Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Will the Leader indicate when the Government will bring about the reform of the Seanad? When will that happen? Where is it in the pipeline? It is extremely pertinent and urgent. The Seanad might be in a new building but we are following the Dáil badly. We are not being brave. We are not advising and we are not leading in any standard of thought process. I wonder where our energy, vitality and valour are. We were promised this and it is extremely important. As a Taoiseach's nominee, I do not come with a pathology of territory, which I hear and see in here every day. We are dissipated, pulling from each other and not working together, which we should be, especially in the area of Brexit, homelessness and the state of our system. We are not listening to each other and the public are not listening to us. I have not met anybody in here whose heart was not in the right place or who was not excellent at the work they were doing. Individually we may be doing work but we are not doing so as a Seanad. We are not doing it as a thinking House, a legislative House, and we need to realign ourselves to what we are supposed to be doing in here. We are not even following the Dáil. We are hanging around at the door of the Dáil.We are not leading or being brave. We genuinely need to look at how we are going to reform what we do in this House. How one gets in here is another day's work. Senator McDowell is right on this and he has mentioned it a thousand times here. We need to look at reform, regardless of what the reform is. We need to reform how the Seanad does its business. At the moment, we are outside the door of the Dáil looking in and making no impact.