Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On Senator Bacik's point, the Minister for Education and Skills has been in the House to debate the separation of church and State in education but I will ask him to come back to the House.

Senator Byrne raised the issue of patients on trolleys in Limerick University Hospital. The number is too high and the Government is committed to tackling the waiting lists and it has committed to opening additional beds in Limerick.

I join Senator McDowell in calling for a review of the situation where a citizen can appeal a referendum result. That is outdated, outmoded and has served its time. I say that in the context of many referenda that we have had, whether on children, marriage equality or the eighth amendment. I will explain why I agree with Senator McDowell. We had pre-legislative scrutiny, the Citizens' Assembly and the Constitutional Convention. These provided for all the issues in the relevant referendum to be debated but, in some cases, one person put in serial objections. That is wrong. We should not have a situation where the will of the people is delayed for 90 days or more. I agree fully with Senator McDowell and I will be happy to have a debate on the process where a referendum petition can be put before the courts. I do not oppose people challenging a result but there must be a way or, as Senator McDowell put it, a threshold that must be overcome. I endorse his remarks on that.

I am sorry but Senator Feighan also made the point I referred to earlier, not Senator Coghlan. With the indulgence of the Chair, I commend Senator Feighan. During the summer he sent all of us a letter with a shamrock poppy to commemorate the sacrifices of Irishmen and Irishwomen who fought and died in the First World War. The Senator has been a champion of marking the significant centenary that is Remembrance Sunday and I thank him for his letter and his shamrock poppy. It is particularly important as the centenary is this year on 11 November. It is one we as Members of the Oireachtas could support him on and I thank him again. Senator Warfield raised the issue of the housing crisis of which the Government is very cognisant. I am very conscious that we have a lot of work to do, notwithstanding that we have work done and undertaken. The Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government has been in the House on numerous occasions. I am happy to have him come back to the House again. We need political parties to make a strategic decision and not table motions of confidence or no confidence in the Minister because, as the leader of Fianna Fáil has said, the latter will not build a single house. We need to adopt a joint approach to tackling housing, which is what happened at the beginning of the Oireachtas term. It beggars belief that members of political parties on councils have opposed and blocked housing developments at a time when we need them.