SEANAD:SEANAD LEADER Maurice Cummins (FG) said he would promote the introduction of a petitions committee to enable the Seanad to engage in dialogue with the public.

He complimented Independents Martin McAleese and Marie Louise O’Donnell for encouraging such a step.

In his first address to the House, Dr McAleese suggested the Seanad was a ready-made platform for public discourse, with authoritative people invited in from all walks of life, “whose experiences places them well to help us frame seminal formative and pioneering debates”.

He was sure that nobody would wish the Seanad to endlessly debate its own future. “It would be wiser, would it not, to let the people debate the future of the Seanad and let the Seanad debate the future of the people, the future of the country?

“For as long as this Seanad endures, it has the potential to be much more than an enclosed space where Senators talk to each other, but rather an open space where we draw into official public discourse those who in these times of trial are sustaining family and community life, progressing our civic society, generating business and commerce, evolving our intellectual and cultural life and instituting the fresh thinking which can help us solve our many problems and evolve models of best practice.”

Nowhere was the transformative power of dialogue and ideas more evident than in the peace process, Dr McAleese added.

A motion, tabled at the instigation of John Crown (Ind) and adopted with the support of all sides, condemned the actions of the Bahraini state in prosecuting doctors, nurses and paramedics for fulfilling their duty to patients in their care and noted with horror reports that these personnel had been tortured in detention.

In her maiden speech, Marie Louise O’Donnell (Ind) said she hoped to bring to the House qualities that were good enough for Einstein – imagination and energy – to demonstrate change was possible if the requisite effort was made to bring it about.