Dr. Maurice Manning:

On my own behalf and that of Mr. O'Toole, I thank the Cathaoirleach for the invitation. I also thank the Leader of the House, Senator Maurice Cummins, for facilitating this event. It is always an honour to be invited to speak to a House of the Oireachtas.

I would like to say a word about the working group I chaired. Most of its members are known to Senators, having served in this House for many years and held positions of responsibility during that time. They include Ms Mary O'Rourke, Mr. Joe O'Toole, Dr. Maurice Hayes and Mr. Pat Magner. The other members, Mr. Tom Arnold, Ms Mary C. Murphy and Ms Elaine Byrne, brought with them experience of academic life and civic society. It was a good group which took its work seriously. All of its members shared an unshakeable commitment to the value of a strong and relevant Seanad.That was our only objective. I want to thank the members for an extraordinary amount of hard work and dedication during this period. We did not set out to reinvent the wheel. We were aware, and made full use, of the great amount of previous work and papers on this subject. We asked for, and we got, 69 submissions, all of which are now available on the website. We examined earlier submissions and the debate around the recent referendum. We were influenced by two earlier major reports, that of Jim O'Keeffe in 1995 and Mary O'Rouke in 2004. I can say to Senators Quinn, Zappone and Crown that their draft Bills had a significant influence on our deliberations. I want to thank, in particular, Michael McDowell, SC, former Attorney General and Minister, whose legal and constitutional guidance was invaluable and all given on a pro bonobasis as was that of Mr. Brian Hunt, BL, who so expertly drafted the draft Bill which we present today.

We were aware that over recent years, Seanad Éireann has been seeking to make its own practices and procedures more relevant to the needs of a changing society and the needs of a modern parliament. I know this because some of our members were an important part of this process and the current Leader of the House, Senator Maurice Cummins, has been doing this in a very real way.