Terry Leyden (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Finneran, my constituency colleague. I commend him on the excellent speech he made which outlined the situation on reform of the Seanad. It has been an interesting debate and Senator O'Toole argued that local councillors should not have a franchise to give us a mandate. The 1,000 councillors in Ireland are elected by more than 2 million people who went to the polls most recently in June 2009. They have a right and responsibility and we have a mandate from them to be here equal to any representative from the universities or those nominated by the Taoiseach. I recommend to Senator O'Toole that he advocate the institutes of technology be given the right to vote. This would be a very positive move. A constitutional amendment accepted by the people has not been implemented. Will the Minister of State implement this prior to the next Seanad? It will require legislation.

I commend Senator Maurice Cummins on proposing the Seanad Electoral (Panel Members) (Amendment) Bill 2008. It is quite interesting that the party bringing forward the Bill is the very party that wants to abolish the Seanad. This side of the House, which is in favour of retaining the Seanad, outlined through the Minister of State exactly what the future holds for the Seanad.