Paul Bradford (Fine Gael)

At the risk of becoming repetitive, I concur with Senator Ellis. I appreciate that the Minister had little discretion because there is a tradition that constituency commission reports are always accepted in their entirety. This poses the question as to why the input of politicians might be regarded as improper, unwise or even illegal. We have reached a stage where we have farmed out responsibility for almost every difficult decision to outside agencies and consultants. That may have been appropriate in the late 1970s. It was in 1977 or 1978 that the idea of an independent commission was introduced. It may have been appropriate then because a number of Governments had basically attempted, generally to their own disadvantage——