Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is easy to be critical. As politicians, we must always be critical of ourselves and must want to do better, strive to do better and make institutions better. Many more improvements can be made without reform.

In 2014, the people voted to retain the Seanad.Many eminent people got involved in that campaign and pointed out what could and should be done and the people said they wanted a second Chamber. They wanted the Seanad to continue because there were people like Sean Barrett who put forward hundreds of amendments in the last Seanad. Many of them were accepted by Ministers. The then Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Donohoe, accepted one after another because Sean Barrett was recognised as being probably one of Europe’s greatest transport economists and knew what he was talking about. The Minister had the good grace to realise that his legislation would be vastly improved by accepting the amendments from people like Sean Barrett.