Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte arís roimh an Aire Stáit. I also welcome to the Gallery Mary and Sarah Halford, who are neighbours of mine from home. They are here for the next Bill, but I am delighted to see them. I support the next Bill and hope that it does not have as long a passage as the reforms in the Bill before us. The latter Bill goes back, as colleagues have said, to the seventh amendment to the Constitution, which was passed by referendum by the people in July 1979. I noticed that a number of taoisigh were mentioned during the discussion. In 1979 Jack Lynch was Taoiseach and Margaret Thatcher had just become Prime Minister. We are going to see another Prime Minister across the water in the UK by the time this legislation will be enacted.

I get the Minister of State's points, but we had this debate in this House two years ago. At the time his colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, for whom I have great respect, came in and outlined some of the challenges and stated that the Government's priority was the electoral reform legislation, which we all supported, and having the electoral commission and all the necessary support measures put in place. I pay tribute to the Department and the staff for being able to do that.On that front, we can say "mission accomplished". Now that the Government has done all that the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, committed to two years ago when he asked for a year so that the Department could consider it, the Minister of State should have come back today with the answers to the questions we raised at that time.

This legislation is quite simple. It aims to establish a single, six-seat constituency for university Senators. There were proposals for an opt-in provision, as Senator O'Loughlin mentioned, which would avoid the sending out of lots of postal votes unnecessarily. People would have had to register to vote. What I am disappointed about is the fact that the Department has not done a lot of thinking-----