Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The situation regarding the NGOs addressing Members of the House is a serious one and it should be addressed. To whatever extent this House can influence the Committee on Procedure and Privileges of the other House, that needs to be done. One wonders, with the abolition of the Seanad on Friday what is next - the abolition of protests on Kildare Street? I agree with Senator Hayden that despite the best efforts of the Leader of the House - who as I have said many times previously, is the best Leader we have had in the 11 years I have been a Member of this House - the Government has manipulated a scenario to guarantee the abolition of the Seanad by starving it of business and by allowing Ministers to write reckless articles in the newspapers, such as the one written by the Minister of State, Deputy Cannon. No doubt, to write that article he did not have to sit in the office of The Connacht Tribune and, regardless of where he is in the world, presumably he has access to a phone in Istanbul or wherever he is. He should comment on this because that article is nothing short of reckless.

As one of the only two members of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission in this House, I have not said this previously but it needs to be put on the record, and I sure Senator Whelan would agree with me. As somebody who presides over the costs of the Oireachtas and is on the finance committee of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission, I wanted to put on the record that the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission at no time said that the cost of running the Seanad was €20 million or anywhere near it. Anybody who stands over that figure and persists in stating it as a fact is telling lies. That is the plain truth of the matter, and I say that as a member of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission.

I ask the Leader if a Minister might be available to discuss the issue of social partnership. We are seeing the beginnings of serious unrest with the teachers' strike that has begun and a junior doctors' strike due to be held next week. Social partnership was a champion with which Governments were allowed to lead Ireland to recovery in the 1980s and at other times in our history. It is required now by whatever Government is in place. I ask that Ministers at these late stages would try to get people to sit around the table and try to find some middle ground because that would be in all our interests.