in answering all the questions put forward. There is another one, however, I should put forward as well. At the moment we are all like Sir Boyle Roche's bird, trying to be two places at the same time, serving on committees and sub-committees. This will stretch us even further. Some people believe that the Members of the Upper House are not as occupied as in fact they are. This will be another challenge, especially when I hear from Senator Bannon that the German committee got 20,000 petitions. That is an astonishing number. When one takes it on a pro rata basis for the citizens of this country, there will be thousands coming in.

When we have debates on development aid, as we did this afternoon, I always ask the governments of developing countries to encourage more involvement from civil society. It would indeed be very wrong if I did not support greater involvement of civil society in the making of legislation here. After all, initiatives are being taken by bodies in this country. Why should not the Oireachtas be another one? Dublin Bus is always seeking suggestions from passengers as to how it should move forward, what routes to examine and where there should be bus stops. There are precedents from which this type of committee might gain.

The National Forum on Europe, chaired by Senator Maurice Hayes, has been a great success. The meetings in Dublin and around the country that I have attended have always attracted a large number of people. The Third Pillar, as we describe it, is always very well represented by various representatives from civil society. It is good, too, that the involvement of young people in that forum has been so much promoted, with speaking competitions for schools and people outside schools. Senator Brady talked earlier about voting and how we are trying to encourage people to come out and vote. I am always alarmed that so many people in civil society do not realise what a privilege it is to have a vote and be able to exercise it freely.

It is very disappointing to me to see the way the new EU member states from Eastern Europe have had such a poor voter turnout in recent elections. It is astonishing when one sees how crucial democracy is for those countries and voting levels are only 50% to 60%. Then, of course, there are even lower levels of voting in America. It is very important to keep telling people that civil society should be involved in democracy in a meaningful way in our countries.

The National Forum on Europe gets questions from other countries about setting up similar forums as well. We should look more closely at the petitions committees in other countries. The Labour Party, I am sure, will answer the Minister's questions and we shall see how we go forward from there.