Seán Kyne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

How would they agree on anything? How would they agree a budget or legislation? Nothing would be done. It would be chaos. She talked of a litany of faults in this country. Ireland is a great country with a bright future ahead of it, and an even brighter future if this Government is re-elected over the coming weeks.

Senator Higgins spoke about Western Sahara. I know she has been a strong advocate on these matters and on those parts of the world which are truly impoverished and in conflict, together with mentioning a number of other issues. I am sure she would like for this House to continue to advocate for those peoples.

Finally, Senator Boyhan has, out of courtesy, told us that he will be raising a number of issues in amendments on forthcoming legislation and we will hear Ministers' responses on those. He also communicated some interesting facts on spoiled ballots. We do not know why those ballots were spoiled but perhaps some new councillors, when voting for the first time in a Seanad election, filled out the forms and sent them off without realising they had to go and sit before the county secretary, or whatever. I know that there have been some cases of that in the past. Perhaps some of the councillors spoiled them for their own reasons and did so on purpose.