Cuirirm fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. There are major problems with this legislation. Much has been said already about the flaws in the drafting of the Bill. I must be honest and say it is flawed in its delivery, so to speak, or in its execution. That is rooted, I am sorry to say, partly in the fact that it is also flawed in its conception. It is in places confused, erratic and, ultimately, it would be counterproductive in terms of shaping good law for our country. It gets bogged down in definitional problems that fr…

On a point of order, I have been following the debate for some time from my office and as one of the six Senators affected by this proposal, I wish to indicate my interest in speaking.

Was the Senator far from Damascus?

Good goods come in small parcels.

The Senator cannot believe everything they say when they promise him the vote.

There is no question that if one is going to engage in the piecemeal reform that this Bill involves, that is, reform of the university franchise, then a six-seater constituency is the way to go. One anomaly that it would get rid of is those who are graduates of Trinity College and NUI have two votes in the Seanad Éireann election. It is obvious that if we are going to give a vote to graduates then every graduate should be able to take part. It would seem to me to be a completely unfeasible and a very costly electio…

I welcome the Minister of State. Election counts are to the fore of most of our minds at the moment as we watch the continuing drama in the United States, and we hope this will resolve itself sooner rather than later. There are many countries, however, in the Third World and the former Soviet bloc where, sadly, we can never be certain the democratic process will be carried out freely and fairly. Ireland plays its part in helping to ensure that elections are conducted properly by taking part in election monitoring c…

The Minister of State has not addressed the contradiction between what has been said in the Dáil already about OSCE member states not sending volunteers and the fact that I have demonstrated that they have been sending volunteers. They are also facing the challenges of the pandemic. It is to disrespect the important work of election monitoring to suggest that the pandemic would be a reason for putting a stop to Irish people going abroad on this important work. It amounts to colluding in a situation where, because m…

I want to clarify one point. I have no wish to say something is rotten but I did mean to say something may be rotten. I am concerned because, as I said, other countries are doing it and they are facing the pandemic. There is something unexplained that needs to be dealt with.

One of the older members around here is going into storage today. I want to compliment the people from the Office of Public Works, the Natural History Museum and the National Museum of Ireland who are removing the skeleton of an ancient walrus. I just saw this going on outside. In fact, they had to open up and expand the window space to remove this walrus by way of a window because of its size. It struck me that at least one former Taoiseach would approve because he was reputed to have invited a member of his party…

He is known for that.

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. I support this Bill. It is technical legislation that transposes a directive and replaces a range of existing EU directives and regulations. The directive and this Bill are aimed at stamping out crimes against the EU budget and specifically mentions fraud that affects the financial interests of the European Union. To be clear, we are talking not just about, for example, the misappropriation of funds that might be obtained under the EU budget but also fraud or wrongdoing concerning…

I had not indicated at this point.

I will move an amendment later.

In that case, I would like to contribute now.

Yes.

I need the Cathaoirleach's assistance on this matter. My amendment is No. 9. I do not have much to say on it but I do not want to-----

Senator Ward should issue a press release about it and allow us to get on with dealing with the amendments.

On a point of order-----

I welcome the amendment because the extension of time to delay the dissolution of the commission, if not the report, flows directly from the Minister's effective acceptance of the amendment proposed by Senators McDowell and Boyhan in respect of the issue of redaction. Having listened to the Minister, I know he has a very challenging task in his Department. These are very challenging issues and I wish him well in addressing them. When he was describing his Ministry, it occurred to me, in light of some of the challen…