Terry Leyden (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Dr. Maurice Manning, Chancellor of the National University of Ireland, and former Senators Joe O'Toole and Pat Magner. I was delighted that the National University of Ireland was not abolished as was proposed at one stage. I thought that was a ridiculous proposal because the National University of Ireland serves a very good purpose and has proved to be very successful. Dr. Maurice Manning is the Chancellor and is very welcome on that basis.

I was nominated by the Irish Conference of Professional and Service Associations to this House to contest the election together with the Leader of the House, Senator Maurice Cummins, and Senator Ned O'Sullivan. We as three of the 43 Senators elected who are nominated by groups take our responsibility to the nominating bodies very seriously, as do the other Senators elected who were nominated to the different panels. Senators work to represent the views of the nominating bodies, which reflects the views of thousands of people. The Irish Conference of Professional and Service Associations comprises delegates from PDFORA, RACO, the Irish Bank Officials Association, Garda superintendents, the AGSI and others. The nominating bodies have a voice in this Parliament, which represents thousands of people, Army, Garda, bank officials. To say that Senators are not representative of the people is not fair and is quite unjust. The report completed by Mrs. Mary O'Rourke was excellent and took submissions from the public. However I know the organisation I represent here would at that time have objected strongly to the proposed reforms in that report.

I sought a copy of the current report of the Working Group on Seanad Reform last week, but it was not delivered to us before today. Generally documents are sent out well in advance of the debate. I sought a copy of the report from the Oireachtas Library last Thursday.