Terry Leyden (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

A little bit of flattery is nice, is it not?

The 1947 Act altered the nomination process for candidates and extended the electorate to include all city and council members, of which there are approximately 1,000 now.

I will now talk about my own experience, which is quite interesting. I served as Minister of State at the Department of Transport and Minister of State at the Department of Posts and Telegraphs from 23 March 1982 until 14 December 1982. I also served as Minister of State at the Department of Health from 12 March 1987 until 12 July 1989. I will talk about the main legislation I steered through the Seanad while serving as Minister of State to show the benefit of this House. This is the point I made here. I am the longest serving Member of the Oireachtas in this House and the only former Minister in this House. How and why did I respect this House? I can prove my respect for this House. I respect the Minister of State coming here as he has always treated this House with enormous respect and given it an enormous amount of time. I brought in the Adoption Act 1998. The primary purpose of this Act was to enable the adoption of certain categories of children, mainly legitimate children with a parent or parents alive, who were not eligible for adoption under the law as it existed.

During the Seanad Committee Stage I, as the then Minister of State, accepted an amendment proposed by the late Senator Nuala Fennell, Fine Gael, and supported by Mary Robinson, Independent, to delete the word "illegitimate" from the Bill. That amendment was not proposed when the Bill was brought through the Dáil. That is another example of a very important issue. The word "illegitimate" hurt many people and was banned in that Bill.

The Health (Amendment) Act 1987 provided for the imposition of charges in respect of outpatient services. It sounds familiar. I did not like bringing in that Bill but I had to. In introducing the Bill, as the then Minister of State I said I was pleased to have an opportunity for the second time that day to come before the Upper House. I had not previously been a Senator. The Criminal Justice (Forensic Evidence) Act 1990 was initiated in the Seanad. The purpose of the Act was to provide the Garda Síochána with powers to take bodily samples such as blood, urine or saliva from a person suspected of serious criminal offences for forensic testing. The main purpose of the Trade and Marketing Promotion Act 1991 was to merge Córas Tráchtála and the Irish Goods Council. The Liability for Defective Products Act 1991 gave effect, in Irish law, to European Community directive 85/374/EEC on liability for defective products which was adopted on 25 July 1985. The directive was described by me as the then Minister of State as, "without question, the most significant measure to emerge so far in the Community in the areas of consumer protection" and that, as a result of the Bill being passed the "Irish consumers will be advanced in a very significant way by providing additional legal redress." One of the contributors was a former Senator Pat Kennedy, who was an expert in that particular field. I listened to him. We debated the Bill for days and he made a great contribution.

There was also the Patents Act 1992. I was then Minister of State with responsibility for trade. The main purpose of that Act which replaced the Patents Act 1964 was to establish examination procedures for patent applications which were less officially time-consuming. The Act also enabled the State to ratify the European Patent Convention and the Patent Co-operation Treaty. I got great support from the Elan Corporation which happened to be located in my constituency. It was more than helpful and I took much advice from Don Payne who was then managing director who created about 500 jobs in that area.