Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent)

Let me say then that there is absolutely nothing provisional about me. Let me assure everyone that I have the girth of great permanency.

I support the motion tabled by my fellow Senators, Senators Zappone and Mac Conghail. Politicians are always asking themselves questions such as how we can do things differently and how things can be different. My question is very simple but, in essence, it is the same as that posed by my colleagues: how can we transform the House to be more qualitative and more real in its effect for the people who pay our wages? Those same people do not know what goes on in here. Having worked 33 years in Irish education, I did not know what went on in here. I am not blaming those people for that. I just wonder why that is the case.

There are two things we need to think about: the form and function of the Seanad, and these must be understood by the public. The form and the function of the Seanad must be connected to the public. It could begin, as my colleagues suggest, by engaging the public in the first of the many ways we have outlined in our amendment. We can talk about transparency and a participative democracy, but these are only aspirations, beliefs and values. What we really need is action. The power of the action lies with us, as the Leader has said, and it is only with us.

To use an analogy that might be better understood by Senator Mac Conghail, I do not want to be in scene 4, act 4, on my way off the stage pursued by a bear, as happened in The Winter's Tale. We certainly do not want the Seanad to be the winter's tale. If this is an epilogue, then it is our fault because we will not do anything. We will have no one to blame but ourselves if we do not do anything. However, I suggest it could be a prologue in form and in function.

I know from being privileged enough to be around Senator McAleese that democracy and dialogue never hurt anyone, and democracy and dialogue cannot be casualties of the recession, no matter how difficult things become. It is my opinion, as I know from his work over the past 14 years, that democracy and dialogue are the only way up, the only way through a recession and the only way for a surviving Seanad.