Dr. Maurice Manning:

Mr. O'Toole was seated there, where Senator Crown is sitting now. One can have a Government that does not have a majority because it means the Government has to listen to what the Seanad is saying and the Government has to argue its case. As Senator Craughwell said, if it has to bring legislation back, the sky will not fall in. It is a different sort of politics. It will give the House a sense of mattering and of being independent. The House, in turn, must be reasonable. The House cannot set itself up as a roadblock to the work of the majority in the Dáil. The House cannot do so because if it does, it will lose credibility. It has to be reasonable and credible. It also has a position and is in a position to ensure it matters. In addition, it has some of the relevance that Senator Crown spoke about. It is important to make that point about political parties and Whips.

All the main points have been covered and, again, I thank everybody. The word "vocational" was used. I want to stress something which Mr. O'Toole did not mention. The Constitution describes the Seanad as a vocational House. We worked within the confines of the Constitution and I think it enriched our work rather than impose restrictions. I meant to say that political parties will elect the majority of those indirectly elected. Political parties are in a better position than anyone else to register voters online. Political parties have nationwide organisations. They can register their people better than anyone else so there will be a presence of political parties in a reformed House. I wanted to stress that point and hope I did not stress it too much. I hope the work of reform continues. What we have produced is not the last word. As Mr. O'Toole said, the last word will be with the Houses of the Oireachtas. The fine-tuning or maybe the substantive change to anything we have proposed will be the work of the two Houses of the Oireachtas and not of a committee. It will be the work of Parliament. I would like to say thanks again for the very good contributions made today. I hope this will be the beginning of what will be the biggest reform since the 1937 Constitution. If this reform goes through, it will be one of the biggest political reforms and I do not know why the Government does not grab it and run with it.