Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It makes all graduates equal, a badly needed development. It is a significant reform in the right direction which we should be embracing. We should offer to facilitate the legislation in this House. If we need to sit extra days in the run-up to Christmas to facilitate getting this legislation through, then we should. It would be a good day for the Seanad. I admire the Government for listening to the people and moving forward positively following the result of the Seanad referendum. It is a major and significant step in the right direction for the fundamental reform of this House.

It is also a great day in that we welcome the fact that the unemployment rate has gone below 13%, to 12.8%.

That is significant. We in this House played a role as the result of an initiative by Senator Mullins, who had debates here on job creation in which citizens of this country came in and outlined their views and ideas on how we could create jobs. This informed the Department and Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. The process has worked well and we should consider continuing it in the new year. The one way to create an equal-opportunity society is to give people work and allow people to gain access to it. We have made significant progress in this. We all have our part to play and I look forward to more people getting jobs.