It is welcome that on Bloomsday we celebrates a great writer. James Joyce's imagination and creativity caused him to be an exile in that he chose to live outside the country. His departure was a great loss to it, although he remembered Dublin. Interestingly, it has been said that if Dublin was laid to waste, Ulysses could be used in reconstructing the city because it is so topographically and geographically correct. I ask that we remember this great writer today.

I would never presume anything about the background of Senators because I have a great belief that when they join this Chamber, they come with a wealth of knowledge and expertise. I know that Senator Aodhán Ó Ríordáin is not present, but I wish to point out that I come with a wealth of experience in the arts.

I was reared and have worked in them. There are young children in the Visitors Gallery who are very welcome. I know that singing, dancing, drama, the visual arts and sport mean a great deal to them. Many of them might go on to have a career in these areas. I worked in the arts from when I was a child, right up to being involved in Dublin City University, the Larkin concert series, the artists in residence arts in education programmes, and know what the arts mean to culture and creativity and how they have a language above and beyond politics. In Palestine where there was terrible trauma and terror, I saw how the arts had superseded them. I point out to Senator Aodhán Ó Ríordáin that the Taoiseach has a spokesperson on the arts in the Seanad, one who is very vocal, perhaps verbose and very dramatic, although it is great to be a visual aid for one's subject. I hope to continue to do this and argue as a spokesperson on the arts with all parties in the House in the future. We should never presume about the expertise of whoever is sitting in front of or behind us or about what he or she brings to the House, as one can see with the new brilliance in backgrounds which the 42 new voices and faces have brought with them.

It is obvious that the Senator's long association with and involvement in the arts stand her in good stead in the House.