Eamonn Coghlan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is welcome back to the House. This is more like my old life as a runner. When I ran the Penn relays I was always the anchor man on the team and that is how it was last week, I was the anchor man but today I am the lead-off man.

It is a great honour for me and my family that I was nominated by the Taoiseach to the Seanad and I referred to the fact that most of the people I met in my new role in the Seanad over the past two years or so did not know how many Senators there are, how the Members of the Seanad were elected or the real function of the Seanad. Now they are being asked literally at the stroke of a pen to vote either "Yes", to retain the Seanad or "No", to abolish it or vice versa, whatever way it will be put, and I think that is a bit unfair. I did, however, allude to the fact that I support this Bill and I support the fact that the Government wants to deliver the biggest reform in politics and public service in the history of the State but I am not sure that abolishing the Seanad is the way to go to reduce the number of politicians in government.

If the people do decide to keep the Seanad, does the Government have a plan B in place to reform either the Seanad or the Dáil?