Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I pay tribute to those Senators who are retiring. None of us has any guarantee that we will return, but I thank those who will definitely not be back for their contribution over the past five years or even longer, in particular Jim Walsh and Feargal Quinn. The latter is self-employed and has his own business. There is a lack of people from the business community in the Oireachtas. When the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party had 99 members, I worked out that 20 were teachers and only six of us had practised law. We need a balance and must involve self-employed people in the Oireachtas and in determining how to develop and grow the economy.People from the private sector have a contribution to make and Senator Quinn has certainly proved that in the 23 years he has been here. I wish him well in his retirement.

The areas of health and housing are the two major challenges we face in the next five years. As a country, we have the second highest spend on health care in the whole EU, yet we have quite an inefficient service. We face major challenges in this area, which the next Government and Oireachtas will have to face up to. We have a huge change in demographics over the next 15 to 20 years and we need to start planning for that. I do not think we are focused on it, but if we do not focus on it, we will have major difficulties in five, ten and 15 years time. Those are two issues that we need to focus on over the next five years.

I come back to something Senator Mullins raised regarding democracy. I worked on the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the European Parliament and Subcommittee on Human Rights and travelled to a number of different countries where democracy does not exist. I travelled to one country where up to 10,000 young people carry machine guns, where every place one went on the street, every second person had a gun. At least in this country we have a democracy, which has been very good. We may not always agree with the Government and the Opposition, but at least we have a democratic system that gives the choice to people, who elect the Government of the day. That is something we should never forget. We have been so good in managing our affairs over the last 90 or 100 years and long may it continue. Now that we are coming to the anniversary of the 1916 Rising, there will be another 100 years where democracy thrives and the people have the right to change the law and to change the Government and not be dictated to by the people who carry guns and ammunition.