Paul Bradford (Fine Gael)

I concur with the case made so sensitively by Senator Mary White. Her presentation to us proves the importance of liaising with all such groups that contact us, although we cannot always attend the presentations. I hope her suggestion will be taken on board.

I agree with the comments about social partnership and the need for dialogue. We have often debated the matter in the House previously. Everyone must work together to turn around the economic state of the country. The difficulty with the previous model of social partnership was that a very small number of people, excluding most elected politicians, negotiated the country's economic policy behind closed doors. It would be a positive first step, both from the perspective of social partnership but more importantly from the perspective of the perception of this House, if the Leader were to organise hearings in this House, as I have requested previously and which we could do with an appropriate amendment to Standing Orders, whereby we would listen to and debate with union leaders, employers, farmers and those representing the other pillars of social partnership. We need to listen to those people but they also need to listen to us-----