Paul Bradford (Fine Gael)

I welcome the debate on this substantial legislation, although the Minister might feel he has heard it all before. A political lesson from this discussion for us in the Seanad is that we might be better to revert to the former way of doing business whereby speakers had as much time as they wished on Second Stage rather than the new restrictions of five or ten minutes or whatever. If we could revert to the old days where people had 20 or 30 minutes to contribute, it might avoid some of the interventions we have seen on Committee Stage.

The amendments we are discussing are interesting. I am sure the Minister recognises that all comments made here are made with good intent. Senator Bacik made an interesting observation in response to a question as to why this rule will apply to political parties. She said the parties function both as gate ways and as road blocks to women's participation in politics.