Paddy Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Bill. I am a former member of the commission. I do not believe the Bill goes far enough. There is an awful lot more we can do as an Oireachtas. I was on the recent trip to Australia, and was amazed at how the parliament there deals with national school and secondary school children and the educational programmes in place for them. They are brought in at Christmas time to sing in the parliament. It is unbelievable. We are not doing anything like that, and we could do an awful lot more.

I also want to mention Seanad reform. While everyone wants to be involved in extending the franchise to the public, there is no talk about real reform of this House and how it works, and the additional staffing requirements reform would entail. I ask the Minister of State to have a look at this. There is no point in changing the electoral position and how people are elected to this House. There has never been such a diverse House in the history of the Seanad. That is the type of Seanad the people want. They have it, but we are not getting what we want to go with it. The finances should be put in place to enable that. The budget for the Houses of the Oireachtas should be increased.