Darragh O'Brien (Fianna Fail)

Senator Coghlan has decided to take the Taoiseacha's soup and jump to the Fine Gael Party grouping. I am sure the Leader and the Chief Whip had nothing to do with the further diminution of democracy in this Chamber following on from this. Can the Leader confirm that no transfer fee was involved and will the leader's allowance be returned to the State? We wish Senator Eamonn Coghlan well in his position of defending the indefensible with this new Government.

I want to move on to something that is of greater importance. I thank the Leader that the Minister of State responsible for European Affairs, Deputy Lucinda Creighton, will be in attendance. I draw the attention of all colleagues to a report entitled Ministers' Attendance in Brussels, completed by the University of Gothenburg in March 2011 on the attendance by Ministers at meetings of the European Union. Time after time I have listened to Ministers and Members opposite complain how the Government is working hard to repair alleged reputational damage to the State because Ministers in the last Government did not engage with or attend meetings. These are erroneous and spurious comments.