Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I also support Senator Leyden's comments. It is unacceptable that this Chamber, which is for the primary use of passing legislation and debate, should be handed over to a House committee, important as its work may be. There are other avenues that can be explored in this House and there is a question mark over the Committee on Procedure and Privileges because it seems this matter was discussed in lodge and a decision was taken without any reference to the remaining Members of this House. I am seriously concerned about the way the House is being downgraded. There is now a growing trend in the media to highlight legislation in the other House months after it has been passed and debated in this House. There have been two examples in the past few weeks, first, the Bill on the Irish citizens who fought for the Allied cause in the Second World War. Not only was this a Seanad Bill but it was extensively debated in this House on all sides. The Minister for Justice, Equality and Defence was present and made his comments but there was very little coverage of this in the media. When it went into the Dáil, the Minister recycled everything that he had said in this House and it received extraordinary coverage, in the print and electronic media. The second example occurred in the past few days and the Leader quite correctly corrected me yesterday although as soon as I sat down I realised that I had made a mistake about the debate on the report of the then Oireachtas Joint Committee on Communications, Natural Resources and Agriculture on offshore oil and gas. It had slipped my memory in the immediate reaction that the debate had taken place here. Once again, the media focused on the debate in the Dáil where the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources recycled everything that he had said in this House. There was an extensive debate on that report in this House a year ago and it was not covered. This is a matter of great concern.

I challenge the media to do its job more effectively, to do a little bit more research and to be more aware of what goes on in this House instead of making itself look stupid because that is what it is. To most Senators the media looks foolish when it starts recycling stories that appeared months ago or that started in this House. I wish the media would cop itself on and do its job a bit more efficiently. That is what it is supposed to do instead of picking up stupid old stories coming out of this House to denigrate it.