The Cathaoirleach will appreciate that this is a very important amendment that deals with city and county councils.

Senator Higgins was allowed in a second time.

Senator Higgins was allowed to speak a second time.

I proposed this one.

I did. If you look at it you will see that No. 70 is proposed by me.

You are telling me that the Member who proposes the first amendment in this group can speak a second time, but not others. This is the problem with grouping. It makes a situation where you have ruled us out from making our point.

So when I spoke the last time I was supposed to deal with amendments Nos. 51, 70 and so forth.

Come on, for God's sake.

I can deal with the Cathaoirleach giving me direction here. The rest of the Members should be quiet, if they do not mind.

By the way, this particular amendment impacts all of us in the Chamber except the Minister, unless there is a change of Government and he finds himself back here with us.

Perhaps the Minister will address that issue for me as a token of good faith.

Hear, hear.

I think Senator McDowell's amendment has already been seconded. I propose a third amendment, that No. 4 be amended by the deletion of the second paragraph and the substitution of the following: "to be taken at the conclusion of No. 3 or at 7.15 p.m., whichever shall be the later, and the proceedings thereon shall, if not previously concluded, be adjourned at 8.45 p.m.". First, there is much talk about RTÉ LW, the long-wave channel, 252 again. I wonder if we forget those Irishmen and Irishwomen who travelled, partic…

Yes.

I, too, support Senator Norris in this. With the appointments in this Bill generally there is an exclusion first and foremost of members of local authorities. When I look at this particular section I wonder how the Irish Federation of University Teachers, IFUT, and the Teachers Union of Ireland, TUI, which are the two trade unions representing third level staff, feel about students being given a priority here and trade unions being ignored in this section, from what I can see. Maybe I am wrong and have misread it b…

The Minister is dead right as anybody who was appointed to a board in this country is subject to scrutiny from either within this House, the Lower House or anywhere else one may wish to mention in society in general. I wish to put on the record, however, that chairpersons of boards are frequently brought in before Oireachtas committees and we have absolutely no say in whether their appointment is sanctioned or not. It is purely an "Hello, nice to meet you" meeting. I have stated at committees on a number of occasio…

The university is not here to defend itself.

My colleague, Senator Malcolm Byrne, made reference to how many inputs I made to pre-legislative scrutiny. I sit on two extremely busy committees, the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence and the Joint Committee on Transport and Communications. I was also sitting on the Joint Committee on Public Petitions at the time, as well as conducting normal day-to-day business. I did not have any input in pre-legislative scrutiny in this area, as I am sure Senator Byrne does not have an input in foreign affairs, tra…

We could call the Leader into the Chamber.

The Senator is right. We could call in the Leader.