Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

An enormous amount of work has gone into this legislation. I, too, commend those Senators in the Seanad, my colleague, Senator Mark Wall, in particular and the other Senators mentioned, for a very concerted effort to get this done. Senator Wall made it clear to me today that he wanted this enacted before this Dáil ended. I also commend the Minister of State and his officials on dealing with a very complicated issue. As I said in the beginning, this is a far from perfect Bill but it is a very good framework that will significantly impact on a tremendously important social issue.

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